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Latest comment: 3 years ago by Uakari in topic Historic counties
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Historic counties

Latest comment: 3 years ago210 comments29 people in discussion

The historic counties are one of the most disputed areas of British geography on Wikipedia, and the need for better guidance has been highlighted by the discussion on Template talk:Infobox UK place. To attempt to start this process, I have tried to neutrally present some background, before giving my own views on a way to start moving forward. I have notified the Infobox's talk page, please can others notify projects and individual editors that may be interested in this discussion.--217.32.153.153 (talk) 17:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Background

There have been numerous discussions about historic counties over the years, leading to several conflicts and edit wars between multiple users. The core of the dispute is the status of the historic counties of England, Scotland and Wales as present-day units. As WP's longstanding position is to place low emphasis on historic counties and treat them as defunct. The individual flash points are therefore triggered by people wanting to add them. One way the issue comes up is when a new editor adds information they see is missing from the article, when they are not aware of WP practice. This is then often reverted by an experienced user, who is aware. If this triggers a discussion, there is a tendency to say this is a closed matter, referencing the pages of past discussion (an understandable result of fatigue from going over the same ground repeatedly). That can lead to a more heated dispute, dragging in other users and other pages. Some of those discussions can get very involved, such as the recent discussion on the infobox. Some disputes veer towards being lame, like hitting the 3RR limit over the tense of a sentence.

The fact the same discussion happens over and over shows that the current guidance is poor. It would be beneficial to all to have guidance that spells things out in greater detail. That will promote greater consistency between articles, reduce conflicts, and help new editors with learning how to deal with the complexities. Should individual editors continue to cause disruption, it is easier to show they are acting outside WP norms and action should be taken to stop the disruption.

As a general principle, there is consensus to discuss relevant historical county information in articles. There is also a global consensus to use current administrative areas to describe the location of places around the planet (ie not just within the UK), that should not be contradicted by local practice for the UK.

Discussion

My personal belief is the guidance should follow these principles:

  1. The administrative geography is the primary way to describe the location of the place
  2. Historical information is a supplement to the administrative geography, not an alternative to it and definitely not a replacement.
  3. If technical factors prevent mention of both, only mention the administrative geography.
  4. Provide a full historical breakdown, including the date of any changes, in the body.
  5. Only include key historical facts in the lead.
  6. Other classes of articles, like biographies, should emphasise the county relevant at the time.

To illustrate how I'd apply this:

  1. The most common lead sentence for the article on any place gives its administrative location, often in the form of a hierarchy ("A is in B is in C"). eg "A is a village in Bshire, England" is consistent with "F is a commune in department G of Britanny, France" or "X is a city in Y county, Texas".
  2. When historical info differs from the current admin, this should not be included into the lead sentence. Avoid "A is a village in ceremonial Bshire and historic Cshire, England". This muddies the clear hierarchy and suggests B and C are alternatives. Instead present the historical information separately in a later sentence. The same problem occurs with "H is a hill in the Peak District and Derbyshire, England". That has the same solution, separating the two facts into distinct sentences to increase clarity.
  3. Disambiugation requires one location, so always use the admin county. "This article is about the town in Oxfordshire." not "This article is about the town in ceremonial Oxfordshire and historic Berkshire."
  4. Mention any and all changes in the body, such as adjustment in county, removal of an exclave, gaining county borough status or becoming a civil parish. This will naturally be in chronological order.
  5. For example, I'd consider it important for the lead section to mention Abingdon's link to Berkshire, but not Grimsby's link to Humberside.
  6. A biography should mention the county of birth, whether that is Westmorland or Avon. An article on a battle should say the county it took place in.

All the above sidesteps the key point of conflict (Do we accept or reject that historic counties exist today as distinct areas, with given precise boundaries?). In the majority of cases, we can discuss historical information without having to take a position on that statement. I have no problem with saying Orpington is in historic Kent, provided this does not affect the clarity of a more important statement - that it is in London.

There will be cases where this is insufficient, but lets get it right for the majority in the first instance. This gives a framework, and within that we can then worry about how to treat the more difficult cases.--217.32.153.153 (talk) 17:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

  • Having recently been dragged into an edit discussion regarding places in East London and their status regarding Essex; I fully support the order of place and borough + relative location to nearby places in opening paragraph. Subsequent paragraphs can discuss ancient / traditional / former counties. This should be in the past tense and qualifed with the parish and hundred, where possible to flag to the reader this is history. I have summarised by position on my user page. I have however closed the discussion on my talk page because it was becoming repetitive and distracting Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 05:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I normally just state that such as place in in parish, district, county, England such as Rottington but I do agree with the consensus that historic counties probably should be mentioned somewhere near the top. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:16, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
    @217.32.153.153:, the historic counties issues can go back further in history let me give you a very good prime example. Todmorden in West Yorkshire was split between Lancashire and Yorkshire or rather (West Riding of Yorkshire) until 1889. When the Lancs side was incorporated into West Riding. Now the Calderdale Borough of West Yorkshire. Historic counties in my eyes should be added to history or governance as they help to establish what counties each village, town or city was part prior to reforms or so. Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland were in County Durham until 1974 then moved to Tyne and Wear. Newcastle upon Tyne was in Northumberland until 1499 or so then became a city and county similar to Bristol of its own.
    The historic counties are important to note if they were in one prior to 1974. Widnes and Warrington were in Lancs until 1974 and became part of Cheshire when Wirral was moved from Cheshire into Merseyside. DragonofBatley (talk) 17:45, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
    On your example; I think it is important to avoid statements (paraphrasing) such as Sunderland is in Tyne and Wear and the historic county of County Durham Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 10:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Ever since 2007, Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Lead has included historic county in about the same position as it is now, after distance from town/city, position on river, and population. I think that makes it fairly clear it shouldn't be in the lead sentence, but there's so much conflict that a fresh clear statement would be worthwhile. Thanks for starting this.
I'm not confident that this removes conflict about was/is so much as kicks it down a paragraph. Do you, does anyone, have some sidestepping wording in mind?
The infobox question isn't finished yet, at least in the case of London Borough articles using spare fields in the flexible {{Infobox settlement}} eg London Borough of Enfield permalink with 3 historic counties. Can we resolve that by a clear statement of whether HCs should be in the infobox, whether or not explicitly supported by the template? I'd say no, the box is long enough and apart from the borough's birthdate, only includes current information. NebY (talk) 17:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Not at all IMO. Parameters should only be in infoboxes if they meet MOS:INFOBOXES, particularly MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Historic counties don't meet the criteria. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
An advantage to "kicking it down a paragraph" is we ensure the first mention of historic county gets a full sentence, which gives us a chance to describe any nuances. There is simply no room foro that if we try to shoehorn it into the first sentence.
I have a feeling same principle applies to infobox (no space for nuance), I'd view the "no consensus, remove pending discussion" close of the UK Place infobox to be relevant to other infoboxes as well.
The phrasing is going to be a problem. I know there would be objections to DragonofBatley's "Widnes was in Lancs until 1974". My gut says we should have "phrases to avoid" instead of a proscribed form. This will allow more natural and less formulaic writing.--217.32.153.153 (talk) 18:34, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
WP:UKCOUNTIES says use past tense; the RfC from 2018 was closed as there being no consensus to change the approach to this sort of thing. So we use past tense. I that's going to change I think we'd want to be having a discussion just on that.
WP:UKCITIES says its fine to mention the historical county in the lead - I tend to agree that doing so in the first sentence can be confusing. People have suggested some possible wording styles that could be used: Uakari suggested Prior to 1965/1889, X was in the historic county of Y; I've suggested Historically part of... as an alternative to that - the best wording is dependent on context and flow; one size does not fit all, but it might not be a bad idea to provide some examples at some point, but the position of the topic will depend somewhat on the size and quality of the whole article.
So write a good lead that's easy to understand, but if you mention historical counties do so in the past tense.
Then in the History or Governance section, as appropriate, develop the detail. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
A problem with UKCOUNTIES is its the guidance for the county articles themselves, not a description of how to use them in other articles. The "use past tense" is ignored by the articles UKCOUNTIES directly covers (eg Westmorland, Merionethshire or Middlesex primarily use the present tense). The "use past tense" line should either be integrated into UKCITIES, or removed.--217.32.153.153 (talk) 18:55, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
As per my comments at Wikiproject:London, my key concern is that articles about counties, boroughs and individual neighbourhoods are not written in such a way as to state or imply that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries'. This is a long-established guideline, as per paragraph 3 of https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography/How_to_write_about_counties. This guideline does not contradict other guidelines that the historic counties can be mentioned in these articles; it simply means that they cannot be referred to in a way that states or implies that they 'still exists with their former boundaries'. A very straightforward way exists to be consistent with the guidelines, that is to include a sentence in the article IN THE PAST TENSE, such as: "Historically, it was in the county of Surrey." I am reluctant to support the wording: "Historically part of Surrey" without the word 'was', as to me this still implies a level of persistence to the historic county. Placing historic county information in the infobox implies an even greater level of persistence to the historic county, so I do not support this. I think we also need to draw a distinction between the lead SECTION and the lead SENTENCE of an article. Recent edits by a small number of editors who insist that historic counties still exist, have given the historic county precedence over the Ceremonial County or completely removed the statement that a particular area is in London at all (not just Greater London), in the first SENTENCE of the article. See recent edits to Dagenham as an example of the former and Kingston upon Thames as an example of the latter. This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV, and if these editors have their way, eventually we will end up with a situation where even the article on Westminster will give the historic county of Middlesex precedence in the first sentence, and 'London' will be ditched altogether in the lead section in favour of 'Greater London'. Therefore I would oppose including historic county information in the first sentence of an article. My preference is that the historic county is not referred to in the lead section at all, as I think that can accurately be covered in the 'History' section (still making sure to refer to the historic county in the past tense). However, if historic county information is placed anywhere in the article, in the case of London neighbourhoods it needs to be placed in ALL London neighbourhood articles (outside the City of London). This is as opposed to the current situation where these editors have mainly mentioned the historic county (as still persisting) for London neighbourhoods not assigned the LONDON post-town, which is completely inconsistent and a violation of WP:NPOV (see recent edits to Dagenham, Kingston upon Thames, Bromley, Croydon, etc). Until this happens, all the London neighbourhood and London borough articles need to be restored to remove the present-tense references to historic counties. I would appreciate help from other editors with this, as it is a lot of work going through all of the articles that have been changed to include present-tense references to historic counties. It is also important to stress that these changes have only appeared comparatively recently, made by a small group of unwavering users, and we would only be resorting these articles to the stable state they were in for many years prior to this. Uakari (talk) 18:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
I also think there is a distinction between using the present tense to DEFINE a particular historic county, eg Middlesex, and using it to imply a particular neighbourhood IS STILL within that county. The Middlesex article does make it clear in the infobox that Middlesex ceased to exist after 1965. I would prefer past tense be used for articles about those historic counties that do not share a name with a present-day ceremonial county, region, etc, but to me this is less of an issue that stating or implying that a particular London neighbourhood IS in a particular historic county. Uakari (talk) 19:16, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
UKCOUNTIES is all we have when it comes to writing about counties. I can see no logic whatsoever to be told to write about Middlesex in the past tense in the county article and yet be able to write about it in the present tense in an article about a place that was within it. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:44, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
@Blue Square Thing: I agree, but look at the actual county articles. They use present tense, so UKCOUNTIES is being ignored by the articles it is aimed at. If "use past tense" is re-affirmed, the county articles should be brought in line with that.
I like phrasings similar to "within the historic boundaries of X", as this clearly gets the point across. The Thames is the historic boundary between Surrey and Middlesex, regardless of the current status of Middlesex. If anything, I feel uneasy with things like "ceremonial county of Kent" and "historic county of Kent" at all, and prefer to see both as variants of a single concept: "Kent".-217.32.153.153 (talk) 11:07, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I believe that attempts to find phrases that circumvent the issue of whether HCs are or were not current units is taking us nowhere and edit wars will continue as before. That is why I would avoid such terms as 'historically in Y'. Readers of an encyclopedia are looking for factual detail, not vague ambiguous sentences. We should therefore find another way to deal with the HC problem. I would agree that the current administrative area that a place is in should be the default location and that this should not be mixed with the HC in any sentence, in the lead or elsewhere. I also think that having a sentence in the lead, noting the HC, even further down away from the administrative location, can also be confusing and is often not needed. This is not because the HC name and the administrative unit name is the same but because the HC now has very little relevance to the place. Foe example, I would not put into the lead 'Lewisham is in the HC of Kent', but I would mention in the lead that 'Crayford is in the HC of Kent'. That means that mention of the HC in the lead is handled on a case by case basis. I would like far greater use of a 'Governance/Local govt' subsection to be made in UK place articles. This could be within or seperate from the 'History' subsection. This would first, improve the generally low quality History section and second, it would in context the current place unit. It would, secondly, provide a space where more explanation about the historic county can be put without any significant opposition from anyone. It means that mention of Lewisham and Crayford both being in the HC of Kent would receive similar uncontested attention in each's respective article. There would be slightly more mention of Kent in the Crayford article, such as mention in the lead or in the 'Community' section, due to the greater relevance in RSSs of Crayford being in HC Kent. None of this would, IMO, be contentious. Now, this would not deal with the current position of HC as extant units: the 'is or was' debate. This has been poorly argued by both sides over time. It is true that HCs were never formally abolished, in fact they were explicitly not altered by legislation such as the 1888 act (which consciously created totally new units). However, that does not mean they must be treated now as relevant functional units. The British Empire has never been formally ended and whether it still currently exists (is or was) is a matter of opinion that will depend heavily of the context in which it is mentioned. A far better approach to the existence of HCs is to ask if the HCs existence has now become not relevant, meaning the HC has become obsolete for any given place. The hundreds and lathes of Kent, for example, were also never formally abolished but their relevance to anywhere in Kent is now almost non-existant. This means that most mention of them in almost any context will demand the use of 'was' over 'is'. We should therefore create guidelines that allow for local variation of 'is or was'. There will always be some editors who insist on places like Aston or Lewisham being referred to as 'is in Warwickshire or Kent' rather than 'was in...' but these people would be in a distinct minority if the HC was properly dealt with elsewhere So, the 'is or was' debate should be viewed not as pertaining to the HC itself but rather to the relevance the HC currently has to a given place. Personally, I do not see a problem with having an HC field in the infobox, in fact I can see it as a useful addition, so low as adequate attention is given in the body of the article to that HC. That after all is what the infobox is for: to succintly summerise the main article: if there is no mention in the body of the article about the HC then leave that field blank. But, if there is mention in the body then put the HC into the infobox. Personally, I think the arguements recently expressed in the ibx debate about constantly changing historic counties is a red herring. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I strongly oppose including historic county information for some London neighbourhoods and not others. Bromley or Crayford have no more 'connection' to Kent than Lewisham or Peckham do (in fact they all have none at all except entirely subjectively in the minds of particular people - I would argue a minority nowadays). Likewise, Enfield or Harrow have no more 'connection' to Middlesex than Finchley or Westminster do. The only reason Roger8roger is saying they do is I believe because of 'former postal counties', which not only no longer exist but were never intended to define counties in the first place and indeed have never matched up with county boundaries (they were simply routing instructions for Royal Mail). Either we mention the historic county in all London neighbourhood articles/infoboxes or in none. Making assumptions about which London neighbourhoods have more of an affinity with their historic counties is a gross violation of WP:NPOV. We are here to deal in facts, not personal affinities that will change depending on who one talks to. Further, the EFFECT of the 1888 act WAS to abolish the historic counties in this area 'with their former boundaries', and the EFFECT of the 1963 act WAS to abolish the county of Middlesex altogether. Not having an official proclamation of abolition does not alter the effects of these Acts of Parliament. So again, I oppose any reference to historic counties that is not in the past tense (as is consistent with the guidelines). If someone wants to change the article on Middlesex also to be written in the past tense, I would support that, but my primary concern is with the articles on London neighbourhoods and boroughs. Uakari (talk) 00:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
I think what I am struggling to understand:
1) Why this is not being moderated by Admin / taken to Dispute Resolution?
2) Despite clear guidance and failed efforts in a RfC from 2018 to make HC a primary reference, we still have the same editors engaging in editing / gish gallop they know is against guidance and consensus?
This seems like a concerted effort over a number of years to force a POV that has had consensus and strong opposition Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
See the close by Black Kite (who is an administrator) of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1075#Multiple abuses of process and subsequent mass automated edits in contravention of denied bot request. That discussion sprang from discussion of the infobox template most used on UK articles about places, but unsurprisingly touched on more than that template. Black Kite's close ended "Some agreement that a far more general discussion should take place at a more centralised venue that the infobox page itself." So here we are. NebY (talk) 14:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)


Uakari, will you please stop telling me what I am thinking and instead focus on what I have written. Please also try to focus on the topic in hand which is for an overall revision of how we deal with HCs in all UK articles, not just London: you are forking off topic. The insertion or not of 'is or was' would depend on weighted mention in RSSs: that is why it is likely to have Bromley mention as 'is' in the HC Kent (because RSSs say 'is' and would likely say Peckham 'was' in HC Surrey, because RSSs say 'was'. Whether to use is or was is determined by RSSs, not be personal opinion. And if, as I suggest, a better use is made of a governance section, the importance of 'is or was' deminishes considerably because a full explanation is given and most 'reasonably educated readers' will not be put out by seeing the present or past tense used. So, you are veering off-course by accusing me of breaching NPOV: I am doing no such thing. In fact, by insisting in a raised voice (ie upper case) what the effect of statute law was you are inserting a glaringly obvious personal point of view. It might be difficult for you, and some other editors, to grasp, but humanity thrives on subtlties, nuances and exceptions. If everything in the world was uniform and fitted neatly into its own designated slot we might just as well all be robots. Painful though it might be to accept, places like Bromley have a different connection with their HC than do places like Peckham. That is reflected in RSSs, not just in people's imagination. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding my use of capital letters, which were used for emphasis, not to indicate a 'raised voice'. I am also talking particularly about how this matter impacts on London neighbourhood articles, because these are one of my areas of interest, and have recently become far less stable because of edits relating to this issue. As I explained, if some sources refer to 'Bromley, Kent', they are likely doing so because prior to 1996, 'Kent' formed part of the postal address for Bromley, as a 'former postal county'. Crucially, the number of sources actually stating: 'Bromley is in (the county of) Kent' are far fewer. As this usage of 'Kent' was entirely confined to the Royal Mail, with many areas that were once in the historic county of Kent NOT having had 'Kent' as part of their postal address (as well as Bromley itself previously being within a much larger area assigned the LONDON post-town), it cannot then be said that this constitutes an association between Bromley and the historic county called Kent. Any association with 'Kent' is based on a false belief that this county begins where the LONDON post-town currently ends, which is factually incorrect but also not the position taken by historic county enthusiasts. If you take that approach to editing London neighbourhood articles, you will end up with casual readers assuming that Bromley 'is' in the historic county of Kent but that Peckham 'isn't'. If you are passionate about the persistence of historic counties, surely you would want to avoid leading people to believe that their boundaries are not as set out by the Normans? Or do you simply hope that you will meet less resistance to inserting historic county information in articles for London neighbourhoods not assigned the LONDON post-town? I do think it is reasonable to ask you and PlatinumClipper96 what your motivations are and what you would ideally like to be the end result: you are the ones trying to alter the guidelines/consensus and have been engaged in a concerted and recently-accelerated campaign to edit articles that have been stable in this regard for many years, all to suit beliefs that are factually incorrect, but also applying what you say are your beliefs inconsistently to articles on London neighbourhoods, not dependent on whether the particular neighbourhood was in fact in the historic county. It is no wonder that User:MRSC has suggested a topic ban on this matter, and I am inclined to agree with them, once the relevant articles have been restored. There is nuance, and there is falsehood, and the statement that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries' is the latter, as (to use your phrasing) painful as that might be for some editors to acknowledge. As for the standard of verifiability, we all know that reliable sources for placing a neighbourhood like Bromley inside London and outside Kent vastly outnumber those doing the reverse or placing it in both, because it falls under the administration and associated services provided by the London Borough of Bromley and the GLA, as well as falling under the London region (relevant to central government in terms of administration and statistics collection). Again, a source that simply refers to 'Bromley, Kent' (such as the address of an organisation or even a newspaper article) cannot reliably be said to be doing anything more that following the former style of postal addresses that used former postal counties, and certainly cannot be said to be associating Bromley with the historic county of Kent, for reasons stated above. Uakari (talk) 04:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Uakari, it appears that you are claiming that Bromley has no connection with Kent. To that I ask this: in which county was Bromley prior to the creation of Greater London in 1965? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:49, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

In case anyone does not know, Uakari's posts here follow on from posts made here [1]. Uakari, what you are saying about postal addresses has all been said countless times before. It is old hat and off topic. We are here to find a way of handling historic counties in UK place name articles that most editors can at least live with. I have made a suggestion, as has IP user 217.32.153.153. Praise or criticise those, or come up with some ideas of your own. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:05, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Roger 8 Roger, we are only here because of a cohort continuing to make or support edits that force HC into a high / primary prominence in the lead; such as recent effort to get virtually the whole of East London classified as being in Essex. It really is not that complex; HC no longer exist. They are a supporting point as part of the history of a place, that should be stated in the past tense. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 14:44, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
After more investigation, it appears that this 'could be' an organised campaign / sockpuppetry by Association of British Counties who's agenda is explicitly to revert the whole country back to Historic Counties, as the primary reference for places, clubs, activity...

The ABC contends that Britain needs a fixed popular geography, one divorced from the ever changing names and areas of local government but, instead, one rooted in history, public understanding and commonly held notions of community and identity. The ABC, therefore, seeks to fully re-establish the use of the historic counties as the standard popular geographical reference frame of Britain and to further encourage their use as a basis for social, sporting and cultural activities.

The supporting evidence is that users have made significant edits to the ABC page and continue to support edits deleting Boroughs, and replacing them with HC. A number of users have been flagged many times over the last four years for these edits, yet they persist and much of the supporting gish gallop is almost word for word the text of the ABC webite Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 17:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Roger 8 Roger's suggestion that History/Governance sections can be improved. For example, Widnes is mentioned in this discussion, so I looked at its article. The lead says "Historically in Lancashire" and the Governance section starts with "From Saxon times Widnes was part of the hundred of West Derby in Lancashire. Modern local government in the town of Widnes commenced with the creation of the Widnes Local Board in 1865 ..." But nowhere does it say Widnes was governed by Lancashire County Council until 1974. However, I do not agree with suggestions in this discussion that the first thing should always be the current administrative area. I was under the impression that Wikipedia had somehow decided to use ceremonial counties for disambiguation etc. This compromise between current local authorities and historic counties works well in counties that recently have had the county council replaced by a number of unitary authorities which are not yet widely known. For example, where there are many small villages each with a short article, it can start with "Little Trumpton is a village in <name of ceremonial county> in England" and the infobox can tell you which unitary authority it is in. The links to the ceremonial county and unitary authority lead you to details of the administrative history. It is not necessary for this history to be repeated in every village article. JonH (talk) 14:57, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Our current guideline has remained largely unchanged since 2007, and is that an article should begin "Name of settlement, type of settlement (e.g. suburb, town, city, civil parish), its present local government district / council area, present/ceremonial county (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), for the use of counties), and constituent country" and mention the historic county later. Recently there have been many placings of historic county in the first sentence eg "Addington is a village on the outskirts of south London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London and the historic county of Surrey." NebY (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
This is a perfect example of edits to forward a false agenda on HC, specifically by a user PlatinumClipper96; who has been making the same edits across many places in London Boroughs. It should say "Addington is a village on the outskirts of South London, within the London Borough of Croydon" -- now we need to add where it is near and how far it is from Charing Cross. Subsequent paragraphs can discuss the ancient Parish, Hundred and Historic County of Surrey, and with additional history with key transitions dates eg. 1889 and 1965. There is no need for a statement about the ceremonial county of Greater London, as this can be found by exploring links to South London, and it is implicit when stating 'London'... and importantly the current Borough should not be removed to force in Historic County of Surrey in the opening of the lead. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 16:13, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I posted the following onto a live discussion on this issue , on another page eysterday. It's tiresome to read there today that another discussion has been opened, in a new venue, but nonetheless, here it is again: "I live in Birmingham, England. You'd probably say that the HC was Warwickshire. But where I live - indeed, a large part of Birmingham - was in Staffordshire for centuries, until 1928, in Warwickshire from 1928 to 1974, has now been in the modern West Midlands county longer than it was in Warwickshire." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Tenses

I see above a suggestion that we use phrases such as "is in" <historic county> or "was in" <historic county> based on reliable sources for the particular settlement. Some problems are obvious. An RS's choice of tense for historic counties may spring from that source's POV on their continued existence rather than being neutrally factual. At best, it's a stylistic choice, and on Wikipedia we make our own stylistic choices, documenting many in the MOS. But the suggestion's even worse than that.
For many years, there was immense dispute over which units of measurement to use for UK articles, fought in articles, on talk pages, at WP:MOSNUM and WT:MOSNUM, WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:3RRN and more. Some took the attitude that we use units based on the reliable sources in which we found the data - "source-based units". This was a recipe for conflict. The heights of UK footballers in their individual articles were flipped to metric, because that's what the source used, often newly cited in the very same edit. A secondary war broke out about the heights of statues. It took blocking, banning and the WP:GS/UKU sanctions to end the war, and the manual of style was fine-tuned accordingly to avoid source-based units.
Source-based tenses would solve nothing, and only add another dimension to the arguments. We should make our stylistic decision centrally and document it in guidelines. That might obviate the need for blocks, bans and general sanctions. NebY (talk) 18:22, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Those arguments make sense to me - whatever we decide upon. There are so many contradictory sources we'd end up in the same sort of disaster area that you describe. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for those comments NebY, I do see your point. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:43, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
As the guidelines and consensus already exist that historic counties no longer 'exist with their former boundaries', using the past tense to refer to historic counties is the logical solution. The choice of tense is not simply a stylistic one: it is self-evident that to use the past tense to refer to historic counties (eg in articles about London neighbourhoods) conveys to the reader that historic counties no longer 'exist with their former boundaries', and to use the present tense conveys that they do. Uakari (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Yet again, will you please stop ramming home your personal opinion that HCs do not exist. We are here to see if we can update and improve the guidelines so they work better, not to keep them as they are. Are you saying that any guidelines must say that HCs don't exist otherwise they won't function properly? If so, please elaborate and explain why the current guidelines are not functioning as well as they should. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Why do you keep trying to dictate the nature of my replies? "Will you please stop..." seems inappropriate when I am not personally attacking you. I have repeatedly explained my position that the current guidelines do function perfectly well, and the the illusion that they don't is simply a POV pushed by a very determined (and now mildly aggressive) small cohort of editors. The articles we are discussing were stable for many years prior to those editors' recently-accelerated editing campaign to change them. Once again, the guidelines on historic counties are not contradictory, because they can clearly be mentioned but not in a way that states or implies that they 'still exist with their former boundaries'. The logical solution that satisfies both of these conditions is to refer to historic counties in the past tense in all articles, and to be consistent about where they are mentioned (eg in all the London neighbourhood articles or none of them). The comments so far and in previous discussions suggest that this an acceptable solution to the majority of editors and administrators. Uakari (talk) 22:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
@Uakari: Please answer the question that I put to you at 07:49, 22 August 2021 (UTC). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:37, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Sure: Prior to 1965, Bromley, along with Penge, Abbey Wood, etc, was in an county called Kent. The boundaries of said county were not the same as those of the historic county of Kent that existed prior to 1889, which also included areas such as Lewisham, Blackheath, Woolwich, etc. How does my answering your question contribute to this discussion? Uakari (talk) 22:56, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Ok, do you mean, for example, that the Lancashire of 1887 is the same Lancashire of 1972 and of 2021, with the only difference being that its boundaries have been altered at points during that period, and that the term 'historic county of Lancashire' means that same Lancashire at any of many dates in the past. Put another way, are you saying the term 'historc county' is no more than an adjective before a noun with no other connection between them, rather than, a compound noun where both together are treated as one noun? If you are saying this about Lancashire, does that then mean that the Yorkshire of 1887 was the same Yorkshire of 1972, with altered boundaries, but in 1974 it was deleted from existence. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Earlier on, you stated Bromley or Crayford have no more 'connection' to Kent than Lewisham or Peckham do (in fact they all have none at all except entirely subjectively in the minds of particular people. Now, you state Bromley, along with Penge, Abbey Wood, etc, was in an county called Kent. You are clearly contradicting yourself. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
For me the Historic County can help give a locale more context when discussing its historical development - but it should never be taken out of that historical context. Much like many other measures and dimensions, the bad habit is for people to use the one that they consider the most flattering or personally agreeable rather than factually relevant. This is particularly relevant when new counties have been span up which are heavily associated with a new parent entity (such as Greater Manchester) or where the historic county was seemingly lost (Westmorland) or merged (Hereford & Worcester) or whose boundaries were significantly changed to cleave out new entities and enlarge others (Lancashire) never mind the complexity that is Yorkshire as mentioned by Roger. Koncorde (talk) 07:19, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I came in on the Infobox question. The importance of the historic county for any given place is emphasised in guidance from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Communities and the local authorities which serve them are being urged to celebrate the heritage bound up in their historic county. Last month this was emphasised with the display of historic county flags all round Parliament Square. It is therefore of great utility to give the historic county as key data for a town or village.
The historic counties are a geographical concept independent of local administration: this was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 1884 (The Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Borough of Over Darwen v The Justices of the Peace for the County Palatine of Lancaster (1884) 15 QBD 201 (CA)). (You can almost hear the frustration of the judges at Parliament's confusing use of 'county' for innumerable contrasting areas, including or excluding boroughs and franchises etc. concluded that a 'county' in the absence of any other indication was as meant as 'a geographical division, and not to any jurisdiction to be exercised'.) That stable, 'geographical expression' is what the MHCLG initiative is getting at.
There was a question of towns which cross a county boundary, such as Todmorden or Birmingham: they can presumably have two or three counties listed.
LG02 (talk) 07:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
An alternative interpretation of this is that it's a party political approach designed to appeal to a cohort of voters - rather along the lines of "old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist". Last time I checked, Wikipedia didn't exist to echo whatever latest edict is issued by government departments. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It is useful to see the restatement of exisiting policy. There is no need to rehash exisitng arguments here. We know them all by now. We've explained what the policy is and how to comply with it. DEspite that we've seen repeated attempts to undermine it. If we can't get agreement from those that come here to edit exclusively on this issue we need to think about next steps to prevent further distruption of the encylopedia. MRSC (talk) 08:19, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

What are those next steps, User:MRSC? The reason I ask is that I would like to edit the London neighbourhood and London borough articles to be consistent with the guidelines again as they were for many years (take the one for Kingston upon Thames, which does not currently even mention it is in London, but does state the it "is in the historic county of Surrey"). Currently the way articles such as these are phrased is very misleading to the casual reader. However, I am reluctant to be dragged into endless edit wars again and do all that work for nothing. In answer to your question, Roger_8_Roger, it depends whether you consider the counties that still share the names of the historic counties, but with CHANGED boundaries, to be continuations of the historic counties or a new creation/entity. Whichever is the case, the fact remains that Bromley, for example, is no longer within the boundaries of the county of Kent. So even if places that are still within the boundaries of Kent are within the boundaries of a continuation of a historic county, that historic county as it exists does not include Bromley within its boundaries, so we cannot state that 'Bromley IS in the historic county of Kent'. In response to LG02, counties are defined by being functional administrative units created by humans; it is simply illogical to suggest that the particular administrative units that were created by the Normans are the ones that cannot ever cease to exist, as if they're somehow written into the land. Human geography is of course changeable, because humans create it in the first place. Otherwise, why are we ignoring the 'continuation' of Anglo-Saxon wapentakes or Roman provinces? Why is it only the historic counties that some editors are insisting 'still exist with their former boundaries'? Uakari (talk) 09:55, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, the old policy, written when Wikipedia was still wearing flares and listening to glam-rock... Sometimes we have to put the corduroy jacket away and consider how ideas written by the few original enthusiasts have stood the test of time. In this case it may need adjustment. The position of traditional counties has not faded away but if anything been boosted as they are more appreciated, even in officialdom. Hogweard (talk) 10:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
This RfC from 2018 was closed as there being no consensus to change the approach. Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:50, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
The position of traditional counties has not faded away but if anything been boosted as they are more appreciated, even in officialdom.. Citation needed. It seems to me that the only people who consider the old boundaries to have any current validity are Association of British Counties-type traditionalists with a distinct POV. The historic county should definitely be mentioned in settlement articles, particularly where the boundary changes are contentious, but I would posit (also citation needed) that while the wider public is certainly aware of the historic county boundaries (and may regret their passing), few consider them to be still extant. As others have said, why only these and not other obsolete polities? Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I understand that the historic Counties idea is open to debate but I think in the cases of Merseyside Greater Manchester and West and South Yorkshire for example. A mention of Cheshire Lancashire and West Riding of Yorkshire are actually valid given they only took place in 1974 and are more recent then those like Todmorden and Woodhead for example being moved into West Riding of Yorkshire and Derbyshire from Cheshire. The changes in 1974 are what created most of the modern day counties and unitary authorities. DragonofBatley (talk) 08:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I think those prior changes in 1974 should be used for historic Counties as towns like Barnoldswick and Earby were moved into Lancashire from Yorkshire and Barrow in Furness was moved into Cumbria from Lancashire. DragonofBatley (talk) 13:46, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Topic ban would be the next step. MRSC (talk) 13:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Twin tracks

I am trying vaguely to get on top of the twisted threads of these discussions. It seems that there are at least three separate issues, which ought to be three separate threads:

  • In the body of the article:
    • When to mention the historic / traditional county;
    • How to express that material, as a present or past concept, which runs into the discussion over the policy cited;
  • The field in the infobox.

Have I missed any? If we do not make such distinctions, we will be arguing over each other on points irrelevant to what had gone before. Hogweard (talk) 13:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

We're also discussing
  • In the lead, whether and where within it to mention the historic county.
But these are outcomes. We might do well to discuss the principles outlined by 217.32.153.153 in their opening of tis discussion:
  1. The administrative geography is the primary way to describe the location of the place
  2. Historical information is a supplement to the administrative geography, not an alternative to it and definitely not a replacement.
  3. If technical factors prevent mention of both, only mention the administrative geography.
  4. Provide a full historical breakdown, including the date of any changes, in the body.
  5. Only include key historical facts in the lead.
  6. Other classes of articles, like biographies, should emphasise the county relevant at the time.
Much follows from the first three especially, affecting more than one of the outcomes.NebY (talk) 13:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
My view on the issues listed by User:Hogweard:
1) My preference is to mention the historic county only in the 'History' section of articles on places. However, I do not object to it being placed in the lead section, as long as it is not placed in the lead sentence, and not placed before information on the local authority/region/ceremonial county. I feel strongly that if the historic county is mentioned, it must be mentioned completely consistently (so for example either in ALL articles on London neighbourhoods outside the City of London, or else in none).
2) I would advocate that we stick to the current guidelines/consensus that we do not consider that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries', and would maintain that the only way this can adequately be expressed is to explicitly refer to historic counties IN THE PAST TENSE at all times. I would suggest the following example wording/linking: "Historically, Westminster was in the county of Middlesex." This also avoids excess verbiage about when exactly a particular place ceased to be part of a particular historic county (that can be expanded on in the 'History' section if editors wish). I would also advocate that some articles, such as Middlesex and the Historic counties of England article itself, be rewritten to use the past tense throughout. For places that are still in a county that shares the same name as a historic county, the example wording I mentioned above can be omitted because that county (along with its history) can be linked to in the lead sentence, eg: "Dorking is a town in Surrey, south east England."
3) I would advocate not including historic county information in infoboxes about places, towns, cities, local authorities, etc. This is because including historic county in the infobox implies to a causal reader that a particular place is still within that particular historic county, which goes against the guidelines. Again, for places that are still in a county with the same name as a historical county, this information is already covered by the 'Ceremonial County' entry in the infobox. Also the infobox is designed to be a quick way of describing a place and providing key information that someone (eg a visitor to the place or a new resident) might find useful, and the utility of knowing the historic county is very limited compared to the standard infobox entries for articles on places. Uakari (talk) 14:07, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
This is a great summary. I think that these elements have already been discussed inWP:UKCOUNTIES and WP:UKCITIES, a defined in WP:UK GEOGRAPHY:LEAD. This was triggered by editors sweeping across articles about places in London to delete the London Borough and insert Historic County of Essex / Middlesex / Kent / Surrey. I think this should either be retired by an Admin, reasserting the guidelines (in essence: HC no longer exists and should be referenced in the past tense) OR progress to another formal RfC. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 14:09, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi @Jonnyspeed20. I am the editor that introduced the RfC on adding a historic county field to the Infobox:UK place. I was not a member of ABC at the time I proposed the RfC but, thinking I should really join, I now am a member. While I don't feel that I should have to disclose personal details such as which associations I am a member of on a public forum such as WP, I feel that I'm now forced to do so because of the constant accusations and suspicion from other editors. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone because I can see how it could be an alluring narrative, but I can categorically provide assurance that there simply isn't any coordinated campaign by ABC to do anything in relation to this discussion on the guidelines or indeed was there during the RfC a few months ago. Of course ABC would like to see greater recognition of the historic counties on WP, and that is an aim, but there are no 'underhand' methods being used to achieve this. You mention that editors have 'swept across' articles about places in London to delete the London borough. No one should be doing this and I don't know anyone from ABC who would endorse this. The London borough is obviously highly relevant for articles about places in London. In short, please can we drop the unfounded accusations and suspicion against a 'cohort' of editors that does not exist. It doesn't achieve anything except further resentment and division on this issue and, what's more, it goes against WP's principle of assuming good faith. Thank you. —Songofachilles (talk) 14:37, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@Songofachilles To be fair, I think editors did start out assuming good faith. However,the recent accelerated drive to insert present-tense historic county information into London neighbourhood lead sentences and infoboxes, in such a way as to give them precedence over the London Borough of even to remove the statement that a neighbourhood is in London altogether, particularly by editors who were involved in previous RfCs and were thus aware that the guidelines/consensus had not been changed, and who then reversed any reversion attempts, has led to the ability to assume good faith being stretched considerably. What is your view on the position I have taken in my previous comment (issues 1-3)? Bear in mind that none of that would preclude you or other editors from writing a detailed explanation of the history of a place (including its historic county) in the 'history' section, as long as you do so consistently (for example in article about all London neighbourhoods outside the City of London). Uakari (talk) 15:04, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I've been quite tied-up the past few days, so I haven't had chance to review the discussion here yet and contribute, although I intend to do so as soon as I can. Although I understand that particularly egregious editing can stretch the assumption of good faith to its limits, I did just want to make a brief defence of ABC here. Please know that the edits to which you refer were not done at its instigation, nor with its support. Ironically, given the level of accusations and suspicion, if anything what is actually happening is that some editors who are pro a more formal recognition of historic counties on WP are no longer contributing to discussion as they've been put off by the constant vilification and accusations and are just tired. I think that's a great shame.—Songofachilles (talk) 15:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@Songofachilles -- I will take your defence of ABC in good heart, and assume these are militants at the fringes of your organisation. Though I've always been suspicious of Russell Grant. My position on the lead, using London as an Example:
Paragraph 1 Place, N/E/S/SW/W/NE London in London Borough of [borough]. It is close to... and X miles from Charing Cross.
Paragraph 2 [Place] was originally a ward in the ancient parish of [parish] in the [hundred] hundred and part of historic county of [HC]. Followed by a summary of the history
Paragraph 3 Noticeable features and things the place is famous for / birthplace of etc.
Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 16:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
"Militants" is a completely inappropriate word to use in this context and ABC is not 'my' organisation. But noted. —Songofachilles (talk) 16:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
dogmatic conservatives is maybe more appropriate. And noted Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 16:55, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I have not participated in this discussion again because I have nothing new to say. But lest silence be taken as assent, I support Uakari's assessment [14:07, 23 August 2021] and conclusion. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@Songofachilles:, you have every right to demand that fellow editors assume good faith and I strongly support your equal right to present your case. Mutatis mutandis --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Assuming good faith is a non-negotiable prerequisite to this discussion. Thank you Uakari for your three points above. Hogweard also makes a good point about three issues running in parallel and becoming intertwined: perhaps opening up three subsections is needed? Jonntspeed, I do hope the agressive approach continues to mellow. I do not have time now to find and to link to the relevant sections, but I have been accused of making swathing changes to London articles, paricularly on the Essex side, when all I had done was alter Sydenham and Abbey Wood (I have occassionally altered a handful of other places going back years but certainly not in an organised way.) These sorts of sweeping statements do not help anyone. Now, a question to you and to Uakari, who are both happy with the statement: ...historic counties do not still exist with their former boundaries. What does it actually mean? You seem pretty clear about its meaning but I am not, and I haven't been for a long time. Does it mean, for example, that the HCs do still exist but with altered boundaries, or that they do not exist, with the phrase "with their previous boundaries" being added merely for some sort of emphasis. The first interpretion means we still use the present tense, the second the past. This (to me at least) ambiguity is the main reason why I have consistently said the guidelines need to be updated. I earlier asked, with this in mind, you to clarify your position on the current state of Lancashire and Yorkshire which you did but not clearly enough, for me at least.

Jonnyspeed, have you just recently made changes to the guidelines unilaterally, including adding in reference to hundreds? You should not be doing that without consensus. I have also just seen this [2] which amounts to a personal attack on me and on PlatinumClipper96. I am asking you to remove it immediately. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:07, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Roger 8 Roger My interpretation of: "We do not take the view that historic counties still exist with their former boundaries" is as follows: Successive acts of parliament (at least from 1888 but correct me if there were ones prior to this), have caused the historic counties to cease to exist for all areas of England. As a result of these acts of parliament, many places in England are no longer within a Ceremonial County and/or administrative area that has the same name as a historic county, and are certainly no longer within a historic county. However, many places in England are still within a Ceremonial County and/or administrative area with the same name as a historic county, but one that does not share the original boundaries of the historic county. For the former case, my position is very firmly that if we refer to the historic county at all, we must do so consistently for all these places but in the past tense, and never so as to give precedence to the historic county over the Ceremonial County/administrative area/borough/region (or over simply 'London' in the case of places within the London region/London boroughs). For the latter case, it is something of an existential question whether one sees the Ceremonial County/administrative area that shares the same name as the historic county to be a *continuation* of that historic county (just with different boundaries) or not. My interpretation of the statement is that we do not see the Ceremonial County/administrative area that shares the same name as the historic county to be a continuation of the historic county, but it is debatable whether and when this lack of continuation occurred (eg from the date of the first relevant act of parliament dealing with the first new Ceremonial County/administrative area or later). However, for these places that are still within a Ceremonial County and/or administrative area with the same name as a historic county, this is not actually something that we need to concern ourselves with when it comes to editing the articles, because the lead sentence can simply read, for example: "Dorking is a town in Surrey in south east England." If the 'history' section of the article on 'Surrey' is written well enough, it will be clear to the reader how its boundaries have changed over time. The reader will then be confident in placing Dorking in the Ceremonial County and administrative area of Surrey, and can decide for themselves whether they wish to view that as a continuation of the historic county of Surrey. In regards to the infobox, my position is that historic county field should certainly not be included for places that are no longer within a Ceremonial County and/or administrative area with the same name as a historic county, because this implies that these places continue to be within the boundaries of that historic county. My position is also that including the historic county field in the infobox is also not necessary for places that are still within a Ceremonial County and/or administrative area with the same name as that historic county, because including the Ceremonial County field will be sufficient to link to the article that also discusses the historic county of the same name in its 'history' section. Regarding the entities of 'Lancashire' and 'Yorkshire', I am not as familiar with these as with London, but my understanding is that there still exists a Ceremonial County and an administrative area called 'Lancashire', but there does not still exist a Ceremonial County or administrative area called 'Yorkshire' (although there exists a region of England called 'Yorkshire and the Humber'). I have therefore covered above how to treat the places still within or no longer within these entities. For the articles about the entities themselves, my position is that the article about 'Lancashire' be written in the present tense, giving precedence to its continued existence as a Ceremonial County and administrative area and discussing its history as a historical county in the 'history' section, and that the article about 'Yorkshire' be written in the past tense discussing its history as a historic county throughout (articles about West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, etc to be written in the present tense). My position is to treat the article about 'Middlesex' in the same way as the article about 'Yorkshire'. I hope this clarifies my position, but let me know if anything remains unclear. Uakari (talk) 00:16, 24 August 2021‎ (UTC)
Wikipedia allows edits to any page. That is its premise. Permission and discussion is not required, so long as the edits are in good faith. The WP:UKCOUNTIES guidelines support these edits. Much of your campaign is based on guidelines not being aligned; so aligning them moves us forward Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 03:51, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Another angle on this that I don't recall coming up before - Something can be 'in the past' from simply dying out or being in long term hibernation: it does not need to be formally ended. When for example was the Korean War? 1950-53 according to nearly every text book and so we use the past tense even though there has never been a formal end, just a ceasefire. I do wonder if the people on the front line manning the border use the past or present, because for them it still would feel like a ceasefire with both sides not demobilised. I have no doubt at all that the counties of 1888 were not formally ended. The argument for using the past tense is then dependent on whether they serve any meaningful purpose or have become obsolete, much like the Korean war is for most of us in the past because there hasn't been any real fighting for seventy years. Use of the word 'obsolete' is rarely made when talking about HCs, where words like transfered, absorbed, abolished and other mildly inaccurate (and emotive) words are used instead. An interesting comparison for the way we write about HCs can be made with the way we write about hundreds - quite a different approach where 'faded out of use' is prefered to 'were ended'. Perhaps we should start writing about HCs in the same way we do about hundreds? We would then, I think, also have to take account of area differences and get away from this one size fits all approach (oh, how humans love uniformity). Kent, in the Lewisham article, would be written about differently from in the Bromley article. Why? Because for Lewisham its association with the HC of Kent is almost obsolete unlike for Bromley where it is still very much alive. Taking this approach of saying that HCs have fallen out of use (not ended) in many places, but are still important and are still used in other places, would overcome this problem of what tense to use, past of present. It would at least be better than 'they're abolished, no they're not' circular arguements. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:56, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Roger 8 Roger Once again, your assertion that "for Lewisham its association with the historic county is almost obsolete unlike for Bromley where it is still very much alive" is (almost the epitome of) POV. Even among the editors supporting the continuation of historic counties, from what they have written and the articles they have edited, this POV does not seem to be shared by PlatinumClipper96 or Songofachilles. This is the one aspect of this whole discussion that is the most important in terms of maintaining NPOV. I reaffirm my position that to do so, either the historic county should be discussed in *all* articles on neighborhoods in London outside the City of London or in none at all, and, if it is discussed, that the same tense (my position is the past tense) should be used to describe the historic county in *all* articles on neighbourhoods in London outside the City of London. Uakari (talk) 11:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I would agree with Uakari there. I would say there is some nuance: 1. I think it's inclusion in the lede is very much tied to its significance as part of its historical development etc. BUT 2. That doesn't preclude its inclusion elsewhere in the article.
For me if we make no effort to mention it in the history section, or the governance sections etc then summarising it in the lede is definitely a bit of a POV type push. So if we are going to be universal in our approach to mentioning the "historic counties" we should be ensuring the articles also cover the relevance (the same way we should if we covered a footballers former club). This resolves the NPOV / POV issue for me. Koncorde (talk) 11:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Roger 8 Roger, not only did Jonnyspeed20 make changes to the guidelines adding in references to hundreds, he changed the WP:UKTOWNS guidelines to say that references to the historic county must be in the past tense - the very subject of this discussion. NebY has since reverted these changes. Jonnyspeed20, you cannot make changes to guidelines without discussion and consensus specifically about making changes to those guidelines. It is not your job to "align" guidelines in accordance with your personal view. The WP:COUNTIES guidelines do not support the changes you made to WP:UKTOWNS, and neither does Wikipedia policy. Also, I ask that you immediately remove/retract the WP:PERSONALATTACK you have made against me and Roger 8 Roger on this page, describing us as part of a "cohort" and referring to our edits as "an organised campaign by Association of British Counties who's agenda is explicitly to revert the whole country back to Historic Counties". PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Explicitly, are either of you associated with Association of British Counties in any way? Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 16:20, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
@Jonnyspeed20 This is a totally inappropriate and irrelevant question. Even if the editors in question are members of the ABC, that does not mean that they are a "cohort" who are part of an "organised campaign." I will repeat my request above that editors who have made unfounded accusations please drop them as it is not only a breach of WP's key principles, but it is creating a toxic atmosphere that is making discussion that can move this issue forward impossible. Incidentally, do you deny having made the unilateral changes to both the UK Towns guidelines and the Counties guidelines? —Songofachilles (talk) 16:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
This was all triggered by a universal edit across places in East London, deleting Boroughs and adding opening sentences that followed a common template; [place] is in East London, in the ceremonial county of greater London and the historic county of Essex. A number of editors reverted this, which was met with gish gallop and claims that well established guidelines no longer matter. The pattern suspiciously follows the precise agenda of ABC. Maybe this is behaviour that is allowed in this project, and no one is flagging potential sock puppetry from an organisation with bias intent? Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 17:53, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I have made edits to the guidelines. Every edit was supported by WP:UKCOUNTIES. You are welcome Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
WP:PERSONALATTACK Note that it is not a personal attack to question an editor about their possible conflict of interest on a specific article or topic Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
But it is very close, xref "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party". We can agree to disagree without questioning each other's good faith or making an assumption that the editors who are working here to achieve an equitable outcome are guilty by association and so responsible for the actions of the "militants". Your edits to policies under discussion are no better: beware of WP:boomerang. We can make a convincing argument without breaking NPA or AGF. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I have decided that everything has been said on this topic and without clarification on affiliations of parties involved, I can no longer participate in this discussion. My definitive POV is on my user page. Peace. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 19:17, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion is going well on content. I can see that context is important. Opinions will flow back and forth, and the format allows accessibility for all shades of interpretation.

The data is of more concern to me, to place the traditional county in the infobox. In the infobox it is neutral: readers can place what interpretation or emphasis they like on it: whether as cultural heritage, history or a present concept. The important thing is to have it available and displayed. That will assist with public appreciation in cultural heritage projects ongoing at the moment.

LG02 (talk) 19:16, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

LG02 I disagree that the infobox is 'neutral': Including a historic county field in the infobox of an article about a settlement, to me implies that that settlement is still within the boundaries of that historic county. For settlements that are no longer in a Ceremonial County with the same name as a historic county, that is simply incorrect, and for settlements that are still in a Ceremonial County with the same name as a historic county, it is not necessary, as the 'Ceremonial County' field will already link to a discussion of that Ceremonial County and its history/changed boundaries. I also think that the infobox is a place where we need to provide 'quick access' data that is of the most utility to visitors to or new residents of the settlement concerned. I would maintain that a historic county field is of very limited utility in this regard. Uakari (talk) 20:31, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Would tend to agree with Uakari again. Infoboxes carry a connotation. It conveys a POV, even if people think it is a mild one. It also muddies the water when we already have a lot of contextual locale information (Borough, Met Borough, County Borough, County, and so on and so forth). I would prefer it to be tackled in context. Koncorde (talk) 20:37, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Uakari, thank you for your lengthy explanations above and I do see that you are firmly of the view that HCs are in the past because they have been formally ended rather than being obsolete. A very simple question to you - as you (and/or Jonnyspeed) have stated, HCs were abolished by the 1889 local govt act. Where in that act [3] does it say that? Please be precise. If the best you can come up with is something that 'implies' the HCs were abolished, please say that too. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:47, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Roger 8 Roger I believe you have already asked me that question elsewhere and I have already answered it. I have explained my position that historic counties have ceased to exist as an effect (whether intentional or otherwise) of the acts of parliament that created new Ceremonial Counties/Administrative areas, rather than explicitly being abolished via the wording of these acts. I have also explained that it is more of a philosophical question whether you consider an existing Ceremonial County with the same name as a historic county to be a continuation or evolution of that historic county (with a reduced area): My position is that I do not, but if you do, I have explained why that does not have to affect how we edit individual articles about those particular Ceremonial Counties or the settlements that remain within their borders. I'm afraid I don't think that your asking me or others to provide further explanations for our positions is going to get us further. What we need now is either to acknowledge that this discussion has not yielded a consensus to change the existing guidelines/consensus on historic counties, and edit/restore relevant articles on that basis, or you or another user needs to come up with detailed suggestions for how the guidelines could be changed or made clearer for specific types of articles. This is precisely what I have attempted to do in the new section "Finding a way forward from here" below. As you were not satisfied with my attempt, I would suggest that you also come up with your own attempt that we can also discuss. Uakari (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Finding a way forward from here

I think it would be helpful if we use the strong support / support / oppose / strong oppose comments system for the following numbered items, so we can bring things back to the specific issues pertaining to specific types of articles, and get an further idea of consensus on these. However, please bear in mind WP:NOTAVOTE. Please give your reasons for supporting or opposing each of the following (which can always be refined or expanded depending on comments). My own position is strong support for numbered items 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8, and support for numbered items 1 and 6. If you support/oppose some numbered items but not others, or support/oppose more strongly than others, please specify for each and give reasons:

1 For articles on settlements and boroughs, we mention the historic county only in the 'History' section, and not at all in the lead section.

2 For articles on settlements and boroughs, we mention/discuss the historic county completely consistently (so for example equally in either in ALL articles on ALL settlements/boroughs in London outside the City of London, or else in none). We do not make subjective judgements about which of these settlements/boroughs has more continued 'affinity' with a historic county.

3 We never give a historic county precedence over a Ceremonial County/administrative area/region/borough by referring to it before these or giving it undue weight in articles about settlements/boroughs or about counties.

4 Adhering to the existing guidelines/consensus that we do not consider that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries', we refer to historic counties IN THE PAST TENSE at all times in articles. I would suggest the following example wording/linking in the 'history' section of articles on settlements: "[Historic counties of England|Historically], [Westminster] was in the county of [Middlesex]." This can then be expanded on if editors wish, but without giving a historic county more weight/discussion in some of these articles on settlements/boroughs vs others.

5 For articles on historic counties where the same name is no longer used by a Ceremonial County/administrative area, we use the PAST TENSE at all times in the article, eg: "[Middlesex] was a [historic counties of England|historic county] in south east [England]." We explicitly discuss when this historic county ceased to exist and as a result of which act of parliament.

6 For articles on counties where a Ceremonial County/administrative area shares a name with a historic county, we use the PRESENT TENSE in the lead section and elsewhere to discuss the Ceremonial County/administrative area. Only in the 'history' section do we discuss the changed boundaries of the county, which may include explicitly referring to the historic county IN THE PAST TENSE only.

7 We do not include a historic county field in the infobox for articles about settlements/boroughs that are in a Ceremonial County that does not share a name with a historic county.

8 We do not include a historic county field in the infobox for articles about settlements/boroughs that are in a Ceremonial County that does share a name with a historic county.

Uakari (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Uakari, I'm sorry but this idea will go nowhere. Remember the KISS principle. On a point of style, you do not get more Brownie points for supporting something strongly: support is support whether you are sitting calmly outside in the early spring sunshine sipping your second mocca or running around the house, foaming out the mouth and screaming to the heavens:"Yes, yes, I absolutely support it!" The same thing goes for unnecessarily capitalising certain words. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I was under the impression that you wanted the discussion brought back to how we deal with specific types articles and for editors to set out key points to adhere to, so the above post was my attempt to do that. By all means feel free to provide an alternative method and way of proceeding with the discussion; so far I am struggling to understand what your personal concrete objectives for each specific type of article actually are. The indicator of level of support is a commonly-used feature of Wikipedia discussions: A particular level of support does not imply that it should be given more/less weight or consideration than another level of support; it simply helps everyone get a clearer idea of each editor's positions on each point, and their personal strength of feeling on each point. Again, I use capital letters when I wish to emphasise a certain point or make sure that it does not get lost among other points I make; this does not imply that I somehow expect something I write in capitals to be given more weight than anything I or anyone else writes. I hope you can respect my freedom of stylistic choice for writing posts, as I respect yours, as I am not aware of any Wikipedia policy that mandates the use of lower case throughout posts? If it is the case that you and other editors with similar views on these issues are no longer amenable to participating in this discussion full stop, I would be grateful if you could let everyone know, so that we no longer need to waste time here and can get on with the rather onerous task of restoring particular articles to reflect the existing guidelines/consensus on historic counties. My assessment of the totality of this discussion so far is that the prevailing consensus appears to be to keep to the existing guidelines/consensus on historic counties; at the very least have not reached a consensus to change the existing guidelines/consensus, which means for now we must keep to the existing guidelines/consensus. Do you have a different assessment of the discussion so far? I note that you in particular took the view that the existing guidelines/consensus were not clear enough, so the above post was also my attempt to suggest ways in which they could be clarified/made more precise. Please feel free to suggest alternative ways in which this could be done for specific types of articles. Uakari (talk) 01:50, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Uakari, my aim is to get a set of guidelines that works smoothly, unlike the current set. The fact they have been unchanged for 20 years does not mean they work properly, as is evidenced by the never-ending edit wars and discussions involving countless different and experienced editors. Any new guidelines will not work if they take a firm stance that HCs do, or do not, currently exist. Some form of compromise involving mellower wording that has enough appeal to all the main parties in this debate will have to be found. That is far from easy. If you reject that and you still want to hold your position that in 1965 the soft alluring Kentish soil beneath the feet of the morning shoppers on Bromley High St was suddenly whisked away from under them to be replaced by grimey London gravel and cement, then that is fine, but you must supply very good references. By that I mean top quality academic references that we can all read in their entirety, not just out of context snippets. And we will also need similar quality references that contradict your view in order for you to show us that on balance there is far greater weighting towards your position. And, you should also get an equal number of political (eg Frederick Youngs, 1979) and geographical sources because HCs can be viewed as both political and geographical units. Just curious, and I accept good faith, but why, I ask myself, when reading yours posts do I get a sense of déjà vu? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:30, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Still we don't have any actual concrete suggestions from you about what new guidelines you would like to see for specific types of articles. The onus is on you to provide references in the way you describe above and directly share them with us so we can discuss their merits, as you are the one who wants a change in the guidelines/consensus. The innumerable sources describing or showing Bromley as being in London and outside Kent) from the GLA, Hansard, Times and other atlases, as well as the borough council's own website) I imagine will never satisfy you, because I suspect you will assert that they are POV, whereas I and other editors would maintain they are NPOV. So then we are back to square one. My very simple question to you now is: Are you going to keep reverting changes to articles on neighbourhoods in London boroughs that bring them in line with the current consensus/guidelines? I need to know because I don't want to be dragged into more edit wars with you. Uakari (talk) 11:30, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Strong ideas coming out, but it looks as if it depends on where you are writing from. If you live in Central London then all this old counties stuff must seem alien. However outside, it looks very different. In Pinner they insist that they are in Middlesex; in Bromley that they are in Kent; and all the time I have spent in the towns round Manchester everyone I spoke to was insistent that they are in Lancashire. That sounds odd if you are in London, but in much of the country it makes more sense than administrative geography. If we banish all historic counties to a history session, that is pretty insulting to people whose geographical identity is the traditional county not the admin area - they are not wrong, just with a different geographical norm from yours. For someone in Oldham, their sense of belonging to Lancashire is not a delusion, but a different definition of 'Lancashire' from your map.
In Scotland and even more so in Northern Ireland, the county is the primary locator, and remember that any policies must apply throughout the country. In Yorkshire too - there has never been a single Yorkshire authority, but Yorkshire is as large as life in public perception. That's about half the country before we start.
In the context of articles, there is a case for treating places differently according to their own needs. Where there is a Middlesex identity or Lancashire, don't hide it. Maybe describing Chelsea or Putney it is not so important. In places like Abingdon too: Berkshire old county hall is the most prominent building in the town, which suggests more respect to that county. It cannot be done mechanically by algorithm.Hogweard (talk) 22:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Hogweard In the case of London (which I am most familiar with, having lived in various locations both towards the centre and towards the edge), judging the 'affinity' the population has with a historic county is next to impossible and depends entirely on individual POV (which we must necessarily avoid). For example, do only those in areas not assigned the LONDON post-town identify more with a historic county because of [former postal counties], or do the older generation in any area that joined London in 1965 (even within area assigned the LONDON post-town) still feel the same affinity with a historic county? Bearing in mind that the area assigned the LONDON post-town has also shrunk considerably since it was first introduced in the 1800s. Then you have places like Sewardstone just over the border in Essex, which has the post-town/area code LONDON, E4. Do residents there feel more affinity with London or Essex? What about Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, that was transferred from Middlesex in 1965, or Staines in Surrey, again transferred from Middlesex in 1965? For any of these places, it depends entirely on the particular POV of the person you talk to: their generation, where they work, how much they depend on council services, how much they use public transport - all these will have an impact on their POV. At Wikipedia we must strive for a neutral POV (WP:NPOV). I maintain that the only way to do that is to mention the historic county with the same prominence in ALL articles on London neighbourhoods/areas outside the City of London, or else not mention it in any of them. Certainly to maintain NPOV, we must be consistent about the tense we use for ALL of these articles also, which I maintain should be the past tense, and must not give the historic county prominence over the city/region that is London or a particular London borough in which a place lies. It seems that this whole discussion is now slowing down, and that we have not reached any consensus to change the guidelines/consensus that "we do not take the view that historic counties still exist with their former boundaries". Indeed, my reading is that consensus of this discussion is to keep to the existing guidelines/consensus (please state if your reading of the discussion is the same or different?). I would personally like to make these existing guidelines/consensus clearer in the ways I have attempted to do in the numbered list above, but this has not received many comments either way so far. So it seems the only way to proceed is to restore the relevant articles to be complaint with the existing guidelines/consensus, at least until such time as further clarification or amendment is agreed to be made to the existing guidelines/consensus. Therefore, does anyone have any objections to my restoring all the London neighbourhood articles to remove the present-tense reference to a historic county in the lead? Uakari (talk)|
@Uakari:, having an affinity to London and a historic county are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of areas that were assigned the LONDON post town that continue to be widely described as part of their historic county as a present geographical reference. Don't forget - these places were assigned the LONDON post town long before they became part of Greater London. The London postal district existed even before the County of London did, when all parts of current Greater London were by all means part of Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey. You mentioned Sewardstone in Waltham Abbey, which is outside Greater London but has always been within the LONDON postal district, which predates Greater London. It remains within the ceremonial county and non-metropolitan county of Essex. It is described as being part of both London and Essex. Just as Chingford to the south, also within the LONDON postal district except in Greater London since 1965, is also described as part of both London and Essex. Some people describe Potters Bar as being "in Middlesex". Some describe it as being "in Hertfordshire". Some describe it as being in both, or even "in London". The current guidelines/consensus is that the historic county "should" be mentioned in the lead if it is different to the name of its current lieutenancy area. Mentioning historic counties in the past tense (i.e. "was in the historic county") implies the counties were referred to as "historic counties" at a time when there were no other boundaries to use this name to distinguish them from. My view is that we should mention ceremonial and historic counties in the lead, in the present tense, which would make it clear to readers the basis of the relation between a place and the counties. As the guidelines/consensus has not yet changed, it could still be argued that my proposed wording is not a violation. WP:TOWNS is for articles about settlements. WP:COUNTIES is for articles about counties. It is clear that historic counties have no current administrative use. Whether the historic counties "still exist within their former boundaries" or not, I have no reason to believe the wording "is in the historic county of", alongside location in London (where within Greater London) and current lieutenancy area as primary mentions, would be inappropriate. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 19:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Uakari: , you asked (a few posts above this) for some references so you can all discuss their merits. Here are just a few from a quick search: In 2019 the UK government's website published this (see referenced link) reaffirming that historic counties were not abolished, and also the traditional boundaries were not altered by the Local Government Act 1972 [1]. Therefore, it seems plausible that referring to historic counties in the past tense would be incorrect information, because they were not abolished and continue to exist. Here is another UK government website article from 2013 recognising the continued existence of historic counties [2]. These are from the UK government's own website; many would think they are very official sources of information, and clearly state the facts. We must keep this factually correct, and not base guidelines off the opinions of individual editors. Acapital (talk) 01:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the links Acapital. As I have already clarified above, the effect of successive acts of parliament has been that historic counties no longer exist, at least not 'with their former boundaries'. The statement in your first link that: "[The 1972 Act] did not specifically abolish historic counties" does not contradict their ceasing to exist 'with their former boundaries' as a result of acts such as the 1972 Act. I would also be grateful if you could find the source for the quotation in the first link: "They are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties...". The article itself does not provide the source for this quotation, and I cannot readily find it in the wording of the 1972 Act itself (even if it is in there, we would need to discuss this further, as the results of an act of parliament are not always the same as its intentions, as in this case). Therefore I suspect this may have been something said by a member of the government or another Member of Parliament at the time. This is then likely to be influenced by a single particular politician's POV, and the ways in which he or she wishes to appeal to potential voters. This brings us to the difficulties with your second link. This specifically states that a single particular politician "will assert" the continued existence of historic counties, in a "symbolic move". The first phrase implies the same POV issue as I have already described. The second phrase implies that this 'assertion' is not asserting fact, but asserting something for other reasons such as sentiment or civic pride. Further along in the same article, the continued existence of historic counties is specifically contradicted: "The former area of Middlesex now corresponds to much of Greater London..." and "The 39 historic English counties were: [gives list]". Thus the article cannot be said to stating that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries'. If it is considered appropriate to take into account discussions in parliament as well as acts of parliament themselves, I present as a counterpoint the 1968 discussion about the 'Greater London, Kent and Surrey Order', which among other small amendments transferred the settlement of Knockholt from London, which it had joined in 1965, back into Kent, in which it been before then: [3]. Here we see phrasing from various members such as: "...with the absorption of Middlesex, the old L.C.C. and other areas, so that in the end there is a unit which is, in general, comprised of an almost totally built-up area within the conurbation", as well as: "[Signatories regarding Knockholt] would like to go out of the G.L.C. area and return to the County of Kent", and also: "...the two areas being transferred from Croydon to Surrey and from Bromley to Kent." These quotations and other phrasing in the discussion, make it clear that in the views of at least several different Members of Parliament, the 1965 Act caused Middlesex to cease to exist and for the boundaries of the counties of Kent and Surrey to have their boundaries reduced, such that Kent and Surrey have since 1965 cover separate areas from the London Borough of Bromley and the London Borough of Croydon. Indeed, the entire premise of the discussion is that it is about a parliamentary order to "transfer" a small number of particular areas/settlements back into the counties of Kent and Surrey from London. Therefore this discussion in parliament between a number of different MPs, supports the current Wikipedia guidelines/consensus that 'we do not take the view that historic counties still exist with their former boundaries'. Uakari (talk) 02:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@Acapital: From the first link you provided comes the following statements: "The Act did not specifically abolish historic counties, but they no longer exist for the purposes of the administration of local government" and "Section 216 of the 1972 Act also substituted the new counties...for counties of any other description for the purposes of commissions of the peace and the law relating to justices of the peace, magistrates’ courts, the custos rotulorum, lieutenants, sheriffs and connected matters." (my emphasis). Those two statements cover most, if not all, the aspects of what most of us would consider to define a county, both administrative and ceremonial. The whole tenor of that document seems to me to be that, while the historic counties have no ongoing existence in any practical sense, the government acknowledges that they have cultural and emotional attachments for some people and permits them to be celebrated, used for promotional purposes and their boundaries marked if local authorities wish to do so. None of it really supports your contention, however, that the historic counties have ongoing legal or administrative status and should be referred to in the present tense. Our purpose should be to provide the uninitiated reader with a simple explanation of administrative status. Historic counties are relevant in a historical context, but it seems to me that suggesting that a particular place is somehow in two different counties at the same time (despite one having no current legal status) doesn't help people's understanding. For all practical purposes, Abingdon used to be in Berkshire but is now in Oxfordshire – suggesting that it's somehow still in both is just confusing and unhelpful. Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:56, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@Dave.Dunford: Please be careful not to put words in my mouth. I did not assert that historic counties have ongoing administrative purposes. They don't, and that was in the Local Government Acts of the 1970s. Counties in all definitions are not necessarily just areas with a council. I do not disagree that administrative counties are a different thing altogether to historic counties, and for that matter ceremonial counties. They are all different things. And the references I included above show that the government makes this distinction too. Historic counties continue to exist, even if not for administrative purposes. They were never abolished. I agree with you, most people may consider a county to be defined as such but as you say, it is in terms of "administrative and ceremonial". Historic counties are different, they don't change. Also, many people may also consider a county to be a geographical definition, not constrained by ever changing administrative and law enforcement purposes, for example the purposes that you have listed above. I agree with your interpretation of the references, that historic counties form cultural attachments to the people. Historic counties can continue to exist for this purpose, as well as geographically defining areas. They were never abolished. Acapital (talk) 14:42, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Whether or not they technically exist or not is largely irrelevant in my view. I'm much more interested in common usage and not confusing the heck out of readers. Parts of Bromley, for example, are postally in Kent still. That doesn't mean that our article on the borough should say that it is in Kent and is in London and is in Greater London. All in the first sentence. That's confusing and misleading. It's in London - Bromley council tell us all about it on a page buried deep in their website - not in the first sentence of their homepage.
Unfortunately it seems that it's much more important for people to be technically right rather than to think about writing articles which are clear to readers. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks @Blue Square Thing: you said what I meant to say, much more succinctly. And apologies, @Acapital:, for misrepresenting you. My use of "ongoing legal or administrative status" was my clumsy attempt to imply "reality as experienced by most inhabitants", as distinct from the cultural/emotional attachments that some traditionalists feel...but without using those loaded terms. Even accepting your argument that the historical counties still technically "exist" (if we interpret "not formally abolished" extremely literally), I still think it's an extrapolation to claim therefore that Bromley is still in Kent, or Abingdon in Berkshire. I lived in the latter, and the vast majority of Abingdonians, if asked what county their town is in, will either just say "Oxfordshire" or they might qualify it as "Oxfordshire...but it used to be in Berkshire". They might be technically incorrect in that latter wording (if one is being extremely strict about the technicalities), but it's just not helpful to the reader to plunge them into this minute level of detail in the lead. But this is revisiting earlier arguments. Dave.Dunford (talk) 16:13, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Whether or not historic counties exist is vitally important to this debate. This is supposed to be a factually correct website and we cannot just use so-called “common usage” terminology (if it’s even possible to label it as such), if the fact is that historic counties still exist. In the traditional county of Lancashire for example, many inhabitants still use historic county boundaries; and in my experience of living in part of Berkshire, a lot of people still use historic counties, saying Didcot, Wantage and Abingdon are in Berkshire. Therefore @Dave.Dunford:, as everyone will have different personal experiences of what classification of county people use in public, we at Wikipedia can only use factually correct information. Historic counties exist as separate entities to administrative counties, hence this website should clearly define this. Acapital (talk) 16:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a collection of all human knowledge and opinion – see WP:NOT including WP:SOAP and WP:INDISCRIMINATE – and what it does present is marshalled by editors, often with judicious phrasing. If historic counties existed but don't anymore, we might still choose to mention them in an aprropriate way. If historic counties still exist in memory or consciousness without being operational, we might still choose to mention them in an appropriate way. Part of that appropriate way is outlined in the current guidelines, which do not take a view on the existence of historic counties, but do say whereabouts in the lead they should be mentioned. Those guidelines are being ignored by some editors. NebY (talk) 17:10, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
In an article about the idea of an historic county we might get into the technical stuff - the stuff backed up by "ah, but if you read..." arguments. That's fine in that context. In our articles about places, however, we really need to keep it simple. "Bromley is in London. It used to be in Kent. If you want to know more about the arcane nature of this follow this link and read all about it". Anything else ends up making our articles confusing. Think about the audience. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Does this idea have any traction? We agree not to mention the historic county in the lead; we do have an historic county field in the infobox; we endeavor to improve the history or governance sections. This would remove the need for past or present tense except in the article body where it is far less relevant because a fuller explanation can occur. It would cater for the problem of the HC being more relevant in certain places than in others (eg Bromley v Chelsea), because that can be dealt with in the body of the article. This idea is very simple and I think would satisfy most parties in this debate. There are precedents for this sort of compromise that do seem to work. Trying to argue whether or not the true name of that city and county in Northern Ireland is Derry or Londonberry is a fool's errand, but it does not matter because for the sake of practicality, it is agreed, without taking sides, that the city is referred to as Derry and the county as Londonderry. A similar compromise is taken with the spelling of Montreal. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that something that's quite complex at times is suited to the infobox. There's no room for nuance or explanation there and as it's been shown that there are examples where the history of county boundaries is complex I'm really not sure that part is a good idea at all. The other elements have more mileage. Blue Square Thing (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
User talk:Roger 8 Roger If you discuss the historic county in the 'history' section, you still have to use a tense to discuss it, and using the present tense does imply that a particular area is still within a historic county and that historic counties 'still exist with the their former boundaries', thus going against the existing guidelines/consensus that this discussion has self-evidently not reached consensus to change. There is no way round that that I can think of - can you? Similarly, discussing the historic county more in some settlement articles than others introduces POV for the reasons I and others have repeatedly mentioned. I can't think of any way round that either. Why not focus on giving all settlements (in London at least) a well-sourced discussion of the historic county in the 'history' section? Uakari (talk) 00:45, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm not sure that there's a POV argument here really - in some places there have been multiple boundary changes, in other places it's more or less relevant due to other factors, in some places we might be talking about a change prior to the 1880s, which introduces a different set of considerations. And ultimately we're sort of dependent on people actually writing articles. For example, Bradwell, Norfolk needs someone to come along and work on the article. I might get there one day, but I doubt it. There are thousands of articles like that.
In terms of the language to use, people have suggested above that "phrases to avoid" might be better to focus on, although it might be useful to have some alternatives available. So I would avoid "X is in the historic county of Y" - too present tense for me - but I might be OK with something along the lines of "X is within the boundaries of the historic county of Y". Perhaps. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:05, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
We might never get agreement here on the legal status of the historic counties, and if it is a question of expressing de jure versus de facto in any article I will sit this one out. I will not be the one to tell a Yorkshireman that his county is a fantasy even so!
I can say that in Wales, popular usage is mixed. The traditional counties are used, though not universally. In officialdom, they are a recognised data entity in some contexts, so that Cadw (in Coflein) includes them in its data, as "old county". In highways terms and other government contexts it is "historic county"
The Royal Mail data file has them too.
My concern is not arguments about de jure versus de facto but the need to identify the historic counties in contexts of living heritage, whether or not the people in those counties take that as an "is" or a "was".
LG02 (talk) 06:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I had considered the problem that even within the article body we would still face the is/was problem, even if it would be less stark than in a one sentence mention in the lead because it would be in context and part of a wider description. I quite like the idea of 'phrases to avoid' or 'phrases to use'. I could live with 'X is within the historic boundaries of Y' but I turn queasy at the very sight of 'Historically, X is/was in Y'. A short list of uncontentious phrases would be easy to draw up. Require a lot of work to add or improve the governance sections of thousands of existing place articles? Yes, but what is wrong with that? Until that is done, all an article would have relating to historic counties is a possible use of an infobox field and nothing in the lead and possibly some poorly written out of context two liner in the history section that would need to be improved anyway. I realise we have just gone through a lengthy discussion about the infobox, but that was mainly about the way in which the RfC was handled. We would then have to resurrect that topic to get the HC field put back. I have no doubt there would be some who would object whatever, bringing up the 'lack of defined boundaries' argument. Seeing as the point of inserting the field would, this time, be primarily for compromise in order to move forward, and not to make the point that HCs do or do not exist as defined extant units, I'd hope the debate would be less contentious than it might otherwise be. Factual accuracy is not the main point of using that field, any more than factual accuracy is critical about whether to call the NI city Derry or Londonderry. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:21, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
It seems arbitrary to stop at Historic Counties, I think it is vital that we have Early Medieval and Roman references in the lead. How about we open with something like "Bethnal Green is a suburban domicile in East London, within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the ancient county of Essex, the Kingdom of The East Saxxons and Camulodunum, as part of the ceremonial county of Great London, a rural village near a mile from the old gates of Londinium, that formed the sheep grazing area of the ancient Parish of Stepney." I just want to make sure we are getting in everyone's point-of-view. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 09:27, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
The only thing I will accept is the original true Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, all referenced in Old English. Nothing else can be used. All Hail Æthelstan. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 10:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Wes þu Jonnyspeed20 hal. I know it was meant to be humorous, but your comment shows up an aspect of historic counties which emphasises the heritage embedded in them: the counties of England are Anglo-Saxon, predating England itself. Every one of their names (apart from Lancashire) appears in Old English, and the earliest counties of Scotland are listed not long after. Hogweard (talk) 16:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree that some recommended phrasing and phrasing to avoid would be useful. On the other hand, it's quite disproportionate to compare this disagreement to the Troubles in Northern Ireland and also confers an equivalence that does not exist. There's a better analogy for adding historic counties to infoboxes and it's inspired by the founder of the Association of British Counties, astrologer Russell Grant.
Suppose after a long attack from the Association of Believers, we added a Starsign field to {{Infobox person}}. At first glance it would seem straightforward, but then we'd have to contend with disputes about which zodiac to use (modern western equal-divisions starting from equinox? precessed and constellation-based? etc), whether to use it for non-believers, what to do about people born on the cusp, whether determining starsign from date and maybe time is WP:OR or WP:CALC and are Julian/Georgian calendar shifts properly allowed for, and more. We're going to need lots of referencing, which is usually avoided in infoboxes. But it's worse than that.
Including starsigns communicates, to readers and editors too, that Wikipedia regards starsigns as substantive, factual, meaningful and so significant as to rank among the most important facts about a person. This implicit statement might be welcome to some but to many would entirely misrepresent the standing of astrology, and it would be fairly argued that Wikipedia should not make such an endorsement. On the other hand, given the precedent, the Association of Modern Believers would argue that infoboxes should also and more pertinently include Myers-Briggs types, and likewise we'd have Russell Grant's other fanbase arguing that settlement infoboxes should include superseded counties. I'm sure you see the problem. NebY (talk) 18:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
My family can be reliably traced back to 12th Century settlements in Essex; all of which are called 'historic' because of their long history and remaining old buildings.
I understand the pride, joy and feeling of place that heritage brings. Editing towns in East London to say they are still in Essex gets the same reaction every time; a visceral, strong objection and revert. And not just from me.
The campaign to make historic counties the de facto reference failed in 2018 and continues to fail to get support beyond a group of conservatives, all of whom I suspect are members of The Association of British Counties et al. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 21:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Jonnyspeed20, If you are referring to the 'campaign' I think you are, the 2018 suggestion to alter the current position on counties did not attempt to make historic counties the de facto reference. Your earlier suggestion that we might just as well add the kingdom of the East Saxons to the lead for Bethnel Green would be quite currect, but only if that fact were of significant importance enough to Bethnel Green today to warrent inclusion in the lead, which it is not. A better example would be a place like Upminster where the distinction between important and irrelevant is less clear. The visceral objections you so casually dismiss are in fact evidence of the current relevance of historic counties to innumerable settlements throughout the British Isles. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

  • Cool story, bro Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 07:37, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment - completely new to this debate, and I haven't read much of it so far, but my two-pence-worth would be that historic counties are important, and that they should be stated very near the top of the article. As much as we now have a nice consistent hierarchy of counties/districts/unitaries within ceremonial county structures, the historical counties and people's affiliations to them have not gone away. This applies especially to areas of the metropolitan boroughs historically in the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire etc, and areas of Greater London once in Kent, but also to more rural areas such as Westmoreland. I just looked at the lead of Bolton, and found it reads "Bolton (/ˈbɒltən/ ⓘ, locally /ˈboʊtən/)[4] is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, historically and traditionally a part of Lancashire." This is exactly how I would support representing such things, and it suggests to me that the status quo is correct. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
    It looks as if that is where we are getting to. If then we put the information, in particular where it is an important part of identity or heritage, in the top section and avoid 'is' and 'was' if we can, we seem to have satisfied all sides. That also suggests putting the historic county in the infobox, but being careful to ensure it is not in a section with details on current administration. Hogweard (talk) 12:58, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
    'Proposal: The opening of the lead focused the current administrative borough / county with adjacent places, relevant distances etc. This can include a historic county, if there is a specific reason (supported by citation) such as Bromley or Southend-On-Sea. The lead then has a 'historic' paragraph that flows from parish and hundred to historic county, including Anglo-Saxon counties where it helps tell a strong narrative. The lead then has 1-2 paragraphs on notable features, events, people etc. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 07:48, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
    Jonnyspeed, I think that would be too bitty making it too prone to edit wars and confusion. I am starting to return to my very first thoughts on this endless debate, namely that historic counties can be mentioned properly in the history section, and mentioned briefly in the lead as and when appropriate. That means present tense, in the lead for places like Oldham and Bexleyheath, but not for places like Chelsea or Maidstone. (Maidstone would mention Kent in the lead but it would be the administrative county, meaning there is no relevance to having the HC mentioned, unlike with Bexleyheath - or possibly somewhere like Bournemouth). Even though there should be no need to add a citation in the lead, which summerises the cited text below, I have added a citation to the Bromley article which I hope stops the endless debate - The admin area comes first, ie Greater London, historic counties can also be used in the present, if they are relevant to the town. My summary of what the reference says is, 'This dual use is awkward but we did not cause the problem and because both GL(L) and Kent are in common use writers can use both London and/or Kent depending on the situation, but London/the admin area comes first. This reasoning applies all over GL and elsewhere in the UK. IMO this is sort of what the current guidelines say. The problem we have is the way the guidelines say the HC do not exist. I understand the technical thinking behind that statement, but the reality is that the HCs do most definitely exist in the minds, and actions of very many people, which means they are relevant in the present, meaning we should insert them in certain place name articles, in the present. The squabbling over whether the HCs have or have not been terminated is really irrelevant. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 11:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
    I continue to disagree strongly that historic county information has any more relevance in the lead for somewhere like Bromley than it does for somewhere like Chelsea. The citation you provided is simply that author's POV (it is not even a book written by a geographer or about geography), and any others sources that pick and choose which settlements somehow still 'count' as being in a historic county when this has nothing to do with their present administration will also ipso facto be POV. If you want to champion historic counties, you need to actually make the effort to do so for all settlements in the areas they covered, not just the ones that you feel have still an affinity to them and where you pick and choose POV low-quality sources to match this POV. Just like I am making and will continue to make the effort to restore all these articles (at least the London ones) to their former accurate and stable state. For a more neutral source, see the Hansard reference 3 listed below, where politicians across party lines actually discuss removing Knockholt from the London Borough of Bromley and back into the 'county of Kent', thus implying that the area covered by the London Borough of Bromley is not part of the county of Kent. I also continue to object strongly to the use of the present tense to describe the historic county, for the reasons I have repeatedly outlined. This discussion has not come to a consensus to change the existing consensus/guidelines that historic counties do not continue to 'exist with their former boundaries', so any sentence describing historic counties in the present tense and thus implying their present continuation, needs to be removed. If you actually make the effort to add a clause equivalent to the following in the lead of ALL the London neighbourhood articles, we might actually be getting somewhere rather than going round in circles: "[Historic counties of England|Historically] in the county of [Kent]/[Middlesex]/[Surrey],etc, Place X is...". This is already a compromise from actually having to use the past tense explicitly and from putting historic county information in the 'history' section only. Uakari (talk) 06:28, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
    Its not POV to mention historic counties in some articles and not others, nor is it POV to mention in the lead for the places it has greater relevance to. The complete omission in other articles may be the simple fact Wikipedia is incomplete, and not including it in the lead is an editorial decision to ignore trivialities. There is no reason to mention Derby's relationship to historic Derbyshire or Dover's to historic Kent. On the other side, there is a real need to mention Abingdon's relationship to Berksire in the lead - it was the county town, and that is a key fact about Abingdon.
    As an analogy it is not POV for Arsenal F.C. to mention the FA Cup in its lead, even though Brentford F.C. doesn't. Arsenal's cup record is an important fact, Brentford's isn't. Both mention full details further on in the article. We should not have a rule "never mention the FA cup in the lead of football clubs" nor should we "mention it the lead of all football clubs".
    I don't think a mature article will have a real issue with is/was tense issues in the body text; especially if we can develop a list of good and bad phrases. And if the historical county information (a broader concept than "historic county") is a key fact, it should be mentioned in the lead.
    I'm fairly relaxed about the infobox mentioning historical county information, provided it is not done in a source-based approach. This will cause disputes, like it did with units - better to use a date "The historic county displayed is the administrative county in XXXX". I am aware of NebY's point about trivialities, is historical information important enough to be recorded in the infobox? Is there any country that does mention comparable info?--217.32.153.151 (talk) 08:01, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
    If you want nice and easy. Brilliant examples are Manchester and Salford were in Lancashire prior to 1974 so that makes it important to mention the historic county of Lancashire. On the other hand it gets way too complicated as many will know with Leeds and Bradford because they are in West Yorkshire which was in the West Riding of Yorkshire in Yorkshire which is a historic county. Slough was in Buckinghamshire before becoming part of Berkshire which has since been dissolved and Slough is a metropolitan borough of its own. Same with Bristol a city and county then in Avon then a city and county again. And worse one to try is Grimsby which is in North Lincolnshire but was then in Humberside which was a county and the moved back to Lincolnshire. And Middlesbrough was in North Riding of Yorkshire before moving into Cleveland and then back into North Yorkshire that's nearly three counties. So question is do you complicate it or simplify it where possible with those which have switched county more then twice like Redcar Middlesbrough Stockton Hull Grimsby Peterborough etc? DragonofBatley (talk) 10:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
    And in the case of London, you have some people with an affinity with the historic county based on former postal counties, which are now obsolete but were only ever intended for Royal Mail use and were never aligned with the boundaries of historic counties, themselves having had multiple changes even in recent times such as switching Potters Bar from the Middlesex to Hertfordshire in 1965. Then separately you have people in all parts of London that joined London in 1965, who are old enough to remember their area being in the historic county so have an affinity because of that. Even for parts of London that joined in 1889, some people still have affinity with the historic county because of things like cricket clubs. So when an editor picks an article on a certain place or articles on a selection of places to include historic county information, it is much more likely to be as a result of POV rather than because Wikipedia is incomplete, just as Roger_8_Roger stated above he would include it for Bromley but not Chelsea, because from his POV he sees an affinity of former with Kent but not the latter with Middlesex.Uakari (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
    Every single place, including in London, should discuss historical county details in the body. The lead is a summary of the key facts. When the place has only ever been in one county, the lead clearly does not need to mention the historic county as a distinct data point. In other cases, like Abingdon, the historic county is clearly a key point. This means a black and white "always mention in lead" or "always exclude in lead" is a non-starter.
    Insisting on including the information in every article is a likely POV violation, as it may be giving undue weight to a minor data point. The same is true if we always exclude it. Using a rule-of-thumb as a starting point (like the postal geography for London), and then subjectively deciding which leads need to mention it is a sensible approach. The real POV problems are around how the historic county is described, not which articles discuss it.--217.32.153.151 (talk) 17:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
    We are in this mess because of an attempt to impose HCs on every article via the infobox. The infobox should contain only the most essential info about a place: if you only have time to read one thing, the infobox will give you the key information. Likewise the WP: LEAD has the most important points from the article. For Abingdon, the HC is such: for Bromley and Birkenhead, it is not. For Peterborough, the Sole of Peterborough is important: its attachment to Northamptonshire is body detail. Indeed for almost everywhere, if the HC wants mentioning at all, it is body detail: anything more is WP:undue. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't agree with putting HC's in the lead, purely because of the confusion it can cause to readers. Any information about past counties/districts/parishes/Hundreds etc should be in the body. Also the supposed historic counties were never as stable as their advocates would have us beleive. What about places like Coventry which is generally historically associated with Warwickshire, but was a county in itself for centuries? G-13114 (talk) 18:03, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Not including HCs in the lead would be more confusing. Historic counties are still widely used as geographical references, with confusion stemming from the multiple sets of "counties". Including the historic county in the lead, alongside current lieutenancy area (ceremonial county, with this as the primary mention) and metropolitan/non-metropolitan county if applicable would make a location's relation to each county clear. Describing Bromley (a town in Greater London often still described as being "in Kent") as being a town in south London, in the ceremonial county of Greater London and the historic county of Kent, makes it clear that Bromley is within traditional Kent, but within the area of the Greater London Authority and not Kent County Council, and also in south London. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 18:13, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Describing Bromley (a town in Greater London often still described as being "in Kent") as being a town in south London, in the ceremonial county of Greater London and the historic county of Kent, makes it clear that Bromley is within traditional Kent, but within the area of the Greater London Authority and not Kent County Council, and also in south London. .....I think that word salad has just proven my point about confusing readers! Also why should wikipedia endorse the view that "historic counties" (whichever version) are still in existence and/or relevant? G-13114 (talk) 23:08, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Agreed. Including all relevant and pertinent information in the lead and Infobox surely reduces confusion, even if the situation is a little complex for a newcomer. There will be people who know Bromley as in Kent, without knowing the other details, and we need to include that info for their identification. These aren't just defunct and bygone details, they remain an active part of the culture.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:36, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
In some places, possibly they are. Manchester and Lancashire, for example. In other examples, they're almost unknown of locally - no one considers Gorleston is in Suffolk these days. Literally no one. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:55, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
There's also the issue that the historic county is not a simple, single, alternative to the "current"; and pretending it does ignores the complexity that exists because the borders varied with time. For most places, like Manchester, that isn't a big deal. Its important for clarity to present the historical information separately to administrative, and make clear these are distinct entities, That complexity is a real problem with infobox inclusion.--217.32.153.151 (talk) 04:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
How many more times does it have to be said that the idea of historic counties persisting with their former is a POV that is not supported by the vast majority of sources that clearly place somewhere like Bromley inside London and outside Kent, even as far as to discuss removing an area from the London Borough orough of Bromley and returning it to Kent, as per the Hansard source ref 3 below. A few editors are asking people to accept a logical fallacy that a concept like 'traditional Kent' can continue to exist as some kind of lasting imprint over the land without being reflected in any form of present administration of that land whatsoever. This is why we are not going to get anywhere, because other editors know that somewhere being in Kent and London at the same time is a contradiction. The sources we provide that show an area being located inside London and outside Kent will never be good enough for some editors, because they will say the sources have not specifically spoken about abolishing the historic county, and then come up with an obscure source (such as the one about creative writing) where a particular author happens to support their POV. The reason that the sources that place Bromley in London and not in Kent do not specifically discuss historic county abolition is because this was an effect of legislation changing administration, so the fact that area is no longer within a historic county is completely implicit in discussions about and maps of its administration. So these editors will always be able to claim a continued existence of historic counties based on a few arbitrary sources, because they are the only ones that still explicitly discuss them at all. That does not mean these sources are any less POV or that sources that don't discuss historic counties cannot be used to show that these no longer exist with their former boundaries. As for another user's suggestion of using 'postal geography' (not a term that actually exists as former postal counties were never intended to be geographic reference points), this is even more POV, as former postal counties were discontinued in 1996 and never matched up with the boundaries of historic counties anyway. Eg multiple changes to the LONDON post town since it was created for addresses across multiple historic counties and then dramatically reduced in size - Bromley/Romford/Kingston addresses were previously in the LONDON post town - and it still extends into addresses in present-day Essex never mind extending far into various counties before 1965; addresses switching former postal counties like Potters Bar; or places that were in one historic county but their address has a post-town in a former postal county of a different name. This would be even more of a minefield and end up being entirely based on a particular editor's personal POV. As for what (a likely minority) of people think they 'know', that's not exactly any kind of standard of veracity or verifiability. What is the 'culture' that makes Bromley Kentish and is the 'culture' of Potters Bar more Hertfordshireish or Middlesexian? This is simply clutching at straws. What I find it hard to understand, is that those championing historic counties could choose to spend their time exploring them in great detail in the history section of ever settlement article, which would actually cause a lot more people to be interested in them than trying to drum home the logical fallacy of their continued existence. It's as if they don't actually care about this history at all; they just have a bee in their bonnet and care about winning this one argument. I even suggested writing something like "[Historic counties of England|Historically] in [Kent]" consistently across settlement articles, thus avoiding tense altogether and requiring minimal effort, but that is seemingly not accepted by these editors either. Uakari (talk) 22:11, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Comments on various points raised above: I'm no expert and I may be being picky, but I think there never has been a postal county for a particular place. Reference to a county pre-1996 was to the county in which the area postal town was, not the settlemnet itself. Therefore 'Bexleyheath, Kent' on an address meant that Kent referred to Dartford (DA), the postal town, which is 'fully' in Kent. I too am baffled by the constant claim that "Orpington is in (Greater) London and the historic county of Kent' is in any way confusing to anyone. I sometimes find it hard to assume that that assertion was originally used as distraction by someone who had a POV and that it has stuck in our minds ever since. Next, to compare the notablity connection to their respective historic counties of places like Chelsea and Bromley/Sidcup, as no different and based solely on a POV is, quite frankly, bewildering. Go to Bromley, pick up a copy of the Kentish Times, and have a look through to find plenty of connections. (note - the 'Kentish' Times [4]). Moving forward, Are we narrowing this down to the level of connection a place has to its historic county? If so, there seems to be the first hints of a consensus developing. We seem to agree that the way HCs are handled in the body is inadequate. A case is made that to have a HC field in the infobox is not balanced and would give equal, thus not balanced, weight to Chelsea-Middlesex and Orpington-Kent. HCs can be mentioned in the lead but only if the connection is notable enough (how if and when to do this can be arranged by discussion in another section). If this is all true then we are sort of back to the guidelines we currently have. IMO, the big difference and cause of endless arguements is the way the current guidelines are worded and interpreted, something we can and should have amended. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:31, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't know where you're getting the idea of any consensus that individual editors should choose which places that think have more of a connection with a historic county. That's certainly not the impression I have from reading the totality of this discussion. Just because a large number of editors have already made their points that historic counties no longer exist and shouldn't be mentioned as if they do, and shouldn't be mentioned for some areas and not others, doesn't mean they now agree with you because they've said their piece. It simply means they have nothing more to say and don't see any point continuing to discuss, because endless discussion with a person or people who believe something that is false so strongly is ultimately fruitless. I certainly don't think there's anything generally wrong with the present guidelines, except they should be expanded on and made more explicit - I have suggested how this could be done in my first post in this section. Again, something being 'bewildering' to you is your POV, but objectively Bromley has no more tangible connection to Kent than Chelsea does to Middlesex. Never mind the fact that both are equally in London boroughs,the London region and the ceremonial county of Greater London, which is all that is needed to render a statement that either is still within a historic county false, and that they are equally under the authority of the Mayor and the GLA. Both share London buses and bus stops, Transport for London, London police, ambulance, fire brigade, London low emission zone, London fare zones, Bromley and Chelsea went into Covid tier 2 when Kent went into tier 3, etc etc, etc..tell me exactly what tangible thing about Bromley is actually Kentish any more than something about Chelsea is Middlesexian (cricket clubs are Kent and Middlesex respectively so it's not that)? There's no point appealing to some kind of supposed common knowledge if this supposed common knowledge is not only false but is based on zero concrete examples. Why are you so against the idea of adding historic counties to all London settlement articles? I thought you were passionate about them? Is it because you think you will meet more resistance in some articles than others based on individual editors' POV? You never actually spell out what you want to see; you just tell us that the way we're doing things is wrong or that any suggestions like mine to say for Chelsea and Bromley: "Historically in Middlesex/Kent" is not good enough. So what can anyone say to appease you and why should we even try any more? And BTW, the post-town assigned to Bromley is BROMLEY, similar for a lot of other places in London that are also post-towns. BEXLEYHEATH is also a post-town (the first letters of the postcode don't actually mean that the post-town for those addresses is DARTFORD. This is because the postal system is a mess and certainly not based on any kind of geography, either current or historical. Uakari (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
The connection between the population of a place and its historic county is not solely due to postal counties (which plenty of people aren't even aware were abolished). There are innumerable places within the LONDON post town (which never had a postal county) that are still widely referred to as being "in" Essex, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey. The LONDON post town in its current shape predates Greater London by almost a century. It dates back to when there were no administrative areas named "counties" from which to distinguish the traditional/historic counties, and the entire area of what is now Greater London was by all means within Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey. The historic counties are part of the fabric of London, and the association the population has with them has not disappeared, especially in suburban areas, and even in some inner-city areas (e.g. Middlesex and Essex have long been associated with "East End" identity, and the historic counties continue to be used across Greater London for sporting purposes, for instance). Like Roger 8 Roger, I fail to see why you feel describing an area as being "in the historic county of" alongside being in the ceremonial county of Greater London is inappropriate. It is a well-known fact that the historic counties are no longer used as administrative boundaries for local councils, but they continue to be used as geographical references. As Amakuru said, it is important to have the historic county listed alongside current lieutenancy area, as people continue to attribute places to both, and there will be many readers who might only use the historic county to describe an area's location. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 02:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
So you seem to differ from Roger_8_Roger in thinking that historic counties are as relevant to somewhere like Chelsea as to somewhere like Walthamstow as to somewhere like Bromley? Doesn't that underline the point that this 'relevance' is entirely based in the POV of the individual rather than objective reality? I and others have already made our position on tenses very clear that using the present tense is a way of implying the continued existence of the historic county 'with its former boundaries', because it implies that an affected settlement (such as anywhere in a London borough) is still within the historic county. This is not only false, but more importantly is not supported by the majority of sources and goes against the guidelines that have not been overturned. I even suggested "[Historically|historic counties of England] in [Kent]" without any tense usage, but even that doesn't seem to be accepted by the editors who feel passionate about historic counties. Even if it were true that the majority of people only think of a particular place as being in a historic county and not where it actually is (which I highly doubt is the case for any of the London settlements), Wikipedia is not here to reflect what a majority of people might think. We are supposed to provide a neutral point of view based on reliable sources (verifiability). The majority of such sources do not place the affected settlements in historic counties, and some explicitly discuss removing settlements from London and back into 'the county of Kent' etc, such as the Hansard source below. I imagine you'll say that that's because historic counties aren't used for administration so the sources are somehow discussing a different concept and that they don't actually explicitly state that HCs no longer exist, and then I'll be back to asking you what exactly HCs are used for and how they can persist in any meaningful way if not for administration, and what's actually 'Kentish' about Bromley as as opposed to 'Londonish', and then we'll be back to individual POV. So the discussion will continue to go round in circles. This is the problem when people hold to beliefs that are based on feelings rather than facts, because they can always find some sources that will superficially support their POV, while insisting that those that don't support it don't actually outright contradict it, they're just somehow discussing a different concept. It's a bit like saying that Wikipedia should take the view that ghosts exist, because some people believe in them and say they can see them, some sources say they exist, and we're not actually disproving the continuation of consciousness by finding sources that discuss brain death or bodily decomposition, and we should still mention that ghosts exist because none of those sources explicitly state that they don't. Of course it's up to you if you want to take the view that there is a continued presence of ghostly consciousnesses or ghostly counties, but you can't demand that an encyclopedia also take your point of view. We are here to deal in tangible, verifiable facts only. I would actually consider the concept of ghosts to be outside the realm of facts (not falsifiable) rather than 'false' as such (whereas no one has provided a concrete definition of the concept of continued existence of historic counties with their former boundaries that is not tied to administration, so I can't see any way of logically describing their continued existence with their former boundaries as anything other than false, and therefore it is implicit in the majority of sources that they don't continue to exist with their former boundaries). But still I wouldn't expect Wikipedia then to take the view that ghosts exist and to discuss then as if they do. As for genealogists, they will hardly be unfamiliar with the concept of county boundaries changing over time, but genealogy is all the more reason to include the historic county info in the history section of all affected settlement articles rather than only some. Uakari (talk) 07:10, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, as for these so called "historic counties", they aren't used for any purposes of administration, they aren't used for ceremonial purposes like leiutenentcy, they aren't used for any statistical purposes, and they aren't used on any modern maps. In what way can they be said to still exist? As for the argument about local identity, this is nebulous at best. If you go to somewhere like Kingston upon Hull, I can tell you, that a fair few people will still say that they live in Humberside, even though the county of Humberside was abolished more than 20 years ago. So should wikipedia reflect their false notion of living in an extant entity called Humberside, even though it still forms part of their identity? G-13114 (talk) 14:41, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Strangely illogical reasoning based on assumptions. The assumption is that the person in Hull is talking about the defunct administrative unit, [5]. Humberside is also a geographical region. Uakari, your reasoning is no better, just a bit longer. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 15:03, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Uakari, you say "we are here to deal in tangible, verifiable facts only", but it seems to be a personal opinion of yours that the "effect" of the Acts of Parliament that made changes to ceremonial and administrative counties was to abolish the traditional/historic ones. You haven't explained how the effect of these Acts of Parliament supposedly abolished the historic counties. The government has continued to use the historic counties for a number of purposes since these administrative changes were made, and has clarified on a number of occasions that the historic counties were not abolished. Even if they had been abolished, the wording "is in the historic county of", in the present tense, would not be incorrect or misleading, as "historic county" refers to the definition of the counties according to historical traditions (i.e. the areas which served as lieutenancy areas and the sole definition of "the counties" before the Local Government Act 1888). Even if the Local Government Act 1888 did abolish the traditional/historic counties, the meaning of "historic county" would remain the same. The past-tense wording "was in the historic county of", which you have previously proposed, would imply that the traditional counties were distinguished from other definitions of the counties as being the "historic" ones before there were any other "counties" from which to distinguish them. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 17:16, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
@PlatinumClipper96: In response to the above reply, I couldn't have put it better myself! Totally agree with you, PlatinumClipper96 Acapital (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
@PlatinumClipper96 I think you are just being disruptive. This all started because you swept across East London deleing Boroughs and saying every place was still in Essex. Your recent edits on Wanstead show you can play nicely, following basic rules of having a 'historic' paragraph in the lead. Yet you keep arguing with @Uakari about administrative vs. historic counties, just as the thread is concluding with agreement. I am getting very tired of the completely unnecessary swirl and drama Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 20:46, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
@Jonnyspeed20: continuing to put my point of view across on a discussion in response to an opposing view is not "disruptive". It's discussion. I don't need you, somebody who has made multiple WP:PERSONALATTACKS on editors, taken it upon themselves to edit the very guidelines this discussion is about without consensus, and written their own set of guidelines on their user page, to tell me whether I can "play nicely" or not. Your description of my edits is inaccurate - I didn't "delete boroughs" from the lead, and I always mentioned the "historic county" alongside Greater London. By the way, may I ask why you have composed your own set of guidelines about the issues being discussed here on your user page? Would you not consider that behaviour disruptive? PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 14:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
THIS IS YOUR EDIT = Walthamstow (/ˈwɔːlθəmstoʊ/ or /ˈwɒlθəmstoʊ/) is a large town and former parish in east London, England, located in the historic county of Essex and the ceremonial county of Greater London. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
You can ask all you like, buddy. That is how I rock; read them or don't. I frankly don't give a funk Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 15:08, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Tho old counties have been superseded. Calling them "historic" is a nice touch, dignifying them like historic castles, but frankly, Middlesex is gone. Saying that somewhere "is" in Middlesex is a statement that Middlesex still exists and that's not a statement Wikipedia should be making, especially not if it's going to be backed by talk of Royal Mail's sorting network or what a newspaper still calls itself. So now I've got that of my chest, probably not persuading anyone,

Is it time we tried to move forward? There's a degree of consensus here that the settlement guidelines, in which the HC is not in the lead sentence (in a sea-of-blue word salad that might satisfy some editors but trips up the poor enquiring reader before they've reached their first full stop) but can appear in the lead with other historical aspects, do make sense. They've just been ignored to the point where some have thought they no longer apply.

This gives us room. We don't need a one-word solution crammed into the first sentence, and we do have some consensus that guide phrases would help. Here are a few quick possibilities to get the ball rolling.

  • Historically, Harrow was in the county of Middlesex.
  • Bromley used to be included in Kent.
  • Bromley is [still] sometimes described as being within Kent.
  • Harrow is within the boundaries of the historic county of Middlesex.
  • Bromley lies within the old boundaries of Kent.

I'm not suggesting any of these are particularly good. You can probably shoot them down, but could we instead try to do better? We very likely can. There's some experienced editors arguing articulately above; we should be able to manage a bit of wordsmithing. If for a day or so, we each add suggestions and inspire each other, we may find some phrases that read easily, mean what we want and don't mean what we don't want. NebY (talk) 21:04, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Why can't we just agree to keep the original historic Counties and if any were later formed or replaced add them in governance instead. Take Teesside for example. Part in North Yorkshire and part in County Durham. Both then moved into Cleveland (a county) then back to their original ceremonial counties? Saves confusion and repeating information DragonofBatley (talk) 20:55, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
The structure and grammar of the English language is generally not taught in any detail in English classes leading to many otherwise educated people being ignorant of some basic principals. It is not without reason that it is sometimes said the best way to learn about how a languages are constructed is to study a foreign language. Some of what I read here about the use of is/was appears to come from editors who are not particularly comfortable with the way the English works and so get themselves bogged down with the need to use 'was'. It is perfectly acceptable, in fact it can be grammatically correct, to use the present tense, if the context demands that, even for something that has actually been ended. I still have not had a satisfactory reply to the question of the meaning of 'Historic counties no longer exist with their former boundaries'. I think what some people mean is that, for example, the historic county of Yorkshire has ended and no longer exists, but the historic county of Lancashire has not ended but it has had its boundaries played around with over time and it has taken on new names over time so it is now better known as a ceremonial county - if anyone refers to the historic county of Lancashire what they mean is the ceremonial county of today, but as it was some time in the past. Because that time in the past is not specified, we cannot use the term historic county to refer to an clearly defined unit Uakari, PlatinumClipper has pointed out the most glaringly obvious flaw in your reasoning, the fact that you aare left with no other option in trying to prove 'the fact' that historic counties no longer exist, but to resort to saying that a particular piece of legislation 'implied' that the HCs were ended. It is almost laughable that you critise others for using made-up evidence when that is exactly what you are doing. In fact, you would need to develop this reasoning further if you were to look further into what happened in the lead up to the 1889 act - the administrative counties were created specifically to avoid touching the established counties. So, there is no imagination in the minds of those who assert that the HCs have never been changed: it is a fact, one that was confirmed by the 1889 act and by parliamentary debate at the time. I do sometimes wonder if there is a gaping divide between the two sides to this debate. In very general terms, this topic is an arts based topic which involves the acceptance of grey areas, ambiguities and impalpable concepts. Science based thinking abhors that lack of tangibility. Hence we have the total disregard for HCs being geographical units as well as, once, local government units. Sorry if this was starting to drift slightly off topic. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
You know, "I understand the principals (sic) of English better than you because I wasn't taught them in school but I did do a foreign language and I bet you did science" is one of the worst arguments from authority that I've ever seen. NebY (talk) 19:28, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Historic counties are important in a certain context. If using West Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and North Riding of Yorkshire then for places like "Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe, Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull, Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Kirkby, Kearsley, Keighley, Maghull, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs (Lancaster), Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge." "Brighouse, Bootle, Featherstone, Speke, Runcorn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Barrow, Morecambe, Macclesfield, Lytham St Annes, Clitheroe, Cleethorpes." "Pendlebury, Prestwich, Preston, York, Skipton, Scunthorpe, Scarborough-on-Sea, Chester, Chorley, Cheadle Hulme (could also be interpreted as the equally valid Cheadle, Hulme), Ormskirk, Accrington, Stanley, Leigh, Ossett, Otley, Ilkley Moor, Sheffield, Manchester, Castleford, Skem (Skelmersdale), Doncaster, Dewsbury, Halifax, Bingley, Bramhall." Then these places should have HC as they were mostly all subject to new counties and borough reforms from their historical counties. DragonofBatley (talk) 19:56, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Hull is in the Riding of East Yorkshire. What is so complex about that? HC is irrelevant. Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 22:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
User:PlatinumClipper96 I have already explained how the effect of the acts was to abolish historic counties (at least 'with their former boundaries') by virtue of changing the administration of various areas so as to remove them from their former county. Even the article on historic counties defines them as having been 'established for administration by the Normans'. By insisting that somewhere such as Bromley is still in the historic county of Kent, you are taking the POV that historic counties persist in some other tangible way other than for the purposes of administration, but you and those with same view have not actually described what way this is. So it's back to my ghosts analogy: You can't expect sources that discuss counties to make particular reference to historic counties not persisting with their former boundaries, when this is both implicit in the sources and not something that they feel is necessary to discuss, as it has no tangible meaning in terms of contemporary discussion of counties and their boundaries. You can't then use an odd source you might find that shares your POV, to insist that historic counties tangibly persist with their former boundaries, when those sources don't define this persistence in any way separate from administration either. I've already explained that for places still within a Ceremonial County with the same name as a historic county, it doesn't actually matter for the purposes of editing the articles whether we see that Ceremonial County as a continuation of the historic county or not. I don't agree that using 'was' implies anything other than that a place existed in a historic county before a certain time, but I also suggested: "[Historic counties of England|Historically] in [Kent]" to leave out tenses altogether. @Roger8Roger Please point me to where it is actually stated in the 1889 Act that historic counties will persist. I don't know exactly what you mean by 'criticising others for using made-up evidence', but I didn't say anyone was fabricating sources. I'm sorry that you find what I've written 'laughable'; you'll have to bear with those of us less fortunate than you in having not received your evidently superior arts-based education that taught the 'basic principals' [sic] of the English language. I can only imagine your instruction in homophones was particularly rigorous! Uakari (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Uakari, you wrote this: I have already explained how the effect of the acts was to abolish historic counties (at least 'with their former boundaries') by virtue of changing the administration of various areas so as to remove them from their former county. I really am in dispair. Can you not see what is stairing you in the face? You have confirmed that your own opinion is just that, personal opinion. To say that the effect of ABC is to create XYZ is original research. There are two ways you can turn this opinion into fact that can be used in WP. First, get several high quality sources to state that fact. That excludes all the low grade out of context snippits you can find from various media outlets and real estate agents. Please, find them, quote them at length and in context. Second, ask the High Court for an opinion on what the act, or acts, mean. However, Judicial Reviews ain't cheap. Next, It is illogical to state that HCs were created for the purpose of administration and that means their current purpose is for administration. These are two seperate and not necessarily connected statements of fact. By linking the two in such a way you are adding your own personal opinion. BTW, the article on HCs also says that over time the HC took on a cultural role, something you have omitted to mention. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:47, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The statement that historic counties do not still exist with their former boundaries is not 'original research'; it's implicit in any source that discusses current administrative boundaries, of which we all know there are thousands. But even if it were not implicit in these sources, not discussing historic counties as if they still existed with their former boundaries, and being consistent about how articles on settlements that were formerly in a particular historic county mention the historic county, is the only possible neutral point of view on this matter. Saying that historic counties have a consistent continued shared 'cultural role', and that that means that historic counties still exist, always ends up as POV: I've lived all over London in areas that I've no idea if you'd personally consider their former 'historic counties' to play a 'cultural role' in their identities, but for me and in my cultural environment, the 'cultural role' of the former historic county was always zero. Why is my POV about supposed 'cultural roles' less valid than yours, or that of a particular politician in 1888? Even if you mean that anyone at all (even if it were somehow a majority) that considers a historic county to have a continued 'cultural role' breathes life into its continued existence, how is this any different from someone insisting that their belief in religious deities or ghosts, and the undoubted (sub-)cultural role that those things play, is sufficient to render them objective facts that must be discussed as such in an encyclopedia? It's actually quite authoritarian to want to impose your own beliefs, not only in a shared consistent continued cultural significance of historic counties, but also that this supposed cultural significance is sufficient to render historic counties continuing objective facts that must be discussed as such in an encyclopedia. Uakari (talk) 01:41, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Uakari, a historic county is not the same as an administrative county, nor a ceremonial county. All three are different. It is not the case that for any county to possibly exist, it must have an administrative role. In fact, ceremonial counties have no administrative purpose, and are just for the purpose of Lieutenancies. Ceremonial counties do exist though! If you insist that counties only exist if they have an administrative purpose, does mean that Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Cheshire etc do not exist (as these areas are covered by unitary authorities, neither bearing the sole name of the county)? Secondly, I do agree with your statement, saying that there are sources stating the changes to ADMINISTRATIVE boundaries. However, these are administrative changes to the existing administrative counties (separate to historic counties). You haven’t provided us all with reputable sources (which, as you previously asked for, in turn have their own reputable citations) showing that historic counties were ever abolished and replaced with these new administrative counties. Administrative counties may have had their boundaries changed, indeed. But there are no references in legislation that show historic counties were ever abolished. Hence, your assertions that historic counties do not exist with their former boundaries can only be a personal point of view until proven otherwise with reputable citations. I think many other editors have already pointed out this flaw in your discussions so far. Acapital (talk) 02:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't want to repeat my points about sources again because I've covered this above. Just to say that ceremonial counties, or 'lieutenancy areas' as they defined in legislation, can be said to have an administrative role in the sense that the lord-lieutenant acts as the monarch's representative in the whole area and tangibly affects the whole area by performing the roles set out in the 'Present day' section of the Lord-lieutenant article. Uakari (talk) 18:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Once again, no references provided clearly showing legislative changes abolishing historic counties. Please do, if you could even supply and clearly reference one (well cited and reputable) source to support your viewpoint, I’m sure that would help us all. The fact is that, this reference doesn’t exist in official legislation, because historic counties were never abolished. And as already mentioned above, a county doesn’t have to have administration in order for it to exist. By definition, a county can have functions such as being geographical, administrational and also cultural. The current version of the lead in the Wikipedia page on Counties of England clearly states this too. Acapital (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Once again, we see this red herring. The administrative functions, the rights, duties, property and debts of the old counties were transferred to other bodies. The old counties were superseded. They didn't have to be legislatively "abolished" too; they simply had no functional existence in current law. NebY (talk) 16:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

We seem at least to be determining what are contentious and POV statements to be avoided. The earlier observations about wording in the opening paragraph or elsewhere were (as I read it) as close to a consensus as we ever find here, all wandering along the line that historic / traditional counties are important in heritage terms, although with the importance varying from town to town, which may affect where the information is put.

If that is sorted, users can apply the principles as best they can balance them.

Now we just need to get the '|historic county' field back into the infobox and we are sorted.

Hogweard (talk) 12:44, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Hogweard I don't know where you're getting the idea that this discussion has reached any kind of consensus to include the historic county inconsistently in the lead paragraph ('varying importance' ipso facto depends on one's personal POV, rather than a neutral POV). If you read the totality of this discussion I think you'll find that no such consensus has been reached. Further, it is also clear that no consensus has been reached to place historic county information in the infobox. Acapital, presumably you don't think that Roman provinces or Anglo-Saxon wapentakes/hundreds still exist, so how about we start from your finding a source (a leader's decree or legislation?) that explicitly abolishes these, and then we can work forward from there. If you cannot find a source showing that these have been abolished, we can only conclude that they still exist and the only logical solution will be to include this information in the lead in the present tense along with the historic county information. Uakari (talk) 15:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
A video that sums up this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/pnjzvv/map_men_english_counties_explained_jay_foreman/ Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 16:05, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
That's a selective reading of the discussion here. We haven't seen any clear proposals to change the current guidelines, which place mention of historic counties in the historic part of the lead, not the opening sentence and depending on how much text is required for the preceding items, often not the opening paragraph. We do not "need to get the '|historic county' field back into the infobox".
What's more, the above round-and-around discussion has driven some away - they've said their piece and moved on - and a wall-of-text deters participation. We're going to need a structured and advertised survey and discussion, in other words an RFC, to change or restate the guidelines and yes, change or restate the position on infoboxes. RFCs work better if differing participants can first workshop some easily distinguished proposals to present to it. Would you like to join in doing that? NebY (talk) 16:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
As NebY says, this discussion is long, and I have not read all of it. But I have seen arguments that if something is mentioned in the infobox then it must be discussed in the article, and that if something is mentioned in the article for one place then it must be mentioned in the articles for every place. I do not agree, because then the articles would be cluttered with routine information that could be explained once elsewhere. Consider Brexit, which some people feel strongly about. It is unnecessary for the articles about every place in Britain to say "In 1973 the hamlet became part of the European Economic Community, which became the European Union in 1993. The hamlet left the Union in 2020." (And it would be even worse if there were edit wars changing this to "The hamlet is part of the historic European Union.") JonH (talk) 23:03, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
The point about consistency was so as not to introduce personal POV into article based on an individual editor's subjective assessment of how much 'affinity' a particular settlement has with the county it was once part of. For example mentioning the historic county of Middlesex in the article about Enfield but not the article about Finchley, would likely be POV as both settlements were removed from Middlesex (and on the same date in 1965). Similarly, mentioning the former county in some London settlement articles but not the ones about Chelsea or Soho, would likely also be POV as they were removed from Middlesex only 76 years earlier, which is comparatively short time in the history of historic counties. Uakari (talk) 00:52, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I think we should focus on the point raised by NebY. It is beyond doubt that HCs were not and never have been formally abolished. They could however fail to exist by way of never being used, by becoming redundant, and should be described as being obsolete rather than abolished. That is exactly the way we deal with places like the Roman province of Britannia - we use the past tense and think of it in the past because it has long been obsolete, not because it was formally ended. That, Uakari, is why your reasoning does not hold water. Next, there is nothing wrong or illogical, or unworkable, about mentioning the HC of one place in the lead but not for others: it simply means we do what we should all do and apply the notability test. If the place's HC is notable it will be relected in RSSs taking weighting into account. Therefore Bromly would mention Kent but Chelsea would not mention Middlesex, in the lead. We could agree that if an HC is mentioned in the lead it must be referenced. If there is a dispute about the quality of the reference or weighting then we take it to talk, as is normal. Taking this approach would avoid mention of the HC for, say, a central Birmingham suburb, but would allow it for Bexleyheath. This approach would also deal with the obsolete question - for people in some places, their HC has become obsolete, but for people in other places it has not. So, inclusion in the lead would not be based on personal opinion but on sources and weighting. The only slight negative to this I can think of is that the lead should not need to have references because it summarises the body below, which has references. However, that rule is almost always ignored. To clarify a point raised by NebY, and as further proof that HCs were not formally abolished in 1889, historic counties did not lose all their functions and formal raisons d'etre in 1889 - there were a number of later legislative steps that tidied up the removal of functional purposes of the HCs. Incidentally, I recently heard a BBC World Service report of the new tennis star, Emma Raducanu. Bromley was mentioned twice in the news article, first as Bromley, London and second, as Bromley, Kent. Roger 8 Roger

That's how I read it, and what I meant by the apparent consensus I detected. Hogweard (talk) 22:01, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Bromley, London is ambiguous so mentioning the alleged historic county is an easily readable way of disambiguating which one is being referred to. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 07:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
You can't use sources to reliably determine whether one settlement has more of an affinity with its former historic county than another, while still accepting that both areas are no longer within their former historic counties. That's a POV nightmare. Bromley and Bromley-by-Bow are already adequately distinguished, as are Hayes, Hillingdon and Hayes, Bromley. Uakari (talk) 12:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
It's not about affinity, it's about weight; the lead is a summary of the article. If the body of an article is heavily laden with references to its historical county then it follows that the HC is mentioned in the lead. And if it isn't, it isn't. WaggersTALK 13:24, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Another one here, Roger 8 Roger - an ITV News article from today referring to Bromley exclusively as Kent in the headline itself and throughout the article. [6]. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 22:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Is that Kent, the postal county; or Kent-the-historic-county, or something else? The story doesn't say. The writer of the story may not know of any difference - to them, Kent is Kent and there's only one kind of Kent. Maybe they didn't look at a map to see where the Kent/Greater London boundary lies. Maybe they picked up the word "Kent" used by someone else. What I'm saying is that it's an extremely flaky source for Bromley being in Kent. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you Redrose for your observation. Maybe the writer is a retired lecturer on UK geography or an advisor to the relevant ministry on local govt issues? Your objections read like a pretty weak attempt to dismiss what is a perfectly acceptable source for common usage of where Bromley is. In fact, the arguements you put forward could, and I believe should, be used against the line taken by certain other editors who use various sources to back their claim that Bromley is not in Kent. Those other sources, whether they be academic works or local newspapers, should all be looked at very carefully because so often they appear to be used selectively or out of context. What cannot be dismissed, even though lots of people try to do that, is that in common usage, including in very many sources, such as this ITV article, Bromley is referred to as being in Kent. What the writer means by that is irrelevant: we are here to report what those sources say, not to twist them to suit our own opinions. That is too often overlooked here, where these endless discussions to often boil down to whether the HCs were or were not abolished. It does not matter, because all we have to devise a way of reporting what the sources say, not to dismiss those sources because we think they are wrong or they meant something else. The current guidelines are horribly based on personal opinion, not on the sources.. Further up in this particular sub-section there are some ideas about how to report the sources, not our own opinions (ping Uakari). Anyway, FWIW I think you have raised some good points. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article. WP:RSCONTEXT (bolding in original).
The article posted above about Bromley in Kent cannot just be dismissed as a mistake, if it doesn't agree with your point of view. It works both ways, as Roger 8 Roger says. All the articles and sources showing Bromley is not in Kent could also be written by people who do not know what a county is, or which type of county they are referring to. Here is another reference for Guidance on Celebrating the historic counties, also on the Government's own Gov.uk website. In a direct quote from this source, it clearly states the current existence of historic counties as completely separate from administrative counties: "The legislation that currently defines counties for the purposes of the administration of local government is set out in the Local Government Act 1972. That legislation abolished previous administrative counties (those established by the Local Government Act 1933). Section 216 of the 1972 Act also substituted the new counties (i.e. those established under the 1972 Act) for counties of any other description for the purposes of commissions of the peace and the law relating to justices of the peace, magistrates’ courts, the custos rotulorum, lieutenants, sheriffs and connected matters. The Act did not specifically abolish historic counties, but they no longer exist for the purposes of the administration of local government, although some historic county areas may be coterminous with non-metropolitan county areas established by the 1972 Act. When the 1972 Act came into effect, it was said of the new councils created: "They are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change."" [5] Acapital (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
The existence of one newspaper story saying "Bromley is in Kent" is pretty meaningless. A single story stating Bromley is in Essex would be rightly discounted as a simple error. To determine actual common usage, you need to look at all similar usage and gauge if its common or not. Its not a case of "Does any news article ever published use Kent to clarify the location of Bromley?" but "If a news article needs to clarify where Bromley is, how often will it use Kent?". It might be a freak one-in-a-million event, it might be somewhat regular, or every single time. Don't discount individual sources, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, but assess all such sources equally.
I feel this is somewhat irrelevant to the core of the discussion in any case. Should historic counties be mentioned in articles - yes, definitely. Should they be mentioned in the lead - if they have current relevance to the specific location, probably. Should they be mentioned in the same breath as the current admin units - no, they are distinct concepts and should be dealt with separately.--51.7.92.104 (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Proposal After extensive discussion, all the people that want to change the current guidelines need to set out the changes, so we will vote on their proposal Jonnyspeed20 (talk) Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 17:46, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

That will doubtless happen at some point but at the moment we are just throwing some ideas around. Many editors are not contributing to this subsection because I assume they are burnt out or have 'heard it all before'. When a change is proposed it will be done more constructively in line with the usual proceedure. Don't forget, we had a lengthy RfC only recently. My understanding of your position is that it is fixed and you see no need to change anything. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:14, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any ideas being thrown around, just a protracted conversation about Bromley that doesn't really have much to do with other UK places. If you'd like to discuss the Bromley article specifically please do that on that article's talk page. If there are some more general ideas up for discussion, then perhaps someone would be kind enough to make a succinct list of them. WaggersTALK 14:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Your comment about Bromley prompts me to observe that those advocating for the persistence of historic counties, or for more prominent mention of them, often advocate more strongly for certain areas (typically those they have an association with) and show less interest in others. Yorkshire/Lancashire and London/Kent are more keenly fought than, say, Berkshire/Oxfordshire. To me, that's suggestive that this concern is based more on emotion and fondness for tradition rather than anything empirical and concrete. That's not to dismiss the importance of emotional ties, but I find it telling. Dave.Dunford (talk) 18:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Excellent point DD, one with some truth I am sure and one I think we all need to be aware of. This use of certain areas might also be because some editors are more familiar with certain areas and also because the contradictions between HC and CC are more distinct. Waggers, any discussion is inevitably going to use certain places as examples. It is the principle and how suggestions would work in practice that is what is relevant, not just how they would work for Bromley. I agree that there is no list of suggestions here but if one looks back through there are ideas can could be put into a list structure. It is unfortunate that whenever this topic is raised discussions always have trouble staying on course. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:04, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
One thing I haven't found is a formal definition of a historic county, ie a definiton of the boundaries etcetera. Counties, historically, have changed their boundaries more than once even before the 20th century shake-ups. The current situation appears more redolant of John Major's old women on bicycles drinking warm beer. More harking back to a mythical golden age than any practical use. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 19:24, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
This discussion is not just about Bromley. The principles can, however, be applied everywhere where historic county boundaries do not match with the ceremonial or administrative counties. It doesn't matter is this is in Kent, Middlesex, Berkshire, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, etc. The comment above by Dave.Dunford about certain areas having their historic counties more keenly fought-for is simply a generalisation. The editors who have contributed to this discussion are by no means representative of the whole population. And just to say, when the administrative changes to the Berkshire/Oxfordshire administrative county border happened in the 1970's, there was a lot of opposition, and even a protest on the Uffington White Horse, one of Berkshire's most notable landmarks [6]. Berkshire's original county hall is in Abingdon, while the Thames still shapes the culture of both counties for which the river has been the county border for over 100 miles. Local ties remain in many areas to this day, as it does in many other places across the UK. Acapital (talk) 21:42, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
the Thames still shapes the culture of both counties for which the river has been the county border for over 100 miles. I lived in Abingdon for years and never heard anyone express any such sentiment. There was a certain pride in Abingdon's former status as Berkshire's county town, and certainly an awareness that the town used to be in Berkshire, but the notion that in 2021 Sutton Courtenay and Culham are still somehow in different counties would baffle a local, and a few contrarians holding a bonfire on Uffington White Horse in the 1970s doesn't change that. And what's so special about the boundaries of 1974 anyway? Derbyshire (where I live now) had boundary changes in 1889, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1901, 1903, 1929, 1934, 1936, 1965, 1967, 1974, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994. (Source: The Birds of Derbyshire, which I happen to have to hand and which conveniently lists them in detail as it affects bird recording.) Do we document every single minor tweak? Are these minor changes not also a matter of principle, of equal importance wherever they occur? The notion that the historic counties were immutable and that the changes in 1974 formed some sort of unique watershed moment is somewhat recentist and is contradicted by the historical fact, and the insistence that this particular snapshot must be preserved in the lead of every settlement article where the county has changed (and that the historic county boundaries of 1974 are unique and still exist in any meaningful sense) is a textbook example of WP:UNDUE. Historical counties are of interest and should be mentioned in articles where they differ from the present position (I actually support their inclusion in infoboxes), but they belong in history and simply aren't important or useful to the average reader who wants to find out about a place and where it "is" in 2021. To insist that Abingdon is (present tense) in Berkshire is verging in on a fringe belief. Dave.Dunford (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
That is not my experience with the locals in both Oxfordshire and Berkshire, having lived in the area as well. But that is another important point of this discussion, we cannot use individual point of views to write articles. Your experiences, Dave.Dunford, will be different to other peoples’. Hence we can only use facts. And the fact is that Abingdon is in the historic county of Berkshire. Because historic counties were never abolished, if you read further up the discussion there are references. And if you disagree with this, please by all means provide a well sourced and reliable reference, just as other editors have not been able to provide yet to show historic counties were abolished in legislation. Your point about Derbyshire is a non-starter. In fact, you’ve actually just backed up what has been said already further up in this discussion, from other editors. 1889 saw the administrative counties formed, any amendments after this were to the administrative counties. That is true, what isn’t true is that historic counties ceased to exist after 1889. Hence, Manchester is in the historic county of Lancashire, just as Birmingham in Warwickshire, Abingdon in Berkshire, Bromley in Kent, Wantage in Berkshire, Enfield in Middlesex, etc Acapital (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
I recommend you move to your proposed changes to the guidelines, then we can vote on them. Thanks Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 06:25, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Would there be any traanction in proposing that we stop ussing the term 'abolished' regarding historic counties. Instead we refer to them using the terms redundent and/or obsolete. That is a more accurate way of describing what has happened and it will also remove the need for most of the disagreements. We would then argue if the HC of Kent has become redundent, on a weighting basis, in describing where Bromley is, or not redundent. Therefore diffderent places in the UK will refer to their HC on a case by case basis. That is what is happening in reality. Aston in Warwickshire-not important: Bromley in Kent - important. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 03:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

User:PlatinumClipper96 has resumed a campaign of moving London Boroughs from places in East London into the 3rd paragraph of the lead and replacing the first sentence with historic county of Essex and ceremonial county of Greater London. I view this as vandalism. It is also a gross misinterpretation of allowing HC in the lead. Question: does the average reader consider the current borough of higher importance than a HC?
Personally, those who wish to change the current guidelines should propose the change, so it can be voted on Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 17:40, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Wrong - my edit described Walthamstow as in the "ceremonial county of Greater London and the ancient county of Essex". I have not "grossly misinterpreted" the guidelines, which state that the historic county "should" be mentioned in the lead. Whether the historic counties were abolished or not, I fail to see why "is in the historic county of" alongside current ceremonial county as a primary description of the area's location would be inappropriate. You may view edits you disagree with as "vandalism", but Wikipedia does not - please see WP:VANDALISM. I would like to take this opportunity to make other editors, including Roger 8 Roger and Songofachilles aware of the new WP:PERSONALATTACKS you have made against them, along with myself, on my talk page. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Lead's first bulletpoint is
  • Name of settlement, type of settlement (e.g. suburb, town, city, civil parish), its present local government district / council area, present/ceremonial county (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), for the use of counties), and constituent country.
That does not include historic county, which occurs in the fifth bulletpoint, not "alongside current ceremonial county as a primary description of the area's location", as you have just put it. It is completely understandable that Jonnyspeed20 would call that a "gross misinterpretation". You have been given ample opportunity and repeated encouragement to propose changes to the guidelines and still not done so. NebY (talk) 18:38, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
The guidelines do not state that the information outlined in the bulletpoints should be mentioned in any particular order. The order of information in the lead varies across articles. You seem to believe the order of these bulletpoints is the exact order in which information should be stated in every article about UK settlements. I am not obliged to propose any changes to the guidelines, and I do not have an issue with the current WP:UKTOWNS guidelines. As for Jonnyspeed20, "gross misinterpretation" would be an exaggeration of the situation if I had misinterpreted the guidelines. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
User:PlatinumClipper96 Based on your contributions, you can suggest changes to the guidelines about use of Historic Counties, specifically in the lead of UK places This will allow other editors to support or oppose, so that the guidelines can be updated. Alternatively, you could initiate another formal RfC Jonnyspeed20 (talk) 19:18, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Again, Jonnyspeed20, I do not have an issue with the current WP:UKTOWNS guidelines, and do not wish to propose any changes at this time. PlatinumClipper96 (talk) 20:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Draft RFC ideas

It is time to stop this circular nonsense and get a consensus on guidelines that work properly. Whether it results in the same, different, or amended guidelines as currently there we still need to replace the current guidelines: a fresh start is needed. Please stay on track and do not veer off! We absolutely must keep this simple! Whatever happens there will need to be compromise of some sort. Here is an agenda to this discussion, based on ideas splattered around on different pages, including the section above.

  • 1/ We describe historic counties as never having been formally abolished but now having no official role although they have important cultural role in some locations.
  • 2/ We refer to historic counties for any given place as being is in but/was in/reduntant/obsolete/, or, is in on a case by case basis.
  • 3/ Ceremonial counties always come first in the lead. Historic counties can be mentioned in the lead but only case by case basis and below the ceremonial county in a seperate sentence.
  • 4/ The infobox field is reinstated but only used if the historic county is mentioned in the lead.
  • 5/ Whether the historic county is mentioned in the lead is based on a case by case discussion with consensus.
  • 6/ If an historic county is mentioned in the lead there must also be fuller mention of it in the history or local govt section.

This will overcome most of the problems we have. Case by case discussions extra work but they will better represent reality and can sometimes be done for a group of places. For example, places within Greater London that use an historic county address get the historic county mentioned in the lead..and therefore in the infobox..and therefore more thoroughly in the article body. Comments? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It is not obvious how that does anything to resolve the dispute.
1. sb "have no official status" and "a continuing cultural role for some people"
2. Was in only. The HCs are historic so past tense only.
3. HCs in body only unless exceptionally relevant, like Abingdon
4. Infobox is for the essentials of a location. HC, like the Saxon Hundred, is not key info. We have worn a trench in the floor we have been back and forth so many times on this one.
5 See 3. Why have same proposal twice?
6 See 3 again.
I really cannot see how these proposals have moved a millimetre (sorry, 1⁄32 of an inch to you) from your position two months ago. No sign of any attempt to provide a rigorous definition of a HC (such as the Ordnance Survey of 1888). No sign of a recognition that HCs are interesting curiosities with far less impact on modern geography than the Saxon Hundreds (which tended to follow natural features). Try again. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:42, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
@John Maynard Friedman: I think Roger 8 Roger is proposing we discuss what questions should be put to an RFC, not seeking responses to those questions. This sort of preliminary workshopping phase helps RFCs. If they don't have clear and well-formed questions that lead to significant results, discussion can go all over the place and achieve nothing. At this point, I'd like to join in formulating questions rather than answering them. 00:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I realise that. What I was trying to say (at nearly 01:00 BST, so maybe not coherently) is that the draft is no different to the one that R8R might have written two or three months ago so the outcome is entirely predictable: no consensus. I suggested rephrasing #1 and #2. #3 as written fails to recognise wp:LEAD: items in the lead should summarise major body content - a good clue is that it has a section in the body and there are very few settlements indeed where there is enough 'meat' for a meaningful body section. #4 had no consensus three months ago and is even less likely now when the cases of places with multiple HCs have been pointed out. #5 and #6 are premature, they depend critically on #3 being agreed. Finally, I believe strongly that a question #7 needs to be put: do we accept the HCT list of HCs or do we use the 1888 Ordnance Survey. Does that explain better? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:56, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
If needed to define the HC boundaries we could use OS 1888. The is/was problem would be significantly reduced because there would have to be a significant explanation of what has happened that will place things in context. This means if you want the lead to say Bromley is in HC Kent, there will need to be an full explanation in the body of what has happened re legislation and the why being in Kent is still relevant to the people there. Look, I think the 'was' side does not disputer that legislation has never formally abolished HCs, but that the are in the past because they serve no purpose. Is that correct? Therefore 'abolished' is technically incorrect whereas 'obsolete' is correct. Obsolete allows use of 'was' without removing the use of 'is' if the context demands the present tense. I can see clarifying my s3/s6 connection. Not relevant to the current time does not exclude mention in the body, I agree. We can simply amend the rule somehow. Ideas, instead of just saying no? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Roger 8 Roger: You beat me to it! I was running through some questions myself, along similar lines. I was contemplating fewer questions, and I would put your propositions in a different order, eg as below (but retaining your numbering). You may instead - it's not immediately obvious - have been contemplating putting the whole batch of 6 propositions as a single approve/disapprove question, but that would get us nowhere if the response was simply not to approve.
Lead/body questions
  • Q1: It would be useful to make the scope of this question clear. In our settlement (including disttrict, borough, city) articles, we often don't need to say whether HCs have been abolished, and I think we usually don't. Are you thinking of (alternatives to) phrasing like "Following the abolition of HC Shire, Town became ..." in an article about Town? (I'm using HC as an abbreviation for "the historic county of" in some of this.)
  • Q2: Can we do better than a case-by-case basis? I was considering an alternative question along the lines of
altQ2 (a) We can say Town is in HC Shire (b) We do not say T is in HC S, but can say "T is within the old boundaries of HC S" or "T was part of S" or .....
Lead questions
  • Q3 Yes, this is one of the main flashpoints. Quibble - let's not say "ceremonial counties always come first" unless we mean right at the start of the first sentence after the placename, rather than the current guideline's "Name of settlement, type of settlement (e.g. suburb, town, city, civil parish), its present local government district / council area, present/ceremonial county and constituent country.". Again, we might split it into options.
altQ3 (a) An HC can be mentioned in the first sentence, but only after name and type of settlement, present local government whatever and ceremonial county (b) An HC can only be mentioned in a separate sentence (c) an HC can only be mentioned in a separate sentence with other historical information, after basic geographical information (see current guidelines)
  • Q6 This does make for a useful question but again, I think better expressed as alternatives.
altQ6 (a) HC can only be mentioned in the lead if there's a fuller mention in the body, per WP:LEAD (b) an HC can be mentioned in the lead whether or not it's in the body.
  • Q5 I think we need to offer at least one meaningful alternative to case-by-case. As this question stands, an Oppose result would not be a clear outcome. The community would have decided it shouldn't be decided on a case-by-case basis, but not said what basis it should be decided on (and generally speaking, asking the community to come back and say what it does want doesn't end well).
altQ5 Even if an HC is mentioned in the body, whether it is mentioned in the lead should be (a) on a case-by-case consensus (b) according to some criteria (but what?) (c) only if it meets certain criteria and has consensus
Infobox question
Yes, a single RFC on mentioning HCs is the right time to settle this.
  • altQ4 In UK infoboxes, whether using {{Infobox UK place}}, {{Infobox settlement}} or any other some such (a) we include HC (b) we include HC only if also in lead (c) we include HC only if in lead or body (d) we do not include HC. (if a, b, or c approved, HC parameter added to {{Infobox UK place}}).
OK, it's late and this needs more work, but I wanted to keep this rolling and on focus to prepare an RFC. Looking at the above, I think any combination of responses to the above questions would be meaningful and viable. I am still worried that it's too many questions. NebY (talk) 01:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Credit and thanks to Roger 8 Roger for trying to turn the above shoutfest into something useful. Having multiple questions here feels like a positive to me, and it would be important to make sure that the structure of the RfC enables people to discuss them individually. One of the problems with the whole debate is that it is seen as "Historic counties - yes or no", which means we end up with a binary decision between accepting the (often rather imaginative) ABC narrative or burying centuries of history as deeply as possible, both of which are deeply unsatisfactory as outcomes in terms of WP's role as a useful source of information. This is a multi-dimensional issue, with some aspects where the sources we have to represent are extremely clear-cut, and some where they are extremely ambiguous or contradictory, where the situation is open to multiple legitimate interpretations and the best way to represent them is genuinely unclear. Breaking the issue down a bit might help us focus on the ambiguous areas and produce something that is useful useful to users.
Thoughts on the questions:
  • Q1) seems a sensible compromise as a starting point, but with the caveat that "except where they were explicitly abolished by legislation". I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution to be found here - eg the counties of Scotland were very clearly abolished in the 1973 act, Middlesex was fairly clearly abolished in the 1965 act, Yorkshire very clearly wasn't abolished in the 1972 act. It's a mess, but it's our job to represent that mess, not to impose a fictional tidiness on it (in either direction). Agree that the scope here should be clear, and that this should be about articles about these counties.
  • Q2 and a bit of Q3) There are two aspects about featuring HCs on settlement articles - firstly the tense (which we can probably coordinate with the answer to Q1), and secondly which county/counties are referred to for each settlement. To complicate matters further the two are related - arguing that whatever historic county Henbury is/was in wasn't abolished in 1974 and should be referred to in the present tense is one thing, arguing that that county should be Gloucestershire, when Henbury was explicitly detached from Gloucestershire "for all purposes" in 1904, is another entirely. I can't see many reasonable people objecting to the phrase "Leeds is in Yorkshire" featuring prominently in the Leeds article - it seems very obviously meaningful, true and important - "Newcastle-upon Tyne is in Northumberland" (when it hasn't officially been since 1400) is very different. My guess is that because of this dependency we need a set of options here (one of which should be including all historic counties for the settlement - so i can vote for it!).
  • Q3 + Q5) I suggest the proposal should be more bullish here. I think all settlement articles should mention historic counties in the lead except where the settlement has only ever been in one county. If the current county is significant enough for the first sentence then previous ones (abolished or otherwise) are significant enough for the first four paragraphs. They are a key part of any settlement's story. If we can reach a sensible compromise on Qs 1-3, I don't think we should have to compromise on this.
  • Q4) Although I am opposed to this it clearly needs to be part of the RfC. One of the lessons of the infobox shenanigans last time though is that a proposal that something should be in the infobox is of no value without specifying what it is that goes in the infobox and what it's called.
  • Q6) Seems almost impossible to disagree with, but would be a useful lever to redirect people who just want to pepper their view on historic counties everywhere towards adding useful, nuanced, sourced information instead.
I hope that's a constructive response to a constructive move. Do we need something about what "historic counties" actually are as well, for that article? If we can get away from the phrase representing a dogmatic model of "the 96 correct and eternal historic counties" towards a more nuanced model, I suspect a lot of people's dogmatic opposition to giving the subject prominence would disappear too. JimmyGuano (talk) 12:57, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
The discussion looks encouraging. I agree that the historic county should be in the Infobox as key information. May I request though, that it be in a section away from the lines about administration and public services, to ensure that there is no suggestion of the historic county being an administrative concept? LG02 (talk) 12:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Also in agreement that historic counties should be key information and stated in the Infobox. On the topic of Infoboxes, there should really be consistency on Wikipedia. However, many county pages currently show historic county flags in the Infobox, but show ceremonial county boundaries on the map and description. Acapital (talk) 19:58, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The problem with historic counties being key information is defining them. To paraphrase JimmyGuano, the dogmatic model of "the 96 correct and eternal historic counties" is the problem. While it doesn't make much difference to most places, nuance is needed. When Wikipedia says "the historic county of Xtown is Yshire", we should be referring to an actual historical relationship, not a modern creation of the ABC (or other pressure groups).
When it comes to the county articles such as Kent, that article covers all facets of Kent - including modern local government and historical facts. The ceremonial counties provide our primary description of the places (it reflects the actual common usage, not the idealistic goal of the ABC), so the article should primarily describe the ceremonial - acknowledging where this differs. It would be absurd to not show the flag of Kent in the article on Kent.--51.7.92.104 (talk) 22:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Exactly what you’ve just said, the county articles focus primarily on ceremonial counties. Whereas the flags officially registered with the UK Flag Institute are actually flags for historic counties, not ceremonial counties. [7]Acapital (talk) 00:48, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
The subject of the article is "Kent", not "the ceremonial county of Kent" - it covers ALL aspects of "Kent". A more extreme example: A seperate article on the historic Cornwall would be absurd, and not showing the flag there is equally bonkers.--51.7.92.104 (talk) 04:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
indeed but you’ve missed the point in my previous reply. If you look at the Kent page, the infobox states “ceremonial county” at the top, includes the historic county flag directly below it as if to show the flag is for the ceremonial county, and then goes onto display the ceremonial county map below which is technically correct because the ceremonial county map is under the title infobox of ceremonial county. The title of the infobox should be “ceremonial and historic county” if it were to show the historic county flag below. Acapital (talk) 09:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
The term “cherry picking” comes to mind to describe the current situation we are discussing. If the historic county flag is fine to be displayed in the infobox, then it is completely absurd that the historic county is not also included in the infobox along with it. If so, even the map of the historic county should be included there too. Acapital (talk) 09:26, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I thought that the Kent article refers to the ceremonial county and so references to the HC, including the flag, are out of place. However, the logical solution of having seperate articles for the different kents would be clumsy and overly precise. I like the idea that the article is actually referring to Kent in all its forms. If we make it clear that that is what the article is about then we would solve the problem just mentioned and the article would have a better flow. We would though have to change the guidelines elsewhere, where it says the county articles are referring to the ceremonial counties. There may also be problems with other county artcles where the HC and CC are named differently. (eg Sussex/West Sussex) What about a HC section within the CC aricle? That would keep it to just one article on Kent while still illustrating that they are different versions of Kent/Cornwall? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a very different discussion to rest of thread. IMO the articles on the counties are about the counties as a whole. Not about a specific type of county, which is an artificial distinction we do NOT need to make. The article Cornwall is about Cornwall and there is no need to discuss a distinct "historic county of Cornwall" as if its somehow wholly distinct. It isn't. In that case the boundary changes in that case are so minor, that its not really something the article should bother to discuss at all. That's different in other areas, the different boundaries of Oxfordshire clearly should be discussed.
Most of the article should be in general terms that equally apply to all definitions of the county. It is only strictly about the ceremonial unit when it has be: To discuss hard facts and figures that need precise definition (eg the largest town is X, the county's population is Y, here's a map of the districts).--51.7.92.104 (talk) 16:26, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I've just come back to this. I have lost track. If I have got it right, the general thought is that in town / village articles the historic county can be included, but if it is in the lead paragraphs its prominence will depend on how relevant it is, so since Truro is in the historic, local government and ceremonial counties called 'Cornwall' it is less relevant than for, for example Abingdon-on-Thames as Abingdon was the county town of Berkshire, or Croydon as it is described locally as 'Croydon, Surrey'. For Scotland and Northern Ireland, the historic county is in everyday use as an identifier, so it should be in the lead paragraph.
For an article on a county, the article may cover all entities which bear that name, so a Northumberland which both excludes and includes Newcastle upon Tyne, distinguished in the text.
Care must be taken to be neutral on the bruising issue of the current status of historic counties, so avoiding 'is' and 'was' if that is possible, but in any case certainly not saying "which was erased from its miserable existence!" or "which stands firm and eternal!".
Infoboxes: not settled yet. I would include it in every case, and I take the point about keeping it away from the data on local administration.
Hogweard (talk) 12:52, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
I've given up on reading through the ever-growing wall of text above so can't say whether that's a fair summary of the discussion, but it's certainly a fair summary of my own point of view. In my opinion HC doesn't belong in the infobox, mainly because it gets a bit silly if we appear to repeat what's essentially the same information over and over again.
Take Petersfield for example; district = East Hampshire, administrative county = Hampshire, police = Hampshire, Fire = Hampshire, ceremonial county = Hampshire, historical county = Hampshire, parliament = East Hampshire... Hampshire, Hampshire, Hampshire, Hampshire...
But I'd be happy to concede on the HC going into the infobox if it brings this protracted discussion to an end. WaggersTALK 14:56, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
We should outright drop police, fire, and ambulance, as pointless noise (especially in Scotland). It's far less pertinent than things like area or population density.
When it comes to historical county in the infobox, I'd include it where (1) there is a difference from the current admin arrangements and (2) there is a significant link to the historical (ie the same criteria as the lead section). In other words it is an optional parameter, initially added manually on a case-by-case basis; and with potential for further discussion on a case-by-case basis. Not a mandatory parameter with no scope for local discussion.
There are still issues around the precise boundaries. That can be resolved by making sure the way we use historical county data does not imply there is a current, definite, boundary. Only mentioning the historic in lead/infobox for the significant cases helps with that, we don't need to quibble when no-one actually cares. A map of the historic counties would either be "the counties in 1845/1066/2341" or "the ABC's map of the counties" (graphics can be POV, so long as they are upfront about it).--31.185.45.203 (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
I find it interesting that I already proposed my own version of 'draft RfC ideas' in the previous sub-thread, but other users chose to ignore or dismiss them out of hand. Perhaps it would be useful to restate them here:
  1. For articles on settlements and boroughs, we mention the historic county only in the 'History' section, and not at all in the lead section.
  2. For articles on settlements and boroughs, we mention/discuss the historic county completely consistently (so for example equally in either in ALL articles on ALL settlements/boroughs in London outside the City of London, or else in none). We do not make subjective judgements about which of these settlements/boroughs has more continued 'affinity' with a historic county.
  3. We never give a historic county precedence over a Ceremonial County/administrative area/region/borough by referring to it before these or giving it undue weight in articles about settlements/boroughs or about counties.
  4. Adhering to the existing guidelines/consensus that we do not consider that historic counties 'still exist with their former boundaries', we refer to historic counties IN THE PAST TENSE at all times in articles. I would suggest the following example wording/linking in the 'history' section of articles on settlements: "[Historic counties of England|Historically], [Westminster] was in the county of [Middlesex]." This can then be expanded on if editors wish, but without giving a historic county more weight/discussion in some of these articles on settlements/boroughs vs others.
  5. For articles on historic counties where the same name is no longer used by a Ceremonial County/administrative area, we use the PAST TENSE at all times in the article, eg: "[Middlesex] was a [historic counties of England|historic county] in south east [England]." We explicitly discuss when this historic county ceased to exist and as a result of which act of parliament.
  6. For articles on counties where a Ceremonial County/administrative area shares a name with a historic county, we use the PRESENT TENSE in the lead section and elsewhere to discuss the Ceremonial County/administrative area. Only in the 'history' section do we discuss the changed boundaries of the county, which may include explicitly referring to the historic county IN THE PAST TENSE only.
  7. We do not include a historic county field in the infobox for articles about settlements/boroughs that are in a Ceremonial County that does not share a name with a historic county.
  8. We do not include a historic county field in the infobox for articles about settlements/boroughs that are in a Ceremonial County that does share a name with a historic county.Uakari (talk) 05:44, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Uakari, there are two reasons why your plan got no further than the drawing board. First, it pushes a view that is too far to one side of the argument. Such a one sided approach has not worked for nearly twenty years and will not work at any time in the foreseeable future. The point of this current sub-section is to move beyond the neverending back and forth bickering by finding some sort of workable middle ground. Second, your ideas are too prescriptive and too detailed. Guidelines are one thing, but telling editors what words to use in what order in order to explain something in an encyclopedia is dictatorial and won't work. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:30, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Equally, your proposals are too vague. Leaving so much up to a 'case by case basis' is, in my view, just a way of giving yourself and similar-minded editors permission to edit whichever articles you decide to target to push your POV, in the hope that others will leap to your defence on that particular article, when there is no consensus supporting your POV about historic counties in general. In other words, getting your POV reflected in as many articles as possible by the back door, because you know that you will meet too much resistance if you try to codify this for all articles. The guidelines seem to have worked fine for 20 years until a few editors decided they had a problem with them, comparatively recently. Also, nowhere in London (i.e. Greater London plus the City of London) 'uses' a historic county in its postal address, as former postal counties never matched up with historic counties, and former postal counties were themselves abolished as official parts of postal addresses in 1996. The official format for any postal address is to leave the county field blank, but you can insert any of your own choosing if you wish. So your idea about that isn't going to hold water.Uakari (talk) 07:08, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/celebrating-the-historic-counties-of-england/celebrating-the-historic-counties-of-england
  2. ^ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/eric-pickles-celebrate-st-george-and-englands-traditional-counties
  3. ^ https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1968-12-17/debates/800e343d-b90c-428e-9f2d-c58650447ee4/GreaterLondonKentAndSurreyOrder
  4. ^ Shorrocks (1999), pp. 10
  5. ^ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/celebrating-the-historic-counties-of-england/celebrating-the-historic-counties-of-england
  6. ^ https://www.lawteacher.net/acts/local-government-act-1972.php
  7. ^ "Criteria for inclusion in the Flag Registry". The Flag Institute. Archived from the original on 2013-02-06. In the case of county flags, the flag must normally apply to a historical county rather than a modern administrative area
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