Talk:Lindisfarne

Article title

 Done The OS maps call this island Holy Island, Lindisfarne appears to be an old name. I would like to change the lede to reflect this, is that OK? and can the map be used as the reference? Op47 (talk) 18:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The full title is "The Holy Island of Lindisfarne" so either "Holy Island" or "Lindisfarne" are acceptable abbreviations, neither is "the old name". You might want to use the full title in the lead, but be aware that at least one editor regards using the official title as subjective and prefers the phrase "also known amongst some as Holy Island" so do try to avoid an edit war! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I've run down references to the official name and the use of the shorter Holy Island so this should now be uncontroversial. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Added small pieces of information

Hello users, I am a student from the University of Bergamo and I am taking part in a project that consists in giving a contribution to Wikipedia pages (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/UNIBG/Heritage_studies_and_ICT). In this page in particular I added a few more details about the attack on the island by Vikings in 793 (the fate of the monks), about the date of burial of St Cuthbert 's body on the island and also about the wooden boats that can be seen today (including also a picture already existing in Wikipedia). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcava19 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Holy Island of Lindisfarne

Can we discuss this please? Zacwill changed it away from Holy Island of Lindisfarne and Martin of Sheffield changed it back. I don't know Zac though I am sure they are great; Martin is usually super-reliable on UK place stuff. The claim for the Holy Island of Lindisfarne name, though, which as I write is used as the Official name, seems to rest on the assertion of the local website manager. Whilst I am sure they are sincere and do a great job, I am less sure that they are necessarily a WP:RS especially for something to which we give Official status. I would be much much happier with the assertion that Holy Island of Lindisfarne = Official name if it came from an official source. And if it is, then surely it can? I will have a look, and would be grateful if others also please would. Otherwise I think we may need to discuss the future of this usage. Really official = great; one website's idea = less great. I wonder if we can make it stick as the former.

For the record – I seem to always get colleagues patiently explaining how they speak fluent BrE and know the area, so obviously I am just higgerant and prolly not worth talking to – I do speak an almost-intelligible form of a rather basic English and I may have been in that area once or twice, and I have not personally (yes, negative WP:OR!) come across this assertion of the Official name. It is rather nice, though, and I am happy to look for a source for it, with – I hope – your help! Best to all, DBaK (talk) 11:47, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi DBaK. Thanks for the complement! More seriously I've just plugged "Holy Island of Lindisfarne" into DuckDuckGo and (ignoring a couple of adverts) the first three websites are the local tourist information people, a local visitor company and Visit Northumberland, the county councils tourist site. There's also a set of "Images for holy island of lindisfarne" some of which give one abbreviation, some the other and some the full name. At the risk of OR, yes I did live near there! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:02, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The long-form name isn't especially common and I'm not sure it qualifies as an "official" name because a few tourism websites use it. The Ordnance Survey simply calls the place "Holy Island", with "Lindisfarne" as a subtitle. Additionally, it strikes me as long-winded to begin the article by listing each name twice. In deference to Martin, I'll admit that I'm not local, though I am on holiday in the area at the moment (in fact, I'm writing this from the island). Zacwill (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Considering that one of the sites is the county council it would seem fairly official to me. There are several other places where the long name is always abbreviated. Who ever, in conversation, talks about "The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea", or "Royal Tunbridge Wells" and nearer, "Kingston-upon-Hull". Lucky you though staying on the island, I keep trying to persuade the "other half" to stay on overnight. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:16, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi again Zacwill and Martin of Sheffield. I am very sorry that I have been absent from this discussion for such a long time – that pesky Real Life intervened, I had to do some work etc. I have not, however, done absolutely nothing about this issue. I have looked at and dug around on a number of sites that deal with place names and a number of official sites that deal with Northumberland. If you go to OS Open Names you can download a nightmare-huge CSV file and in it you will find Holy Island all the way down at D38246 (!) but no mention of Lindisfarne. You can also find stuff like this but I am not sure we would call it an RS anyway? As we already know the OS map itself just shows Holy Island as the place name with Lindisfarne in lovely archaic-item script, and of course it's in the name of structures on the island, but that in my opinion is as far as it goes. Martin, with the greatest of respect, and I am really not kidding about that, I can't accept your sources as reliable. The two local sites I simply discard because a webmaster can say anything they like and it means nothing: I can put up a site this afternoon called "The Leafy Suburb of Crouch End" or "The Steel City of Sheffield", indeed to increase my credibility I can put up six that use the terms ... it doesn't make them official though, it makes them a website's whim. (Addendum, hoping it's OK to add this as it's recent and there is no response yet... the article itself summarizes it quite neatly thus: The combined phrase The Holy Island of Lindisfarne has begun to be used more frequently in recent times, particularly when promoting the island as a tourist or pilgrim destination. My point exactly. Concoction <> Official Name. Shutting up again now.)

I must further – and again I do so as nicely as I can! – dispute that the Northumberland tourism site constitutes a reliable source. It's marketing speak, it's been put together by people with serious professional concerns and care for their task but encyclopaedic accuracy is not one of them. Last time I looked it used, in some other places, the term "Lindisfarne Island" which is just bl**dy nonsense that no-one ever says! If you then start to look at more of their text and you see egregiously bad work that would not survive a week if you or I had edit permissions, then ... well, it just makes me go GAH frankly. I am sure it is great at its job of marketing but I cannot take it seriously as a source of hard data on a placename. Find me a serious Northumberland local government website that says it administratively and I will try to be nicer. But not in marketspeak.

I am aware that I am sounding ranty and a little unhinged about this and I don't want to be rude but I honestly think that the formulation is little more than a piece of marketing, or image, cuteness. Of course people like it and use it – it is sort-of lovely that you can concatenate the two placenames and get something with a nice historic ring to it. I am sure that the private webmasters involved will have their own reasons for this and I bet the tourism site does too. But this is all miles away from it constituting an Official Name. I am just not seeing it and, believe me, I have looked.

As I am in danger of sounding like (or being??) the sort of @___hole on Wikipedia that I really hate, I will stop in a moment. But what I suggest is this: it should go to the former wording where there are the two names, and the official name should simply be Holy Island. We should not use the formulation "Holy Island of Lindisfarne" unless a really credible official source can be found to support it. By this I mean government, mapping agencies, census or electoral bodies, stuff like that. Not a web manager whim or a marketing person looking for a nice phrase. I am not going to be stupid about this and argue against it if you find something that nails it and I promise that my approach to this would be honest – I would not mess you around. But it has to be solid, unassailable evidence. Notwithstanding all the points already made, if there really is an Official Name then surely it must must exist in an official source, easily findable and verifiable, no? Or am I going nuts? (Please don't answer that last point!) I'm sorry to sound like a bad-tempered old git about this and am trying to avoid it but it's getting my goat a bit: I think its use undermines our duty to stick with the facts and instead promotes a sort-of neologism, cuteism, marketing-speak, journalese etc.

What do you think? I would really like to change it as I believe that it would improve the article but I am loth (or loath!) to edit-war. I've rabbitted on more than enough. Best wishes to all, DBaK (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll get back to you shortly. I've just done a major upgrade and have been a bit unwell over the w/e. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:55, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Martin of Sheffield and no rush! Hope you are better soon. Cheers DBaK (talk) 08:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Martin of Sheffield and Zacwill, I hate to nag but are we any further on with this please? Best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

My opinion isn't much changed: "Holy Island of Lindisfarne" is a silly and artificial name that doesn't belong in the article. Zacwill (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry Zacwill, but I do tend to think that Northumberland County Council's opinion is probably more WP:RS than yours however well held. Whether or not it is silly is another matter, but considering there are places in that area with names like "Pity Me" we really can't use silliness as a reason to exclude things! You may not like official tourism sites like Visit England and Visit Northumberland, but they are official bodies backed by HMG and NCC respectively. Given that we are talking about 8thC and 11thC recorded uses of both parts of the name it does become a little difficult to dismiss the terms as recentisms. I think the opening sentence sets out the situation perfectly, giving it it's full name, and then the abbreviations, compare if you will "Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England". Perversely, I'm not so sure about the infobox though. Until you look closely the "of" in the first line is easily confused with the "or" in the second. Still I appear to be outvoted on this though, so although I think it's wrong, misleading to the readers and a mistake, I'll not stand in the way of you changing things to your preference. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(Disclaimer: I lived and worked in Durham for over 30 years, although moved away a dozen years ago.) Travelling up and down the A1(M) near Durham are road signs that say "Durham — Historic Cathedral City" and "County Durham — Land of the Prince Bishops". Those wordings may be nice marketing-speak, but they are not formal titles, and wouldn't play a significant role in Wikipedia articles about the places or their environs. "Holy Island of Lindisfarne" strikes me as being of comparable nature to such Durham signage. Before, during and after my 30+ years in the Durham area, including church visits to Lindisfarne, I commonly came across (and used) the names "Lindisfarne" and "Holy Island". But I'm struggling to remember ever encountering that lengthy construction "Holy Island of Lindisfarne". My suggestion is that the principal name used in the article should be "Lindisfarne", with a reasonable tolerance for "Holy Island" if a particular context merits that, but that "Holy Island of Lindisfarne" should not play any significant role. I would suggest that the opening words of the article should be something like "Lindisfarne or Holy Island (occasionally also referred to as The Holy Island of Lindisfarne)...". Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

thanks everyone. We don't seem to have moved much further and I retain my absolute, serious doubt that a tourist site, which exists for promotion and can be expected to use poetic and flowery language, is a reliable source, no matter who funds it. I promise, as I have promised, that if someone brings a proper reliable source for HIOL being some kind of official name then I will look carefully and respectfully at it but I have not, with the greatest respect, seen anything that faintly resemble this yet. And yes I have looked, really. We cannot any longer go on, without evidence, promoting the idea that HIOL is any sort of official name and the article already clearly remarks on its tourist and promotional usage, which is fine. I am going to edit it to something that I feel is reasonable, and take a bit of a step back for a while, for personal reasons. Best to all, DBaK (talk) 10:57, 20 January 2022 (UTC)