 | This page is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. | |  Project | This page does not require a rating on the project's quality scale. | | | I have nominated List of English football champions for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hi, I wonder if anyone can point me at the discussion that we had about using the constituent countries rather than UK on articles? I am unsure which project it was on. Keith D (talk) 18:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC) - There is alot of information at Countries of the United Kingdom. I know there was also alot of debate in the Wales and Scotland article talk pages. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
To the Wonderful Wikipedians Here, on a related topic, I was recently trying to edit WP:MOSDAB#Places to show the top-level nation name just like the actual WP:DAB for Kimberley does. Some quickly verifiable research on modern English usage of the term "England" may be found in WT:MOSDAB#England. I would like to hear what viewpoints are espoused by editors on this project, WP:England. :)--Thecurran (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC) - It is exactly what I would expect, use one of the 4 countries {England, Northern ireland, Scotland or Wales) rather than UK when dealing with places. Keith D (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Why should we give WP:UNDUE weight to the UK and the UK alone and claim WP:NPOV when that clearly contradicts our own policies and the conventions of international communications, diplomatic, and political bodies like the EU[1], IPU[2], ISO[3], ITU[4], UN[5],UPU[6], the UN List of Non-Self-Governing Territories[7], the Internet's ccTLD[8], the closely related ISO 3166-2[9], and the one specific to this occasion, ISO 3166-2:GB[10] even though much of the Anglosphere is already confused about the difference between Britain, England, Great Britain, and the UK? :)--Thecurran (talk) 23:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC) -
- Because we follow general usage among English speakers rather than some orderly system or an international standard. Hans Adler 23:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- I actually checked general usage among English speakers with a WP:GOOGLETEST. You can read it at WT:MOSDAB#England. It
does not refutes that English speakers usually can distinguish between England and the UK. :)--Thecurran (talk) 09:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC) -
- Based on what you have said elsewhere I guess you meant the opposite of what your last sentence says.
- I don't think that your Google tests shows what you think. Consider this:
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| Constituent country | Population | | England | 50 million | | Scotland | 5 million | | Wales | 3 million | | Northern Ireland | 2 million | -
- Clearly the UK is dominated by England, which makes up 5/6 of its population, and even more so by Great Britain (England + Scotland + Wales). That's why there is no separate English parliament, while there are parliaments for the other 3 countries. It's not necessarily a sign of confusion if people use the words "England", "Great Britain", "Britain" and "United Kingdom" synonymously in situations where they don't care about the difference. This is very similar to "European" as an abbreviation for "pertaining to the European Union/the Eurozone/the Schengen area". Look at this. The page also exists in a German version, which doesn't even so much as give a hint that the meeting was only for ministers of EU member states; it talks about "die europäischen Minister" ("the European ministers"). The translators at the European Union know very well that not all European countries are member states. But they also know that a German-speaking audience won't be confused if they use "European" as a synonym for "EU". Hans Adler 12:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for catching my mistake. It was careless of me to post so hastily. I understand what you mean about Europe but, considering that there was no unified polity called Europe before the creation of the EC/EU, it is not quite analogous. European is now the proper demonym for citizens of the EU but, beforehand, the boundaries of Europe varied between experts who drew different lines from the Bosphorus, via the Caucasus to the Arctic Ocean and may or may not have included the British Isles or Iceland. Language differences between the common meaning of America allow one to call a US citizen American and a citizen of the Americas, Pan-American in English but estadounidense and americano/a, respectively, in Spanish, the most official language of the Americas, and an official one of the UN. England however has had the same boundaries for centuries and if you want to ignore the confusion when Wales and to a lesser extent, Cornwall, became part of the Kingdom of England, England's boundaries were set millennia ago.
- The reality among English speakers is unfortunately that the further one is distanced from the UK, the more likely it is for them to be confused about the distinction between England and the UK. If you are outside of the UK, try asking the average non-university-educated person on the street what the distinction is or even what the capitals of Cornwall, England, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the United Kingdom are. I have often done this test and even university-educated people only a few generations away from being British get the distinction wrong, cf. WT:MOSDAB#Arbitrary_break.
- Please also consider those users in English that are speakers of other languages. For example in Japan, the nation with the second highest GDP (after only the US), ja:イギリス (igirisu), is an approximation of the word English in Japanese but actually is the common term for the UK. Also consider that many English speakers say Holland when they really mean the Netherlands. This confusion is most likely the closest to that between England and the UK. Even though in Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation and formerly the Dutch East Indies, the largest Dutch colony, id:Belanda is an approximation of the word nl:Holland but actually is the common term for the Netherlands. It is not prudent of us to treat England as a separate nation when that will confuse foreign speakers. :)--Thecurran (talk) 23:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
- I doubt that the use of United Kingdom rather than England would, in itself, create all that many edit wars. However, the decision to use the constituent countries rather than United Kingdom largely arose as a consensus to stop the endless edit wars raging on articles about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where nationalists objected most strongly to the use of United Kingdom. That, in turn meant that many English editors could see no reason why their country should be blanked while the other constituent countries were not. Cornwall is even more complicated, as the consensus reached among Cornish editors was to use Cornwall, United Kingdom rather than Cornwall or Cornwall, England, so as to avoid edit wars over Cornish nationalism. The present system does largely seem to work, and is probably best left as is. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Does it not matter that even though we consistently rank among the highest echelons of global search engine hits, we are intentionally misguiding our readers? What is wrong with simply following an international norm like the ISO_3166-2:UK#Country.2C_province.2C_principality and writing:
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- Xxx, GB-CON or Xxx, Cornwall, UK
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- Xxx, GB-ENG or Xxx, England, UK
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- Xxx, GB-NIR or Xxx, Northern Ireland, UK
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- Xxx, GB-SCT or Xxx, Scotland, UK
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- Xxx, GB-WLS or Xxx, Wales, UK
- Surely doing so would neither negate the views of nationalists nor portray untruths to the global audience. Considering that during the fortnight plus prior to your remark, no one had disagreed with the previous remark, it neither seems contentious nor licentious.
- Warmest Regards, :)--thecurran let it off your chest 08:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Cornish nationalists must be overruled. "England, UK" / "Scotland, UK", "Northern Ireland, UK" / "Wales, UK" are all good. Cornwall is not be treated as a special case. It is a county of England, nothing else. To treat Cornwall in a special way in line with the 4 Countries of the United Kingdom is grossly misleading and confusing. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
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- There is no need to use UK in any of the above, that avoids any such situations. The country is sufficient dab to know where we are speaking about the UK is superfluous. Keith D (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
- Wonderful User:Keith D, you are a celebrated admin, a significant editor of good articles, and an especially strong force within projects pertaining to topics throughout England. I commend your ardour and selfless efforts. I assume since you started this talk section that you must have read WT:MOSDAB#England by now and confirmed for yourself the validity of the WP:SETs therein. Perhaps you might agree that most global English speakers have not yet developed their geopolitical knowledge with the benefits you have had with your obviously intimate connection with England. I am sure that with all of your years volunteered in "tireless work creating, editing and improving Wikipedia's coverage of Britain" you would not want someone who came to Wikipedia seeking true knowledge to go away falsely believing that England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland are wholly disparate entities not together in any sort of union and that the UK is of little to no importance. Please show me if and how I have erred here and whether or not I am coming across as a WP:TROLL; if so I apologize in advance.
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- Warmest Regards, :)--thecurran let it off your chest 01:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Could someone take a look at talk:Northern Counties? There's a discussion about what the content of the page should be, for example whether it should be a dab page. Nev1 (talk) 18:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC) [edit] Where should "Lord Byron" redirect? To the poet "George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron" alone? Or to "Baron Byron" (of which title each holder has been addressed as "Lord Byron" in his own turn)? Currently under discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Lord Byron. — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 01:43, 29 November 2009 (UTC) [edit] Book-class Since this is one of the bigger WikiProjects, and that several Wikipedia-Books are England-related, could this project adopt the book-class? This would really help WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as the WP England people can oversee books like Towns in Trafford or London Underground much better than we could as far as merging, deletion, content, and such are concerned. Eventually there probably will be a "Books for discussion" process, so that would be incorporated in the Article Alerts. I'm placing this here rather than on the template page since several taskforces would be concerned. There's an article in this week Signpost if you aren't familiar with Wikipedia-Books and classes in general. Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
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