• Archive 1
• Archive 2

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I've warned Mais Oui, and I'm warning you, too. The edit warring has to stop. Take as long as you need to sort it out on the relevant Talk pages, but do not edit war over the articles or the templates or you will be blocked. This is clearly not an issue which has a single unambiguous answer, and you can't pretend it does. Just zis Guy you know? 15:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Owain,

I've just been on to Mais oui! about the Scottish county templates - it's driving me crackers that every time I refresh my screen I get a different version. It's a really long-running matter that's getting a bit personal now; I've asked Mais oui! to stop labelling you the WP representative of ABC and County Watch - sort of in return, could you consider putting up these templates as a group up for RfC? This way we can get some fresh outside ideas for phrasing and hopefully more quotable and verifiable documentary evidence.

If you're up for this, let me know and I'll try and put some ideas forward and try and get other people involved. If you do this through the UK wikipedians' Noticeboard too, whatever's finally voted in could then go in the Naming Conventions document (which needs a slight polishing up anyway).

I think it's fair enough to admit that the current approach isn't working; both sides are easily determined enough that if we don't try another way Template Scottish Counties infobox will be giving George W. Bush a run for its money! Aquilina 19:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stop revert warring, start discussing. Just zis Guy you know? 15:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been discussing for months. If you read my edit sumamries for past reverts I have continually offered User:Mais oui! a discussion on relevant talk pages, but all I get back is abuse and insults. Owain (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you stop you campaign to reinstate Traditional COunties?--84.9.192.124 16:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I can understand that sentence. Traditional counties do not need "re-instating" as they've never gone anywhere (as the Governmnet will gladly tell you). All that is needed is a change in public perception. Owain (talk) 19:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just trying to get to grips with the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 - does it actually say "New" Local Government Areas - because they were exactly the same as those in existence before? I'm just wondering if it wasn't just finally making a list of things that never got listed in earlier acts? If they were new what happened to the old ones? Does it explicitly abolish them?

Whatever about the counties, that would mean the royal burghs, and burghs of barony and regality still exist? Incidentally, I have no idea when the term "county of the city" appeared but it was in official use by 1907.

It seems it might be a bit like the Irish Local Government Act 2001 which didn't create or abolish anything, but did a bit of renaming and listed all the local authorities - something that had never done in a statute before.

Lozleader 17:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The wording is exactly the same as the LG(S)A 1973. Compare:

LG(S)A 1947: "1.--(1) For the purposes of local government, Scotland shall be divided into counties, counties of cities, large burghs and small burghs..."

LG(S)A 1973: "1.--(1) For the administration of local government on and after 16th May 1975, Scotland shall have local government areas in accordance with the provisions of this section."

The 1947 Act doesn't explictly say that they are new areas and neither does it abolish old areas. There is some interesting wording in paragraph 2:

"Subject to the constitution of new authorities or any alteration of boundaries or other alteration which may take effect after the passing of this Act--

(a) the counties shall be the counties named in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act;

(b) the counties of cities shall be the counties of cities named in Part II of the First Schedule to this Act;

(c) the large burghs shall be the burghs named in Part III of the First Schedule to this Act;

(d) the small burghs shall be the burghs named in Part IV of the First Schedule to this Act; and

(e) the districts shall be the districts existing at the passing of this Act.

So it explicitly defines the local government areas to be counties, cities and burghs, but leaves the districts as they were already. Does this suggest that the others are new local government areas, or is it just clarifying that for local government purposes the counties that are already used for other purposes are to be used? Section 2 goes on to state "2.--(1) For every county there shall be a county council" and "(2) The county council shall be a body corporate". It makes no mention of existing councils.

The other interesting thing is Schedule 1 which states that all the counties are to be used as local government areas, despite there already being joint councils for Perth and Kinross, and Moray and Nairn. Owain (talk) 10:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Thanks. Section 3 of the 1889 Act simply stated that "A council shall be established in every county." Nowhere was there a list of the counties, although Part VI of the Act dealt with a few specific counties.

Section 44(a) said ..."counties shall have the contents and boundary, which they respectively have, or in the case of counties still subject to local Acts of Parliament regulating highways will have, after the appointed day for the purposes of the Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act, 1878"

I looked at the R&B(S)A 1878 but it just said that County Road Boards were to be appointed and that the County of Lanark was to be considered to be three counties.

Anyway it looks like (but I'm no legal expert) the 1947 Act didn't actually *create* new areas. Thanks.

As far as the joint county councils are concerned, my understanding is that the separate CCs continued to exist, but only exercised "small burgh" powers in the landward parts of their counties, everything else being done by the joint council.

Incidentally, the earliest volume of legislation in my reference library is 1802, and there was an "Act to raise and establish a Militia Force in Scotland". It helpfully listed the counties as they were (presumably officially) at that date. Only the City of Edinburgh was listed as a separate county, so Glasgow must have been later. There were no "shire" endings on the county namesand a couple of odd spellings (nairne, Wigton). There were all called Counties except the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. No mention at all of Orkney or Shetland?Zetland

Lozleader 13:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading Image:EnglandEssexTrad.png. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

• Wikipedia:Image use policy
• Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see User talk:Carnildo/images. 19:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did not know that. Thanks! --Deville (Talk) 03:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hello owain, i'd like to bring to your attention that many towns that you havew applied your infobox to in scotland do not have any gaelic names or history, may i suggest that you make a new box with out the gaelic names are i will have to make my own, and it would be a shame to stop using your nice infoboxes. User:retro_junkies

The Gaelic name part of the infobox was unilaterally added with no discussion. There is now a posthumous discussion at the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board. Personally I feel that the infoboxes have been hijacked by people with a nationalist agenda and are not the right place to include this sort of information. Owain (talk) 10:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading Image:ABC Great Britain counties.gif. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or ask them at the Image legality questions page. Thank you. It was categorised as a logo but I am afraid that it isn't. Smiker 18:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. A user called Oui keeps trying to accuse me of being you [1] [2]. Perhaps you could have a word with this user? Thanks. 82.26.197.74 22:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who dares disagree with Mais oui! is accused of being a PoV vandal, or sockpuppet. I'll sort it out. Owain (talk) 11:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. This user has also been moving the article on Ross-shire to the irrelevantly-titled Ross (area) and removing all information about Ross-shire in the process. I'm entirely sure why, but he has objected earlier to 'anglicised names' of Scottish traditional counties, which is ridiculous since this is English wikipedia. He also removed an informative infobox from the Cromartyshire article. He's welcome to have his own opinions about traditional counties, but removing perfectly valid, sourced information and maps in not an acceptable expression of it. What exactly is this user's platform? 82.26.197.74 12:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been having a running battle with this user about Scottish county articles, which you can see if you look at each article's history. He/she seems to be of the opinion that just because the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 abolished the county councils and replaced them with regional councils that the counties themselves must never be mentioned ever again. Various underhand tactics have been used to delete Scottish county categories and rename pages to suit his/her PoV. I have left the battle for a while, but I am about to return, to restore some sanity to these poor articles. Owain (talk) 12:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A nicely POV way of stating that your preferred stake-in-the-ground definition of what defines the immutable value of "traditional" disagrees with that of some other editors. Just zis Guy you know? 21:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the cases I mentioned above, Mais oui was removing neutral infobox that contained information relevant to the subject of the articles. I don't believe there's any need for anyone's opinion in articles like these; we should just stick to facts. Stringops 01:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this edit war has been going on for some time considering the messages above on your talk page(s). If you can point out some specific edits that are in violation of policy (e.g. WP:NPA, WP:3RR) then an appropriate response can be given to those.

Most of the edit wars are in violation of both polices! See Mais oui!s edit summaries where I am accused of being a sockpuppet, a vandal, a County Watch propagandist, &c. Owain (talk) 16:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

However this does seem to be a long running content dispute. Have you tried dispute resolution? Please read that carefully and try and follow the advice there from the beginning through- i.e. discuss article issues on the article's talk page (but it might not be a bad idea to contact Mais oui directly as well). If that doesn't work it might be worth trying mediation, or a request for comment. Also the harmonious version of the WP:3RR (policy) is the WP:1RR- how about giving it a go? Petros471 14:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also please try and keep your edit summaries neutral. Ones like this might indicate how you feel about an edit, but might lead to an increase in conflict. Again the best option is to try and use the talk pages, and then try and discuss the actual content in a civil manner. Petros471 14:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried conducting civil debates on talk pages. Mais oui! generally pays no attention to them. Mediation has been suggested a few times but has never been taken up. Owain (talk)

That's a shame, maybe try a WP:RFC on the article issue (not the user, they don't tend to be as productive). I still note though that you haven't recently edited Mais oui's talk page, so might be worth trying there. Petros471 17:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Mais oiu! has made 4 reverts to Template:Scotland counties - [3] [4] [5] [6].

He also repeatedly accused me of being Owain before I created an account, adding sockpuppet notices to the IPs I was using, and, when that failed, edited Owain's user page claiming that he was a sockpuppet of one of my IP addresses. (If anyone with the powers wants to check that Owain and I are different users with different IPs, incidentally, feel free.) Stringops 16:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if they are technically in violation of the WP:3RR as they do not always revert to the same version. Looks like a break in the spirit of it though, so feel free to report to WP:AN3 where to 3RR experts can decide. Unless proven by strong evidence we assume good faith and don't call/treat accounts as sockpuppets. I've left a note to the effect on Mais oui's talk. Petros471 17:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whilst I am watching this, feel free to give me new message notification on my talk if you need my attention again. Thanks. Petros471 17:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a comment on who is 'correct' in the content dispute.

The two of you clearly have a strong difference in opinion about traditional counties etc. You both strongly believe that your position is correct, and for understandable reasons want Wikipedia to hold the 'correct' version. This has caused you to get into this dispute that has been doing on for a while and shows no sign of stopping, unless you both decide to go about this the right way. First of all take a good look at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Then instead of edit/revert warring on articles that you disagree on discuss between yourselves and any other editors around on the talk page until consensus is reach. More like this, not like this.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox: That means neutrally report accurately what verifiable sources state. Not what is your opinion (however correct it may be) of the 'truth'. Other editors might be able to help through the request for comment system.

Finally if for some reason you can't get that to work (I can't see any reason that it shouldn't if you give it a proper go); try and take a step back. Take break from editing UK related articles. Go off and edit something totally different on some subject that doesn't attract controversy. Or do some Maintenance! Petros471 19:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is suspected that User:Owain may have been using some, or all, of the following accounts as sockpuppets:

• MonMan (talk · contribs)
• 82.26.197.74 (talk · contribs), soon registered as Stringops (talk · contribs)
• 80.255 (talk · contribs)

Please do not remove this notice while the investigation is underway. --Mais oui! 09:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I get it - anyone that disagrees with you and agrees with me is a sockpuppet! This would be funny if it wasn't so sad... Owain (talk) 13:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. If MonMan is a genuinely seperate person (and I'm assuming good faith until it's proven otherwise to my satisfaction - "whether they are sockpuppets or meatpuppets is more difficult to determine, but they are most definately connected" is easily explained if you know him personally, and doesn't amount, in my understanding, to any breaking of the rules), perhaps it might help matters if you and monman offered to contact a sysop by telephone to demonstrate that you're not the same person. I'm not exactly sure what the 'evidence' is that you are, and it's been phrased rather nebulously on the checkuser page, but it's just an idea how you might be able to clear up matters. Stringops 15:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or better still get a sysop to phone both of us - I have a UK phone number and he has a US phone number - living on different continents should be sufficient evidence surely? :) Owain (talk) 18:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please desist from your unexplained reverts of Scottish local government articles (eg Subdivisions of Scotland). Why you are still editing at all is a mystery to me. I was under the impression that sockpuppetry was banned here at Wikipedia, but it appears that only the actual sockpuppets (MonMan (talk · contribs)) are banned and not the sockpuppeteer. I find it shocking that you have not been even mildly reprimanded yet. --Mais oui! 14:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Give it a rest. You have clearly not read the Local Government Act 1992, Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 and Local Government (Wales) Act 1994. No local authority is defined in legislation as a "unitary authority", it is merely a description. As for your accusations of sock puppetry - where is the evidence? I cannot be reprimanded as I have done nothing to be reprimanded for. You on the other hand have used all sorts of underhand tactics to get your own way. Still, as the saying goes, "Small things please small..." Owain (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"No local authority is defined in legislation as a "unitary authority", it is merely a description". That is just a plain "untruth", see Talk:Subdivisions of Scotland.

Here is another saying for you and your ultra cock-sure behaviour: "Pride comes before a fall". --Mais oui! 14:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute - you are seriously suggesting that the presence of a capital U and capital A on the boundary committee page makes that the official title or designation of the body? That simply isn't true! Owain (talk) 15:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Following the AfD debate, you may wish to join in a discussion taking place at Talk:Plantlife. SP-KP 18:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a notice at AN/I. Thanks for your time, Aquilina 14:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:JzG has nominated this article for deletion. Since you created it I wonder if we could have your input. Thanks. Lancsalot 14:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why have I changed Breconshire to Powys ? For the very simple reason that Wikipedia is about providing information to everyone and anuone and for the very great majority of the world the divisions of Wales are the current administrative boundaries and not the old ceremonial counties. Can you please provide a justification as to why I should promote counties that have no meaning to most people living in 2006 ? The ceremonial coiunties aren't even on any modern maps ! Velela 09:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the qualification altogether as it is completely unnecessary. The article itself was describing what many people think the divisions of Wales really are - i.e. north Wales, south Wales, west Wales, &c. Do you honestly believe that people looking for an article on Rhymney would use the qualification that it is "in Caerphilly"? Of course they wouldn't, they'd probably just say that it is in "South Wales". There are many overlapping geographies and it just so happens that the current administrative geogrpahy is one of the worst. What sensible geographic system would have divisions that range in size from 5,196 km² to 111 km²? Some of which are named after towns, despite being vastly bigger, some are named after other well-known divisions but with a completely different area, e.g. Monmouthshire, Denbighshire. The administrative geography exists, but to use it as the only general-purpose geography is confusing to say the least. Owain (talk) 10:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi.

As i was just saying today on User talk:Lancsalot, quite a bit of Sandwell was in Worcestershire (Oldbury, as recently as 1966), and of Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in Shropshire until 1844. You may want to amend the text: I don't know what year the trad boundaries are aligned to... Lozleader 20:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a look at the Sandwell article it seems that that information has already been added to it. The trad boundaries take both the pre-1844 and post-1844 situation into account in the same was as the ABC Gazetteer (X is in a detached part of Y locally situate in Z). I'll take a look at the Dudley article. Owain (talk) 09:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]