Discussion page for English places.

There has been some discussion about how to create/maintain articles on civil parishes in England. There has been discussion on having a bot create the articles but this hasn't yet been done due to not having the code or consensus (generating a code for this is needed so if anyone can that would be appreciated). Although this RFC is mainly aimed at page creation it does also talk about how the data can be added/maintained to existing articles. Previous discussions at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Civil parish bot, Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 79#Civil parish bot and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 160#Civil parish bot. The 1st, 2nd and 3 (which will probably simply be "no") questions relate to civil parishes, namely their creation/maintenance and if they should be split or merged. The 4th and 5th aren't that relevant here but are related to how to handle other places and their notability so answering these questions isn't so important but please feel free to try to answer then to. Note that I have removed NOMIS due to that fact that its boundaries shown seem to be inaccurate but if you look at this version you can see the boundaries since it the maps are better than City Population De's. Please answer each question in its section and make other comments in the "Discussion" section. My !votes are already on the user page but yours should go here. @PamD, Acabashi, Amakuru, SilkTork, Redrose64, Spike 'em, Headbomb, DannyS712, Keith D, and Rodw: who have made significant contributions, please feel free to ping anyone else. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:32, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Unless you have an actual concrete proposal, this effort is doomed to fail. This will be my only comment on this RFC, unless such a concrete proposal emerges. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:50, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  The concrete proposal it at User:Crouch, Swale/Bot tasks/Civil parishes (current)/Simple that is how the bot creates them. The other parts address if they should be separate or not. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a concrete proposal. Taking one step at random "2. Be sure to link to the correct title of the district's article since some area at "Foo District" and "Borough of Foo" etc, see WP:UKDISTRICTS and remember this in the infobox to." That's fine. But how would the bot do that?. That is not addressed, and makes this proposal vague, instead of concrete. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:03, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is one of the technical issues to be resolved namely the point "generating a code for this is needed so if anyone can that would be appreciated" in the nom. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:20, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• it might help if we could see the actual questions! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:59, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @John Maynard Friedman: the questions are located at User:Crouch, Swale/England#Creation and maintenance (and below) namely Q1 (starting with "Should the articles be created manually, semi automatically or with a bot?") is equivalent to Q1 above (where you post you're answer). Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't really understand what the questions 1-5 are asking, or what is being proposed. If I have this right, you are suggesting a bot create articles on civil parishes - but I suspect this may end up with multiple stubs with limited details (eg population & geo coordinates) but little else which would not be useful to readers. Many civil parishes are dealt with by village articles of the same name and any additional information needed added to the village article rather than creating new ones for civil parishes.— Rod ^talk 18:06, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The question is if we need separate articles even when the village and parish have the same name, which is probably no as noted below we would normally say "X is a village and civil parish" (like Fulford, Staffordshire) but if the village and parish have different names (like Nayland/Nayland-with-Wissington) then we would. I can probably put both of you down as meaning A/B and I probably could have just merged those criteria since the only difference appears to be around 14 parishes that don't include their namesake settlement and as such can be individually discussed. In such case the point of a bot would be to create articles where nothing exists such as Oxton, North Yorkshire, Grimston, Selby and Wangford with Henham. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:20, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• There's just too much to read at that link, though thank you for belatedly providing it. Yes, every civil parish in England should have an article, though in many cases it will be an article which is also about the major settlement after which it is named: the classic intro being "XXX is a village and civil parish in Y district, Z county". Civil parishes only need a separate article when there isn't a settlement of the same name or when the parish is in some way massively different from its namesake settlement. If the parish is "Xton and Yton", then it probably merits a separate article if they are of similar size and significance, or should be included in the article on the dominant settlement, with a mention and link in the other article. I don't see much mileage in a bot creating them, though a standard list of contentd for a civil parish article, perhaps even a boilerplate template into which to carefully slot relevant info (and carefully remove irrelevant fields) might be a useful thing to establish, perhaps within the UK geography project. PamD 18:30, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I too can't be bothered reading through what the 5 questions are, but agree with Headbomb that the proposed bot task is poorly defined and lacking in clear data points. Spike 'em (talk) 06:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Please don't hold an RfC in user talk space, unless the RfC is about the behaviour of that particular user - and that practice has itself been discouraged for several years. You may draft up your RfC here (and the total lack of questions under the five subheadings shows that it is a draft), but before making it formal with the {{rfc|hist}} tag, it must be moved to a discussion forum that is neutral but relevant, such as WT:England. Only then should you add the {{rfc|hist}} tag. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  This isn't a draft, the questions are on the user page and this RFC has now started so I don't see the point in moving it. WT:England has been notified. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  But there are no questions on this page which is the one that is linked from here - imagine the confusion of a user coming in from that noticeboard. Similarly, a user who subscribes to WP:FRS will be puzzled when following a link like the one provided here.

  Is the RfC about User:Crouch, Swale? I really hope not; so assuming that it isn't, a live RfC about a different matter still doesn't belong here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:17, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Now is isn't about me, its about English parishes which is reflected in the title and content of the userpage, if it was about me it would be on my main talk page or a subpage titled something more like "Conduct". Redrose64 I see you have removed the RFC tag, while I'm not sure you should have done that without discussion now that its done maybe we can look at doing this better and getting the venue right? Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Putting the RfC questions on one page and requiring the answers and discussion to be on a different page, whilst the preliminary information is split across both of them, is a very bad idea. As I already pointed out, users who follow bot-generated links will end up at this page, not the page with the questions. There is only one link from here to the questions, and that is in your post of 18:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC) above. People are either going to arrive and go away again, or leave comments along the lines of "what are we actually discussing here?", as some have already done. You should consolidate it all on this page, so that the RfC is self-contained. Then move the whole page to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England/Parishes RfC and amend the link given at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England#Parishes RFC. Then reinstate the {{rfc|hist}}, without the |rfcid= parameter - Legobot will need to add a new one. But if you want people to leave well-thought-out, sensible, reasoned comments, don't make it difficult for them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:55, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @Redrose64: should I just create Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England/Parishes RfC with the content from User:Crouch, Swale/England and the RFC framework here and link to this page or should this page just be moved and the content from User:Crouch, Swale/England merged here? I ask because I'm not sure if this has got much meaningful discussion and it might confuse people to have a new RFC below or is it better to keep the discussion in 1 place? Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I thought I explained it already. Shall we ask WhatamIdoing (talk · contribs)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Crouch, I suggest that you start over. Your first step should be going to WT:RFC and asking for help. Being in the wrong namespace is a trivial error that could be corrected with a simple page WP:MOVE, but your questions are too complicated. Your second step should be finding the people who understand how the US Census bots have operated, because you're trying to do something similar.

  By way of making concrete progress towards your goal, you might see whether you could (manually) create a uniform/predictable set of redirects to all the civil parishes. That would simplify the process of linking to the correct page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:00, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @Redrose64 and WhatamIdoing: I have created Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England/Parishes RfC is that better? Should I move the RFC tag up to the Q1 part (namely below the sentence ending with "but yours should go here")? Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:22, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  If you're holding an RfC on a dedicated page, the {{rfc}} tag needs to come first. This must be followed by your brief and neutral statement, optional signature and mandatory timestamp, in accordance with WP:RFCST. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes I think this is OK, the quote isn't really part of the statement since its a question. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:42, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you get the "question" down to a single paragraph, or even a single sentence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I said that the {{rfc}} tag needs to come first, and it isn't first - it's in one of the sections. Also, the "statement" that you have provided is useless, because this is how it appears in the RfC listings. People do not care one bit who you are pinging, they want a brief and neutral statement of the issue, which you have not provided. Try again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Given that its already started I don't think I should restart it a 3rd time, it has had some participation. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:14, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Where did I say to restart it? I'm asking that it be properly formatted. Like this, at the very least. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:09, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Thankyou but I restarted due to the irrelevant discussion that had cropped up here so it was simpler just to re start. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:20, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]