Talk:Wiltshire County Council

Merger discussion

Header added for ease of discussion, A.D.Hope (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

In fact, the "merge", which included simply deleting most of the page, was the other way around. The page has now been reinstated, for the reasons given in the edit summary. This is a high importance article for Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire, would all editors please respect that. Moonraker (talk) 12:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Moonraker: The merge was preformed by User:A.D.Hope in June last year, maybe some more content should have been moved but there was a clear consensus to merge at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 29#Unitary county councils: separate articles or not? and then at Talk:Somerset County Council#Merger proposal. It is notable but its the same thing as Wiltshire Council just with a slightly different name and without the district council powers. We don't need 2 articles on the same council with the same boundaries. Yes boundaries changed in 1997 but they didn't change in 2009 and "Wiltshire County Council" wasn't abolished by the order, only the districts and their councils, Wiltshire County Council was renamed (though the order doesn't specifically state this) and not abolished. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me, Crouch. I've corrected the merger template, so it now indicates that this page was merged to Wiltshire Council (which is the older article).

There was significant overlap between the two articles, which is to be expected as they cover the same corporate body. The merger was not a simple deletion of this page, however, as much of the 'History' section and the table of elections were copied over. I didn't merge the list of notable members as it seemed somewhat arbitrary, nor the list of clerks or chief executives as they were incomplete and did not seem significant. Besides that I don't think anything significant was lost in the merger, although I have just added a link to List of chairmen of Wiltshire County Council to Wiltshire Council article as I overlooked it when performing the merger. Any other mistakes can be fixed, but the articles should remain merged for the reasons given in the discussions you mention. A.D.Hope (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

A.D.Hope and Crouch, Swale, edit-warring is of course not productive, but I stand by my view that this WikiProject UK geography conversation does not give your members the right to redirect articles about plainly notable subjects without an AfD. This remains a high importance article for WikiProject Wiltshire, and I should be most grateful if you would kindly reinstate it pending such an AfD.

I do not believe there was any significant overlap between the two pages before this summer. The distinction was clear, the Wiltshire Council page dealt with the unitary authority created in 2009 (which has all the county and district functions in its part of Wiltshire), while Wiltshire County Council dealt with the earlier period from 1889 to 2009, covering the whole county for almost all of those years. As I have said already, these changes do not meet your test about the same geographical area. At WikiProject Wiltshire we have links to the two unitary district councils now in our ceremonial county, Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. When A.D. Hope says "I don't think anything significant was lost in the merger", almost the whole of the page was deleted without being merged. It would not be quite so bad if all information and references had been kept, but there would still be other points to be argued. But we can deal with that in the AfD. Moonraker (talk) 01:59, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that Wiltshire County Council and Wiltshire Council are separate notable subjects; they're a single notable subject which has had two names. Wiltshire County Council wasn't abolished by the Wiltshire (Structural Change Order) 2008, instead gaining district fuctions. If a distinction were going to be made then 1974 would be a more appropriate date, as the council of the administrative county was abolished and a new one established for the non-metropolitan county.

It's untrue that almost the whole of the page was deleted, as I've explained above. While my own 'test' is corporate continuity, Wiltshire Council easily meets the 'geographical area test' as has covered broadly the same area since the administrative county council was established; compare Shropshire Council, which lost some of the county to Telford and Wrekin Council, or Durham County Council and Tyne and Wear.

What's your rationale for opening an AfD request? This article should remain a redirect rather than being deleted, so I'm not sure what outcome you're seeking. A.D.Hope (talk) 02:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

A.D.Hope, you say "It's untrue that almost the whole of the page was deleted", so let us get to the bottom of that. Your edit on 21 June at 16:02 here (repeated yesterday here) removed all 23,821 characters from the Wiltshire County Council page and replaced them with a redirect, and your edit on the same day here added 5,090 characters of text to the Wiltshire Council page. So far as I understand you, you did not deem the rest to be worth keeping, but I do not think you would have come to the Wiltshire County Council page for the first time ever, seen on the Talk page that it was "High-importance" for us, and deleted all of that material as "not significant". Your judgement on what to keep and what to discard seems very arbitrary, and please do not aim the word "untrue" at another user without any justification. I do not agree with the rest of what you say. In answer to your question, what I am seeking seems plain enough above – reinstatement of the page and an AfD if you still wish to delete it. Moonraker (talk) 03:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

There would be no point in requesting an AfD, as a merger is not a deletion. Deleting this page would be counterproductve, as it is a useful redirect and preserves the edit history of the article.

It is untrue that 'almost the whole of the page was deleted', as a significant portion of this article's 'History' and 'Election' sections and the table of elections were copied over to Wiltshire Council. Much of the remainder is content which did not need to be copied as it was already present in the target article, including:

• The lead, which largely covers the creation of the unitary council
• The infobox
• The 'functions' section
• The 'political control' section
• The navboxes, categories, and other syntax

The sections which I don't consider it worth copying over at all (or at least in their current form) are the lists of notable members, clerks, and chief executives, for the reasons given above, and I didn't copy over all of the images. I also edited the 'History' section as I merged it, removing details such as who was elected unopposed in 1889 and the architect and cost of the new County Hall (which has it own main article).

I don't have any objection to a discussion about merging more of this article's previous content into the Wiltshire Council article, but I do not agree that reverting to two articles is a good idea. A.D.Hope (talk) 09:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

In 1974 Wiltshire/Wiltshire County Council was reformed with the same boundaries unlike say Oxfordshire County Council that gained part of Berkshire and the County Borough of Oxford. When the boundary change of removing Swindon in 1997 there was no change in legal entity or name. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:33, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Crouch, Swale and A.D.Hope, thank you for your replies. But the only argument here in favour of a merger that I see is that there was a legal continuity from WCC to WC, which is true, but it's also true of other notable subjects which develop one from another. It's a rather minor point compared with the fact that the two (having different names and different substantial coverage in reliable independent sources) are each notable in their own right, as well as having significant differences. I respectfully point out that neither of you has ever contributed to this page, in which your interest is clearly remote. Having added much of the material (all carefully referenced), which you do not deem to be worthy of inclusion in the WC page, I am more far more interested in it. I was also planning to expand the page further, as it has a high importance for the Wiltshire Wiki Project. That will not now happen, for two reasons: first, the WC page would be swamped; second, I do not agree that the two are the same topic and that such an outcome can be imposed by the WikiProject UK geography. I also point out that the lost WCC page had a higher quality assessment than the merged page. Contributors to the WCC page are entitled to have their say before a decision is taken, and not after the event. So I should be most grateful if you would reinstate the page. I can then continue to improve it. If you want to remove it and most of its content from Wikipedia, a future AfD will be your way forward. Kind regards, Moonraker (talk) 23:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll start another discussion on this this evening. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:59, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

What's the best form for the discussion to take? A split discussion at Wiltshire Council? A.D.Hope (talk) 13:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)