Talk:Yate/Archive 1

Distinction between Yate and Chipping Sodbury

There doesn't seem to be much distinction between Yate and Chipping Sodbury, does there? Are these districts or neighborhoods within a larger geographical unit?

I live in Yate. There certainly is a distinction between Yate and Chipping Sodbury, they are two towns that happen not to have any countryside lying between them. So it's not very obvious when you have left, say, Yate and are going through Chipping Sodbury.

However, the populations are very different, Yate has approx 25000 people and Chipping Sodbury has 5000 people. They are both part of South Gloucestershire (previous to that they were both in Avon).

Adrian Pingstone 11:15, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Comments on Dunks contribution

Dunk, I’ve read your additions to Yate and clearly you have a downer on the town and want to express that in the article. Unfortunately for you we are writing a Neutral Point of View encyclopaedia. (Incidentally if you had a talk page I could have put this there so why not set one up?) Here are my thoughts on what you’ve written:

MUCH NONENCYCLOPEDIC LANGUAGE:
- “Yate is far removed from the rolling estates of Highgrove” (rather obvious surely and hardly needs stating!)
- “Quadrant of cold windswept alleyways” (not true any more and I go over there once a week so I guess the wind has changed or new buildings are blocking the wind).
- “the shiny new establishment sits nicely among the plethora of cheap discount shops” This is silly nonsense, we have exactly one discount shop called Discount Plus, roughly opposite Boots.

ERRORS OF FACT:
- a quadrant is not the same as quadrangle, which is obviously what you meant.
- Yate is not one of the three most deprived wards, if you had honestly quoted Reference 2 you would have said Yate(West) which is not the same as all of Yate because Yate(West) has only 31% of the Yate population. The three wards are Yate(Central) with 7010 people, Yate(North) with 7200 people and Yate(West) with 6430 people, making a total of 20640 people.

NOT USING A NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW:
- “years of neglect” (assuming that’s correct) has to be balanced with some info on the current reasonably pleasant shopping centre.

All that lot in only seven paragraphs! Well done!
Adrian Pingstone 18:28, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

Points for Adrian

1. Item about Prince Charles was created by original author. This was amended since it misrepresents Yate by attempting to create an association between it and Prince Charles where one does not exist.

2. QUOTE "Design, look & feel of the shopping centre was felt to be cold and windswept" Key finding: Ref [1,2]

3. QUOTE "The range of shops in Yate town centre was incomplete, respondents felt that there were too many card shops and shops that looked “cheap”." Key finding: Ref [1]. Furthermore there are 382 references to the wish for a McDonalds in a 97 page document Ref [2].

4. Quadrant is correct in this context.

5. The other areas aren't far behind. All are below county average Ref [3]

6. QUOTE "[An improvement] strategy was produced for Yate Town Centre in 1998 when the shopping centre was owned by MEPC. MEPC were not looking to invest in the shopping centre so there was little opportunity to turn the strategy into action." .. this is neglect.

7. Above quotes are from Goverment consultative documents. This inherently means that these views are held by a large proportion of people, including residents. Although not necessarily neutral, it constitutes a valid body of opinion and is therefore definitely Encyclopedic.

Perhaps your judgment is clouded because you live there ?

References

[1] [Gloucestershire Government Consultation Report Summary]

[2] [Government Consultation Report Full Version]

[3] [Gloucestershire PCT]

Dunk 23:21, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

REPLY TO DUNK

Dunk, my judgement is not clouded even though I’ve lived in Yate since 1977. I can recognize a POV (point of view) article when I see one, no matter what the subject!

From your reply it’s clear that you don’t understand the idea of encyclopedic language so I'll have a go at that first.

LANGUAGE
The idea is that we try to use the sort of English that would be found in another encyclopedia like Encarta or Britannica. The two phrases that are unacceptable to WP (in the context of this article) are shiny new establishment and plethora of cheap discount shops. Those phrases would definitely not be found in the works I’ve mentioned.

FACTUAL ERRORS
You have completely failed to answer my point on the three deprived wards. This is what you said:
According to the DETR index of multiple deprivation, Yate ranks among the top three most deprived wards in South Gloucestershire.
I repeat: Yate is not one of the three most deprived wards. If you had honestly quoted Reference 2 you would have said Yate(West) which is not the same as all of Yate because Yate(West) has only 31% of the Yate population with 7200 out of 20640 people. So Yate must be changed to Yate(West) in the article!

I’ll let the quadrant/quadrangle pass, although I'm sure the reader will not know what quadrant means so it needs changing somehow.

LACK OF NPOV
You are stating some info about Yate of many years ago which is fine. But you must balance this by info on the modern town because the cold, windswept and years of neglect aspects of the shopping centre have now changed (for the better).
Your point 7 really gives your agenda away - although not necessarily neutral!!!

DISTORTION
You say plethora of cheap discount shops. I’ve explained that this is plain wrong, there’s only one!
You quote [An improvement] strategy was produced for Yate Town Centre in 1998 when the shopping centre was owned by MEPC. MEPC were not looking to invest in the shopping centre so there was little opportunity to turn the strategy into action." .. this is neglect.
I could not possibly get your interpretation of “this is neglect” fron the quote.

IRRELEVANCE
Why have you devoted a full paragraph to McDonalds, hardly a main feature of Yate!

All in all, a thoroughly poor article that needs a rewrite. I haven’t time now because I do almost exclusively illustrating on WP but I’ll leave your version alone for the moment. Please will other people add opinions below.
Adrian Pingstone 09:44, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

---

REPLY TO ADRIAN

How can you know that your judgement is not clouded? Not being a resident of Yate, I am in a much more objective position and am comparing the town to other places in S.Gloucestershire.

I think you need to get out more.

LANGUAGE
No encyclopedic entries can be considered neutral. All have an element of the authors POV. However, when these views are substantiated with valid references from a recognised body of opinion (in this case views of the residents themselves), this can definitely be considered to encyclopedic.

Phrase shiny new establishment AMENDED to new establishment. This is inarguably a new establishment and thus a valid comment.

Phrase plethora of cheap discount shops AMENDED to plethora of "cheap" shops. Cheap is referring to quote from Ref [1,2]. The residents view was that there are too many cheap looking shops in Yate

FACTUAL ERRORS
"If you had honestly quoted Reference 2 you would have said Yate(West)" AMENDED

LACK OF NPOV
years of neglect AMENDED to years of underinvestment. This cannot be argued.

Point 7 was refering to the report not being neutral. You are effectively disputing the findings of the report AND the views of the residents and respondants to the questionnaire.

DISTORTION
"You say plethora of cheap discount shops. I’ve explained that this is plain wrong, there’s only one!" SEE ABOVE This is the view of residents.
"I could not possibly get your interpretation of “this is neglect” fron the quote." AMENDED. SEE ABOVE. Lack of investment can easily result in neglect.

IRRELEVANCE
McDonalds was only mentioned once in my article. As opposed to 382 times in Ref [2]. I repeat the wish for a new McDonalds was a KEY FINDING of the consultative document and I refer you to the appendicies of the document which has all the views expressed by local residents / respondants.

All in all this is a balanced article and does not need a rewrite because it is a neutral article with all comments attributable to official, recognised documents which are freely available in the public domain.

I welcome other opinions, but at the moment, It is you versus the the majority.

Best wishes,

Dunk 13:00, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mentioning the existence of a McDonalds in any article is faintly absurd. Would it be relevant to mention in the 'London' article that it has 3000 McDonalds or how ever many it has? If you mention McDonalds why not mention Tesco, or Safeway, or Halfords? Perhaps the only way in which it may be relevant would be if it had some large cultural significance for example an article on Moscow may benefit from mentioning the first McDonalds in Russia as an example of the end of the cold war or the Americanisation of Russia.

Also you seem to be a little over obsessed with these documents you keep mentioning. What you don't seem to realise is that said documents don't necessarily have any relevance to an encyclopedia article, nor should they be the main source of your facts about Yate. You have picked out about five nagative facts from the documents, how many hundreds of positive facts were there I wonder?

By being selective about what you choose to use you can colour your article any way you want and still say it is 'factual'. For example I'm sure an article could be written on London which mentions only the crime, the homeless, the traffic, the polution, the racial tension.. but without bothering to mention the cultural excellence, the rich history, the diversity and so forth it gives a deeply unrealistic view.

On the shops front, does it really have a plethora of cheap shops? How do you define cheap shops? Is that an objective statement or just your opinion? Surely nearly all shopping complexes in England now have largely the same chain shops, Woolworths, Burtons, Halfords, etc etc. If it doesn't happen to have a branch of Harvey Nicholls that doesn't make it cheap, it makes it normal.

Why is the reference to Highgrove relevant to Yate? Highgrove is a long way away and has no real connection to the town of Yate other than being in the distant vicinity. If Yate had some clear cultural or financial connection to Prince Charles or Highgrove it would be worth mentioning.

The idea that any shopping centre is cold and windswept is a comment on the weather conditions at the time the author wrote that statement, and is entirely subjective. I'm sure that Yate shopping centre in the middle of July is far from cold and windswept, unless it inhabits a bizarre micro-climate.

82.33.96.38 17:53, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If I had come across this article independently, I would have edited it for more NPOV and removed apparently irrelevant info (P.C. lives 15 miles away? Irrelevant unless he drops by Yate to eat at the MacD or walks his doggies there every morning). So--then I went ahead and did it, since that's what Wikipedia allows one to do. :-) Words such as "overwhelming" (which 26% isn't, BTW) and "cheap" are POV unless they are part of a specific, useful quote (didn't come across that way). I do think it's interesting that the article so far focuses on surveys about what people don't like about it and the fact that it has a MacDonalds (same as 6 jillion other locations on Earth and several other planets in 2 or 3 solar systems). However, it appears to be valid info--would be nice if someone who knew more about the town's history and culture and whatever could add additional stuff.

Elf | Talk 19:04, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your edit looks good to me Elf. I agree with the Prince Charles thing. This should have been removed ages ago. It's simply not relevant. BTW "cheap" was a specific quote. I agree that some positive articles would help balance the article, and this would be a far better solution than simply deleting the negative ones. So, if anyone can think of anything positive to say about Yate... go for it! (Now there's a challenge!)

Dunk 19:26, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dunk, you really just don't seem to capable of understanding the concept of NPOV. It doesn't matter that cheap was a specific quote, it doesn't matter where it came from, IT IS A SUBJECTIVE VIEW..as it comes from a summation of a consultative document. In REALITY Yate has a perfectly standard range of shops that you would see in any high street of shopping centre across the land. To particularly pick out the fact that it is 'cheap', Yate would have to display a radical deviation from the norm; to warrant a mention in an encyclopedia it has to be a feature which clearly stands out to define what Yate is. You have no comprehension of the medium in which you're writing do you? If you were writing an article for a magazine, a newspaper or an essay everything you write would be fine, because it is demonstrating YOUR opinion based on some facts you have gathered. Good investigative journalism, appalling encyclopedia writing. Comprende?

The fact that you write, and I quote "So, if anyone can think of anything positive to say about Yate... go for it! (Now there's a challenge!)" clearly shows your lack of understanding of what this encyclopedia is about. You do have a personal 'downer' on Yate as Adrain put it, and hence you should not be writing this article. A Nazi party member shouldn't be writing the article on the second world war as it would be biased, a member of the Taliban shouldn't be writing an article on the US as it would be biased. Those are extreme examples to make a point, I hope you get it.

Please bear in mind that I'm in the process of writing an article on Yate that actually represents Yate's history, culture, facilities and statistics. I WILL NOT let your article stand so either you amend it considering my points here, or I will.

82.33.96.38 18:49, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah thanks Arian. It's been independantly 'audited' by Elf. I think it could do with some positive additions, rather than deletions. --Dunk 18:55, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oh and P.S. LIGHTEN UP. It's not all bad. (unless of course you live in Yate) :)

Dunc, it's been interesting talking to you. I'm quitting the subject now because I just cannot get my points over. I look forward to seeing additions to the article from someone else. Best Wishes,

Adrian Pingstone 19:29, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adrian. I'm sorry the argument escalated so much. I'm fairly new to this and this was my first experience of the frustration of someone deleting my work which I thought was quite valid. I have taken on board some of your POVs and will consider them in the future. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on some of the other things. Best regards, --Dunk 23:44, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From the village pump

I am having a discussion with Dunk concerning my opinion that his Yate article is not NPOV and is written in a nonencyclopedic style. I would appreciate any comments, please put them on the article’s Talk Page. Thanks
Adrian Pingstone 16:00, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Looks ok to me --80.177.214.204 16:21, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Looks a bit arch, but entirely valid. I take it you don't like the fact that it makes the place look rather a shithole? I'd suggest that the remedy for that would be to come up with further facts that mitigate the picture. -- Jmabel 23:34, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I rewrote it a bunch after 1st comments. Arch, huh?  :-) See its talk page. Elf | Talk 00:49, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What's arch? --80.177.214.204 01:00, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Per M. Webster: "marked by a deliberate and often forced irony, brashness, or impudence". I'll give credit for that to the material rather than to my (probably incomplete) edits. Elf | Talk 01:12, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)