This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
WikiProject Greater Manchester June Newsletter, Issue XVI
Sorry there's not been a newsletter for three months, it's not that there hasn't been anything to say but that there almost hasn't been time to say it...
On 20 March 2009 Manchester was "today's Featured Article" and received over 44,000 visitors. This was the culmination of about 2 years of effort from a lot of editors who found the article in this state before the founding of the project. Along with Greater Manchester, it's our flagship article and for it to reach the mainpage is a great achievement. It was an incredible collaborative effort and shows what the project is capable of, and since then we have gone from strength to strength. The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine was Today's Featured Article on 30 May, with 33,000 visitors.
Promoted articles:
Carrington Moss is an 1,100 acres (450 ha) peat bog in Trafford; in the 19th century, it was reclaimed to be used agriculturally and for the disposal Manchester's waste, and is still used for farming.
Manchester Mummy is about Hannah Beswick, whose macabre fear of being buried alive lead to her demanding that her body was kept above ground and checked periodically for signs of life.
The town of Sale in Trafford was probably founded in the Anglo-Saxon period and is best known as the home of physicist J. P. Joule the founding place and former home of and Sale Sharks rugby club.
Cheadle Hulme is a suburb of Stockport that formed from several small hamlets, rather than growing around a church which was usual for medieval villages. (also Stockport's first GA!)
Mellor hill fort is the only Iron Age hill fort in Greater Manchester and was only discovered in the 1990s.
Partington, in Trafford, is a town and civil parish that was until the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, a mainly agrarian community. With the opening of the canal, Partington became a major coal port and following the Second World War was expanded as an overspill estate for deprived parts of Manchester.
With all the project's success, we must be careful not to become complacent. In March, David Beckham was delisted as a Good Article because it lacked enough references and was poorly written in parts. Improving an article and getting it reviewed for GA is a lot of effort and it's a real shame to see the article delisted, but a reminder that our role as an article writer is two-fold: once we improve them, we have an obligation to maintain them. Beckham is the kind of person who is regularly in the news, so the article will get a lot of attention and need regular updating, and it was written by members of WP:FOOTBALL, but let's take it as a reminder of what's needed from us.
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Over the past three months, we've succeeded in our aims of bringing Eccles and Worsley to GA status, thanks largely to the seemingly inexhaustible Parrot of Doom. Recently another aim was added: bringing Stockport to GA standard. It's currently C-class and has some well developed sections. It will be a difficult task, but worthwhile considering it's Greater Manchester's third largest settlement. Also, the importance of bringing Salford to GA has been emphasised; it's currently B-class and should be the easiest of our aims to accomplish, although it's been there for a long time. Let's see if we can put this one to rest soon.
The project compared
Over the past three months, WP:LOND and WP:YORK have had a massive upsurge in the number of articles under their auspices. And interestingly, WP:YORKS has had an upsurge in GAs (10), and WP:LOND has had an increase in both GAs and FAs (8 and 10 respectively), closing down the gap with WP:GM. Although WP:DERB appears to have lost a GA, one of their articles was incorrectly tagged; however Derwent Valley Mills is being prepared to become a Good Article candidate, and hopefully will be the project's first. With the recent retirement of Ddstretch and Espresso Addict, WP:CHES has lost two of its most active contributors, but is still managing to produce good articles such as list of castles in Cheshire (FL) and John Douglas (now a Good Article candidate). The majority of WP:MRSY's articles are now assessed and will hopefully go from strength to strength.
There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 2 new members have joined the project since the start of March:
The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Hi, I found the Thomas Highs article some time ago and found it interesting but I didn't know it was still such a controversial topic. I referenced the "throstle" sentence when I saw that someone was asking where it had come from - a quick search on google books came up with the goods. As for the cotton interest group, I don't really know. The best thing to do would be to ask on the GM wikiproject talk page if anyone's interested. On the subject of cotton I think the Lancashire Cotton Famine deserves a better article than it's got at the moment. My interest in that was piqued by the beautiful stained glass window they have in Crumpsall hospital commemorating it, that was salvaged from a convalescent home in Blackpool built from cooton famine charity funds. I took some pictures of it to add to the article but they didn't turn out too well due to reflections from the lights on the corridor and me only having a compact digital camera and not using a tripod. I'm hoping one of my mates who's into photography might make a better job of it one day. That's another article on my list of things to do when I have the time. I've copied the pictures below. At the moment I've been working on Broughton Suspension Bridge, which I've expanded from a stub and put up for DYK. Richerman (talk) 23:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Isnt this for defunct companies, not companies that doesnt make trucks anymore? --Typ932T·C 15:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Not wishing to put up the stress level but I am disputing the cat Defunct truck manufacturers of the United Kingdom for several reasons. The item you are refering to is a lorry- truck is either slang or an Americanism, which is not appropriate to a UK cat tree. Secondly the title is ambiguous. Thirdly shouldn't the title be either Manufacturers of defunct vehicles in the United Kingdom or Defunct manufacturers of vehicles in the United Kingdom. Most adjective can be used to qualify a noun and as a stand alone description- some can only be used in the second way- I have only heard defunct used that way. Now on to Aveling and Porter, as a manufacture principally of road rollers. The name is defunct, the company has been merged beyond recognition, it never manufactured trucks- only an occasional Steam Waggon, I am reverting the tag.--ClemRutter (talk) 16:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
As a Brit, I wouldn't normally use the words "defunct" or "truck" - but those are the chosen existing formats for Wikipedia! So either we end up using words which mean more to some, or follow the existing Wikipedia category forms. Having been through such a series of debates before, I conclude under the forms and guides of Wikipedia on categories, that: (1) the existing category forms which are in place set a precedence; (2) are also the more globally used terms; (3) and hence followed existing protocol. The category covers both defunct and former truck manufacturing companies. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 23:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
June 2009
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from Cotton Mill. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. I noticed you removed content regarding Beverly Cotton Manufactory back to it showing as Water Powered. That is not correct, and I meshed my older version with the current article. Please don't deface Wikipedia content, edit the content for appropriateness, don't blatantly delete cited facts.Silivrenion (talk) 21:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Beverly Cotton Manufactory
I commented back on the talk page for the article in question. Please check it out. I added an issues tag to the section to encourage people to expand on Horse Power. Please don't delete the section, but rather expand on it and help to improve the article.Silivrenion (talk) 00:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Packwood Windmill photo
Hi, it's been deleted as it was identified as Shrewley (the bowed crosstree was the giveaway) and therefore out of copyright. I uploaded it to Commons, and it appears in the List of windmills in Warwickshire under Shrewley.
PS. I had a senior moment and posted this elsewhere instead of here, sorry for delay in your receiving it. Mjroots (talk) 18:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Mills task force
It's decision time, see WT:HSMjroots (talk) 07:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
I'll leave you to add in priorities for cotton mills to the proposed scope statement. A new image would be ok, but see my comments at WT:HS re image name. Mjroots (talk) 11:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Re. Peak District
Hi Clem, the only reason I had un wikilinked the articles you mentioned is because they were already linked earlier on in the article. Someone once told me that pages should only be linked when they are mentioned for the first time. Is this correct? Feel free to revert if I am wrong. Thanks for the fantastic work you have done on the Peak District, and I am sure many other articles too :) Regards, Schumi555 16:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
The relevant policy can be found at WP:Linking#Link density. In essence, if links are spaced far apart it's ok to link them more than once. You're doing some fine work on the Peak District by the way Clem, keep it up :-) Nev1 (talk) 16:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from Cotton Mill. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. I noticed you removed content regarding Beverly Cotton Manufactory back to it showing as Water Powered. That is not correct, and I meshed my older version with the current article. Please don't deface Wikipedia content, edit the content for appropriateness, don't blatantly delete cited facts. Silivrenion (talk) 21:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)