Talk:Manchester/Archive 2

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Archive This 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.

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between 24 September 2005 and 27 September 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:Manchester/Archive 3. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Andreww 07:24, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

One of the biggest

I'm sure i was told Manchester has the biggest student population in europe. Anyone know of any bigger ones? Plugwash 23:48, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I can only find anecdotal evidence for this - even though I've often heard it myself. It's also been going around for a while as evidenced by Ian Brown in 1998 [1]. I reckon if we include this it should be prefaced by a "reputedly" or "allegedly", as I've seen newspapers do [2] (even though the Times didn't [3]). But to answer your question, other cities with large student populations include Rome, Barcelona, Paris, London, Milan, Naples and Cologne - no definitive stats yet but this page is useful. Cormaggio @ 10:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Protection

Users have been warring over this page so it has been temporarily protected. Please discuss where the redirect should go on Talk:City of Manchester and leave me a message when that is resolved. Thank you. --Celestianpower hablamé 15:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

not to mention someone needs to clean up the copypaste move of manchester to city of manchester. Plugwash 15:20, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

What on earth is going on here?

Why has some new user steamed in, removed the extensive page on Manchester, redirected it to Greater Manchester and taken the Manchester page to "City of Manchester"?!

What a fucking mess. 86.138.10.139 19:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I have moved it back seem as this mess seems to have been created by one user without asking anyone. And there appears to be consensus for this bizarre move to City of Manchester, and it is totally inconsistant with every other city article. G-Man 21:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Well if you acknowledge that there is consensus then how can you justify going ahead and changing it to suit your own agenda? EarlyBird 22:18, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

If your wondering where Earlybirds consensus came you from might find the answer in here [[4]] [[5]] [[6]].

Welcome back!

Welcome back home, Manchester! Hope you enjoyed your little trip. --Tony SidawayTalk 21:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

There are many inaccuracies throughout the article. Please check. --Litherland 14:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Can you be more specific, or do we have any reason to believe this isn't more of the same vandalism we had a few weeks ago? Cormaggio @ 14:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
This guy's been trolling all day. David 15:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Confusing paragraph

"As with the conurbation around London, many people have come to regard Manchester as a city in its own right, despite the fact that neither officially has City status."

On the City Status article, Manchester and London are both in the list of cities, but this paragraph says they arent?

I don't really know much about this, but surely thats wrong?

In the UK official city status is given to local authorities not the entire city. London and Manchester each have two local authorities with city status. I think this paragraph is bit weasely - Manchester and London are cities, it doesn't need to be explained in terms of "many people regard". MRSC 19:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I agree on the weaselyness of the paragraph in question but it certainly makes sense. The City of London is an administrative area with a population of 7,000 at the heart of the London conurbation. Likewise, The City of Westminster is another area with City status, but has a population of just over 200,000. Both of these official Cities are obviously not representative of the entire city of London, which is obviously to all the conurbation occupying most of greater London and beyond, with its' roughly 8 million inhabitants.
The paragraph doesn't say that London and Manchester aren't cities therefore, it points out that the City of London and the City of Manchester are only small central parts of 'London' or 'Manchester'.
note - my use of lower and upper case 'c' and 'C's are intentional, and may help to clarify my reply.Mr ed 20:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Breach of policy

Having done some research, this article as it currently stands is in clear breach of the No original research policy, which clearly states that editors are not allowed to invent their own definitions of a subject, based upon original research. G-Man 20:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

There is nobody, as I understand it, who is inventing definitions here. It is perfectly well recognised that the term 'Manchester' is used to describe the conurbation. Examples range from the obvious - There are few who would describe Manchester United FC as being in Trafford for example, to the less obvious, such as the central commercial district of Manchester lies partly in Salford. If it is an invention that this is true, then likewise the page entitled 'London', whilst reffering to the London conurbation, would also be an 'invention' and would have to be removed.

Please read through the detailed discussions in the City of Manchester talk page.Mr ed 20:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

No, no such an official definition of Manchester exists, there are three officially defined entities with the name 'Manchester'. the city of Manchester, the 'Greater Manchester Urban Area' and 'Greater Manchester'. Nowhere is 'Manchester' defined officially as refering to the conurbation, this is a definition of the term which has been invented by User:EarlyBird and is therefore in clear breach of the policy.
The official definition of the Government Office Region covering London (the same area of Greater London) is simply 'London' therefore the London article is correct. G-Man 21:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The language throughout http://www.manchester.gov.uk does supports this. All references are to "City of Manchester" with "Manchester" used occasionally and clearly as shorthand for the City of Manchester. Where an area bigger than just the City of Manchester is discussed the term "Greater Manchester" but never "Manchester" is used suggesting that Manchester and City of Manchester are one and the same. MRSC 21:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
What do you suggest as a course of action? MRSC 20:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally I think this is a NPOV issue.
That "The entire Greater Manchester Urban Area is "Manchester"" is clearly POV - some people agree, some people disagree. Which one is the majority POV is irrelevant - it's still POV.
Conversely, that "Everywhere outside the "strictly defined City of Manchester" is NOT "Manchester"" is, in exactly the same way and to exactly the same extent, also POV.
As these are both POV statements, it is important that Wikipedia does not implicitly or explicitly assert either of them as fact (in the Wikipedia sense - By "fact," we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute. Neutral_point_of_view#A_simple_formulation).
IMO, in titling an article about the conurbation "Manchester", Wikipedia is implicitly asserting the first of these POV positions, and this would therefore be a clear breach of NPOV. The current state of affairs is therefore clearly unacceptable and should be reverted.
What is less clear is whether, in titling the "City" (in the strict sense) article "Manchester" as it was previously, Wikipedia would be implicitly accepting the second of the two POV statements above.
It is my opinion that it wouldn't be for two reasons:
- It is a fact (ie "there is no serious dispute") that the strictly-defined-city area is "Manchester", just not that it is exclusively "Manchester". The strictly-defined-city is the one area for which asserting "Manchester-ness" is not contentious, as long as it isn't done exclusively.
and
- It is possible to state clearly in the introductions to relevant articles (including Manchester, Greater Manchester, Trafford, Salford etc) something along the lines of "many people consider area x to be apart of Manchester, even though it is part of a separate local authority". (the precise wording would obviously need to be discussed and agreed upon). Wikipedia would then be recognising and explaining, without asserting, this POV.


BUT, if it was widely felt that titling the "City" article "Manchester" rather than "City of Manchester" would be asserting the second POV statement as fact then it would clearly be better to leave it as "City of Manchester". Under those circumstances this should be carried out consistently across all UK cities, though, as Manchester's restricted borders aren't unique and shouldn't be treated as such. There would be problems with labelling all UK city articles "City of...", because important words such as Manchester and Liverpool would then have to lead to disambig pages, but these problems would be preferable to breaking the NPOV rule, if that was the only alternative.
JimmyGuano 22:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This sounds reasonable. Thinking about the impact of this I think it would be minimal as in the UK the local authorities tend to be bigger than the towns and cities they cover such that the city article is written in the style of being a district of that authority - Brighton, Brighton and Hove; Croydon, London Borough of Croydon; Basildon, Basildon (district) etc. Where the local authority covers the same area of the town there is one article e.g. Harlow.
On this basis I suggest an article called Manchester written about the local authority area with City of Manchester redirected to Manchester and the names and status of the local authority clearly explained. The infobox would give the full name "City of Manchester". MRSC 06:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Sounds sensible to me. There would obviously need to be a sensible degree of discretion shown on both sides in what was and wasn't considered relevant to mention in the Manchester article.
JimmyGuano 21:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

City of Manchester Talk page

A more full and detailed discussion regarding this matter is currently taking place on the City of Manchester talk page. I think all would agree that trying to engage in a lenghty discussion across two pages is at best confusing and at worst disadvantageous to the expression of the points raised by everyone.

As I did above, I refer everybody to the discussion on the City of Manchester:Talk page.Mr ed 18:21, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Definitions

Please add suggestions at Talk:City_of_Manchester#Definitions about which Manchester-related articles we should have and what each of them should contain. Cormaggio @ 00:21, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Hijacked For Propoganda Purposes

The article is referring to Manchester as a Conurbation. This is clearly wrong because the actual name of the conurbation is "Greater Manchester" according to Wikipedia's own definition. By incorrectly stating Manchester is a conurbation the contributor has tried to manipulate Wikipedia for his own purpose of having Manchester redefined in the way they would like, namely the whole Greater Manchester area should be called Manchester. This is like someone suggesting that the West Midlands conurbation should be referred to as Birmingham. There has been no national survey as to whether most people do think Greater Manchester is Manchester so this can not be listed as a fact. The current Wikipedia article about Manchester is being used by many people on their websites and this incorrect assertion is being duplicated. The contributor has then moved on to redirecting the "city of Manchester" article to the "Manchester" article which calls it a conurbation. The whole credibility of Wikipedia is coming into question when one individual starts to manipulate articles and defintions for their own propoganda purposes. The originators of the Wikipedia encyclopedia should be alerted to what is happening. --BigBriton 12:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly G-Man 20:11, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think making wild accusations like this is helpful. There is a genuine and legitimate disagreement here, and it would be appropriate of both sides to acknowledge this. Morwen - Talk 15:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)