[jthoppes]

Discussion thread for Category:England. If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

[jthoppes]

Delia asks:

When it comes to some of the English sites there are a few with just the 'County name' but England isn't... should the Country and County/State etc be in the Categories?

[jthoppes]

There are presently no fewer than 154 entries in Category:England, which is more than a little awkward. It won't be long before these move onto a second page.

My instinct would be to "promote" the various county category pages, so that Category:England would produce a list of counties, on the model of the Category:United States page.

The obvious counterargument is that US states are substantially more geographically stable than English counties, so that using the latter as large categories will lead to disputes involving people who list within "historic" counties, irredentists for Rutlandshire, and suchlike confusion.

Thoughts?

[jthoppes]

While I'm stirring up trouble: the existing forums page lists the Isle of Man under the heading for the UK and both the Channel Islands and the Scillies under the heading for Southwest England. The opus categories are currently set up differently, with Man, the Channel Islands, and Scilly all having separate entries in the main Category:Europe.

1. Which should we use for the opus?
2. Would it be helpful to have a Category:United Kingdom page to include at least the existing categories for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?

I'm not going to edit any of this myself, being an American who is more than a bit confused by the exact constitutional status of most of these places...

[delia todd]

There are presently no fewer than 154 entries in Category:England

My confusion arises because you can't actually do a search for 'England' the only articles appearing are those that have England in the title

That was why I started a page for Scotland, but the problem arises with updating it.

Would it be helpful to have a Category:United Kingdom page to include at least the existing categories for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?

I think for the purposes of Opus... British Isles would be better, so that Southern Ireland etc would be included.

One problem is, that you have to find an article in, say, England, then click on England at the bottom to get a list

As I said elsewhere... I'm a bit confused as to how categories actually work

D

[jthoppes]

The 154 number I got was from going to Category:Europe and selecting Category:England. It's entirely possible that there are many more crypto-sites listed only under county categories out there. (A quick look at Category:Nottinghamshire revealed that all four Notts sites are also listed under Category:England.) These county categories are the ones that are presently "hidden," ie not available under any of the main category listings, hence my proposal.

[jthoppes]

Originally Posted by delia todd

I think for the purposes of Opus... British Isles would be better, so that Southern Ireland etc would be included.

As far as I can tell there is no good solution to this problem. The difficulty with "British Isles" including southern Ireland is the political implication of the category... I already had to remove one entry for Lough Neagh in Ulster from Category:Ireland. (Since the original poster used "Northern Ireland" in the driving directions, I think this was an honest mistake rather than the act of a disgruntled Sinn Feiner, but one never knows.) "Britain and Ireland" would be better, but then that excludes Man and the Scillies, not to mention Wight, Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides.

[njlarsen]

I am also not an inhabitant of any of the islands in question, but I would have thought British Isles to be the objective geographical designation for the entire archipelago, while Great Britain would have the implications of being a political entity?

Niels

[IanF]

I've been puzzling over the location category structure as well. I think the whole location structure needs to be revamped and preferably before too many more entries are added. Quite a few entries seem to be just listed by location name or in country but not in county making them difficult to locate unless you know the reserve name you're looking for.

Continent: Country:Stateounty:Location - seems to be a more logical structure to use. With different nations calling countries by different names, at least having them organised by Continent will point people in the right direction. I suppose multiple category names can be used but may get a little confusing.

[delia todd]

OK I've done a bit of looking about but haven't worked out how you 'get there' yet.

There's a category for Europe, which when selected brings up all the European countries.

If you click on 'England' you find all the articles but personally I feel this should bring up all the Counties.

Selecting a county should then list the Articles within that County.

'Key words' within articles are important for searching so they appear in the results list.

I wonder then if we need to go the route of British Isles?

What are your views on this?

What I don't know is when [[Category:....]] should be used, as opposed to Category without the colon.

D

[IanF]

I'm of the same mind. I think England should be split into counties and the counties then contain the locations. Opus is seachable by any word, not just keywords so nothing is lost. Personaly if I'm visiting an area then I'd prefer to just select the county in order to get a list of all the reserves.

It would be simpler if categories could be entered as a tree - Category:Englandleveland:Haverton Hole as opposed to listing them as seperate entries - perhaps you can - I've not explored this sufficiently yet. The Help files are useful, but not that easy to follow.

[njlarsen]

With some of the earlier posts in mind, maybe a compromize: for example England containing two parts, at the top the links to county categories, then below a line an alphabetical listing of all pages. Every page therefore should have both a category:england and a category:county.

Cheers
Niels

[jthoppes]

It looks like widespread consensus that we should have county category pages under the main England category. I'm going to experiment with a few of these- please stop me if I do anything geographically illiterate.

[njlarsen]

Before we get too carried away with the possibilities of categories, I think we should consider how this benefits our users. I have just made a very simple Opus search for England, and the Category page does not occur on the page of results. Unless the category page is available to the user, isn't it rather academic to talk about how it should look?

And maybe this should be in a different thread, but I am too busy just now to search for a better place to put it.

Niels

[IanF]

I supopse it depends on how you access the page - maybe a job in progress

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Category:England

[jthoppes]

As Ian notes, I've started rearranging things.

The problem Niels notes about search not returning the Category pages does need to have some kind of fix in the very near future, but it's a bit of a different question from the internal category page structure.

[jthoppes]

Just tested Niels's example, and the broken search is a problem and a very big one.

When a user searches for something (a general location), we need to have a way to bring that category up as the first search result. Right now a search for England generates the following:

1. There is no page titled "England."

2. A list of article title matches, for instance "Berney Marshes and Breydon Water RSPB (England)." Note that these will be going away in accordance with established policy as I continue editing, as in most cases they are quite awkward.

3. A list of page text matches. Which is completely useless as half or more of them refer to birds nesting in New England, ie the northeastern USA.

The best short term solution to this is to make sure that every existing category has an overview page such as Andre's Switzerland example, which circumvents this problem.

[delia todd]

Maybe talking a load of tosh

How about a page for each country with just a link to that country's list:

For instance the page would just have:

Clck 'here' for all the English Counties

At least that way a search for England would produce something.

To do an article such as the Switzerland one for every country I don't think is possible.

D

[jthoppes]

Originally Posted by delia todd

To do an article such as the Switzerland one for every country I don't think is possible.

Not right now, but no reason we can't put up stubs with links to the Category pages.

[njlarsen]

Originally Posted by IanF

I supopse it depends on how you access the page - maybe a job in progress

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Category:England

Ian, that is most probably true, as I noticed at the end of the search page I referenced above, there was a set of check-boxes for which name-space to search within. However, for the average user, we cannot expect him/her to change these to find the pages we want that person to find.

Cheers
Niels

[njlarsen]

Originally Posted by jthoppes

Not right now, but no reason we can't put up stubs with links to the Category pages.

This may be the most workable work-around yet ...

Niels

[jthoppes]

I just finished sorting this.

If the blundering American put your local patch in the wrong county, please feel free to make any necessary changes.

[delia todd]

Well done JT... good job there!

Ready to start on Scotland now

D

[IanF]

Originally Posted by jthoppes

I just finished sorting this.

If the blundering American put your local patch in the wrong county, please feel free to make any necessary changes.

Looks pretty good to me - a couple of changes maybe needed at some point as some Countieas no longer exist but the area is still known by that name - Cleveland is one such County which is included but Tyne&Wear and Humberside aren't. Yorkshire strictly speaking comprises totally separate counties of North, South and West Yorkshire - but I think it's easier to leave as 'Yorkshire' unless this becomes an issue.