Talk:London

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Contents

1 Archive 2 General Points 3 Just read NYC article and found we are missing things 4 Power Infrastructure 5 Reverted lost content 6 Writing style 7 Population 8 Areas 9 table 10 FAC? 11 10 Best 12 Reorganised images. 13 Article splitting 14 Wikibook on London

Archive

• Talk:London/archive1

General Points

Duncanssmith writes:

Since size is an issue with this article, I have been breaking things down into bullet-point lists where possible. I am still working on improving the structure and logic as well. Its got a way to go. I think the New York City article is a pretty good example to follow. Its clear, concise and pithy.

A request - please keep sentences short and uncomplicated where possible! I feel there is no need to go on at length about everything under the sun all the time - please keep to the subject headings, think about what you are writing, and if you want to stray off subject, look for an existing heading to put your contribution into!

Please feel free to change anything you like!

Thanks.

Duncan Smith 16:21, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just read NYC article and found we are missing things

I've just read the New York City article and realised that this article, which I thought was pretty close to done, is missing some fairly important things. Firstly two that should perhaps be main subsections:

• Education, especially higher education
• Media, including London as a centre of the international non-English language media

Other things that I think be covered that are wholly or almost wholly absent now, but should perhaps not have their own sections:

• Religion
• Police/crime/courts/legal London
• Cuisine
• Shopping
• Climate
• Redevelopment (there's more to it than Docklands}
• London's role as a preferred city for the international rich
• Charities and think tanks. Role as an opinion forming centre generally (ties in with education and media as above and also with politics).
• relationship between London and the rest of the UK. ("Metropolitan values"; provincial resentment etc)

I don't want to make the article as long as New York's which is a little flabby in places, but we do seem to have quite a few omissions which I didn't spot until I read a comparable article. I'll start filling them in soon, but please help out if you agree that they matter. Wincoote 08:43, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Duncanssmith writes:

I agree - I think your suggested item headings are very good and relevant. And I'm all for getting rid of flab!

Go for it! Duncanssmith 10:40, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Power Infrastructure

Why and when was HVDC Kingsnorth shut down? Extend this chapture, please. (Please put details about history of HVDC Kingsnorth to the article "HVDC Kingsnorth "

Reverted lost content

I reverted a bunch of content at the end of this article that was taken out by an IP-user. Please check this page before making new edits, to be sure this has not been done again. Otherwise, a hasty revert may "forget" your new work. — Xiong (talk) 04:20, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

Writing style

When I read the London article first I was appalled by the writing style.

To be frank the article was full of needlessly dependency-ridden over-complicated run-on sentences, and horrific cliches!

The writer(s) of this article seemed to be trying to "big up" London with claims that London is the "biggest" "most important" etc city "in the world" throughout, with less emphasis on actual information!

Superlatives abounding may be interesting to school children, but I felt that most people would be better off reading more interesting and informative content.

Duncanssmith 1 April 2005. 11:36 BST

• Please leave others to judge the quality of your contributions. Many of your additions were good, but I think you removed some useful information and weakened the context in places. It seems that by the term "value-laden" in your edit comment you mean politically incorrect, but Wikipedia is not a tool of the liberal establishment. Rather it is has a policy of neutrality, which is quite a different thing.
• London is widely regarded as one of the largest and most significant cities in the world. Perhaps this is a mass delusion, but none the less the existence of this perception is factual and relevant, and I think it may properly be stated. There is much more boosterism in Wikipedia's articles about many other famous cities than there is here. Articles which merely list facts without context are indigestible. As for the intellectual respectibility of claims about London's status, please note the first sentence of the London article in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica describes London as "the greatest city in the world". That would breach Wikipedia's neutrality policy, but it is a reminder that removing all comparatives is not necessarily good practice as it may leave the uninformed reader floundering for context.

Duncanssmith here:

Thanks for your comments. I will certainly leave others to judge the quality of my contributions, after all thats what this Wiki thing is all about isn't it? Voting with your feet or whatever. Anyone can rewrite anything I rewrite at any time! I actually don't think I weakened anything -I made some of the previous author(s)'s contributions more readable and clearer. I removed a couple of irrelevant things like "Wealthy Londoners send their children to Eton, a famous school outside London" which I felt didn't add much to anyone's knowledge of London.

Wikipedia might not be a tool of the liberal establishment (whatever that might mean!) but I think it should try to reflect actual facts rather than contain such claims as "there has been a lot of immigration in East London most of it Asian Muslims" or whatever. I don't think it is "PC" to want to correct that. Probably all writing is "value laden." I am for more factual info over subjective opinion. For example "Football is the most popular sport in London." Obviously written by a football fan! You get my drift!

I look forward to reading all your edits!

Duncanssmith 5 April 2005. 10:50 BST Duncanssmith 10:37, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Population

"one source suggests a figure of 13,945,000 for 2001" any reference would be nice. Rich Farmbrough 11:28, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Areas

Why do we have a section about the East End but not the West End, also the East End has its own article. Wouldn't it be an idea to have an "Areas of London" section or something, to highlight the differences between the different areas. G-Man 20:48, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duncanssmith writes:

I quite agree - it would be very good to have subdivisions as you suggest. Why not start a few? I thought it might be good to do it by borough, or by well-known areas, for example "South of the River" or "Maida Vale and Paddington" or whatever. The difficulty is London is a very big subject! The previous author(s) had put the East End part in, and I did add to it and rewrite it quite a bit.

I know its being a bit copy-cattish but the New York City article is very well structured, and clearly and authoritatively written (gives that impression anyway!) part of my motivation in starting to reorganise the London section was to bring it up to that standard. The article definitely needs a lot of structural improvement, and will in time be broken out into other articles in their own right (I expect the East End section could be a candidate for this.) Please do make these changes if you have time and the inclination, because it surely benefits everyone.

thanks. Duncanssmith 09:26, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duncanssmith writes:

OK - I have started a new section - Districts of London or whatever and started off bits about various neighbourhoods. It might be too much detail if it all gets filled in completely, but its intended as a place to start. Hopefully other people will add things as we go forward.

regards. Duncan Smith 17:44, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(have slightly format-tidied this talk page so as to make it follow-able: it doesn't need to be so formal!) ...

I really dislike this addition. the "London" page is, by its nature, an overview page. If we start placing information about every district in London - and it would mean 'every' as a sub-selection would be impossible to agree on - then it would get a very excessive proportion of the whole article. Either this should be a "Districts of London" article in itself, or - preferably - just a link to the category that already exists of the London districts. I won't revert what is there at the moment, but I strongly suggest that the author moves useful content elsewhere. --Vamp:Willow 18:18, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes I agree. I have removed the headings for individual towns (these were just too much) and made the text much higher level but I think we could get away with making the detail even more scant. Mrsteviec 18:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duncan Smith Good - seems like I've stimulated a bit of a discussion at least! Get on with it then!

Duncan Smith 20:39, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

table

City of Manchester
Geography
Status:	Metropolitan borough, City (1853)
Region:	North West England
Ceremonial County:	Greater Manchester
Area: - Total	Ranked 228th 115.65 km²
Admin. HQ:	Manchester
ONS code:	00BN
Geographical coordinates:	Template:Coor dm
Demographics
Population: - City (2002 est) - Total (2002 est) - Density	Ranked 6th 422,302 2,513,468 3,652 / km²
Ethnicity:	81.0% White 9.1% S.Asian 4.5% Afro-Carib. 1.3% Chinese
Politics
Manchester City Council http://www.manchester.gov.uk/
Leadership:	Leader & Cabinet
Executive:	Labour
MPs:	Keith Bradley, Paul Goggins, Gerald Kaufman, Tony Lloyd, Graham Stringer

Please can we fill in this table, copied from Manchester, with london data then put it in the article, as it looks a bit bare without a nice summary table. thanks Bluemoose 14:36, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duncan Smith writes:

Thanks for offering! Go ahead!

Duncan Smith 15:29, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it would be apt to add that table on this page as the table already exists on Greater London, City of London and all the "London Borough of..." pages. It would just be repetition, or worse conflicting information especially as in the context of this page "London" is somewhat ambiguous (and should be) Mrsteviec 15:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Plus London is a region, not a county.

Duncan Smith writes: Hmm - yes, but the London page certainly could use more relevant (and better) images. What about the Corporation of London logo and doesn't the GLA have something? What about the Underground symbol etc? maybe London is just too big a subject to narrow down to a few symbolic images. Duncan Smith

FAC?

Are we ready for WP:FAC now? It looks great to me. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Surely it needs a nice picture of a Routemaster bus going round Trafalgar Square. - Solipsist 20:03, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If see one and have a camera, take a photo and post it! It's all nasty modern buses, including the bendy ones, around my way. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've now got a some pics of Routemasters going round Piccadilly Circus, but I'm not sure I am happy enough with any of the results. -- Solipsist 15:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It needs a reference section if it's not to be summarily rejected, jguk 23:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that would just be clutter. The references for most of it belong in the hundreds of more detailed articles which it links to.

I think it's still seriously lacking in some ways. It needs to give more of an idea of what the city is like, some idea of the atmosphere of the place, what types of people live and works there and how and why (and I don't just mean which ethnic groups). Also, more on the city's role in the UK and the World. At the moment it is too dry. The New York article gave a much better idea of what that city is like as a city when I read it some time ago. This article is an accumulation of detail that lacks life. I might have a go at doing some of this sometime, but I know it won't be easy. CalJW 06:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

10 Best

In the intro 4 cities in comparison seems almost claustrophobic at this point. How about London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Moscow? Criteria could include population and the city's international nature. I suppose substitutes would include Sao Paolo, Johannesburg, Bombay and ???. I just feel impulsively that London looks even better when compared with more cities than just 4, and maybe 10 is a manageable number. It would certainly be even more welcoming to visitors than the article already is. As a non-native, thank you for reading.--McDogm 23:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

--Well the top four are almost universally considered to be the most important global cities. The others you mentioned are what could be considered currently developing into true global city status, but are not anywhere near the same level as London at the present time. --Jleon 15:36, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Reorganised images.

I put the panorama image back where it was previously. Its a bad image (more apparent when it was displayed at high resolution), understandably because its not the most convenient position for taking a panorama... but there are just too many seams to the picture, and very little info.

I also put the Tower image further up for better presentation... A really cool image of the bridge would be a better choice for that position, but I am not an expert on London (by any stretch).

Hope this helps. --Spundun 19:56, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Article splitting

This article is 69KB, more than twice as large as 32KB. I want to see if there is any real way to get the sections into their own articles and I can't find one here. Georgia guy 23:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikibook on London

Anyone is welcome to contribute to the Wikibook guide on London. Find it at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/London . We especially need info on travel in the city. Thanks! Charlie123 14:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)