Talk:HA postcode area

HA8

- HA8 covers portions of both Barnet and Harrow - the A5 divides the two boroughs. Canons Park and the surrounding area to the west of the A5 are in Harrow, but still have an HA8 post code (HA7, Stanmore, covers the area to the north). Alexisr 01:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Three Rivers

The intro section mentions that HA6 covers part of Hertfordshire, but not that HA5 does. However, the table indicates that HA5 also covers part of Three Rivers. I'm not sure whether it does or doesn't - but the two should be consistent. PoisonedPigeon (talk) 13:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Putting the lie to postal convenience

[REVERTED] There is an over-stressed line that runs all postal districts, especially in fairly urban areas, were purely made for postal convenience. That is total hyperbole. As all of the maps prove of Middlesex you will find they quite closely relate to the main historic parishes about which reams has been written. However there are elements of new and entirely grouped together designation which were by and large for postal convenience. I would say enough said but with the adding of Postcode Sector to the official government Census access everyone has, and much more published data by postal divisions of all sorts, and indeed people not knowing what their history is as Anglican parishes mean less and less every year in such areas, it is all the more interesting for people to see what their wards and other secular terms come from and what those identities originally meant in size and geography. If not here, then where else. This is a full geographic division these days.

Please do not lose sight of that dimension. I never lose sight of the present, nor the past, nor the future.- Adam37 Talk 19:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Allow my edit to stand, reworded if you must. But people have strong identities that conflict with postcode areas in a historic way. The maps and current names of businesses often backing them up prove this. In what way is that not WP:NOTABLE?
• WP:GAC demands articles reach out to an academic level where that can be fairly achieved. I strongly recommend something to map out how things have changed and some things are for postal convenience. In big cities especially you'll find where Post Towns are preserved there is often a move towards using those or in a conflicting way with what has gone before. I don't think showing the overlap - the competing identities for the HA postcode area - is wrong.- Adam37 Talk 18:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Adam37: "Allow my edit to stand, reworded if you must." It doesn't always work like that, and you know that very well having edited Wikipedia for fourteen years.

"People have strong identities that conflict with postcode areas in a historic way. The maps and current names of businesses often backing them up prove this. In what way is that not WP:NOTABLE?" And what actual physical sources do you have to hand for this? If you have none, then as far as I'm concerned, it's more bull excrement than notable.

"WP:GAC demands articles reach out to an academic level where that can be fairly achieved. I strongly recommend something to map out how things have changed and some things are for postal convenience." Recommendation firmly rejected by me; WP:GAC can quite easily be satisfied without these "correlations to traditional terms".

"In big cities especially you'll find where Post Towns are preserved there is often a move towards using those or in a conflicting way with what has gone before." Again, do you have an actual physical source for this? If you don't, then again, it's bull excrement.

"I don't think showing the overlap - the competing identities for the HA postcode area - is wrong." Well I'm sorry, but I don't see why it's right either, or indeed necessary.

Needless to say, if this was Fandom/Wikia you could add as much as you desired to these articles without any trouble whatsoever - maps, "correlations to traditional terms", passages that casual readers would almost certainly have no interest in - because there are far fewer rules on Fandom/Wikia than there are here on Wikipedia.

Why, though, are you even editing these postcode area articles in the first place, when you are "no fan of postcodes one bit"? Do you not think for one moment that your time here on Wikipedia would be better spent editing articles relating to things that you *are* a fan of, or at least take a significant interest in? 2A02:8084:F1BE:9180:5C2D:589B:D894:2386 (talk) 21:20, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

90% of things we actually agree on. The thing is I want to prove post towns in these areas are a rough version of what went before (and lingers much). Overlapping the maps seems a totally verifiable and really easy way. No? Don't be too negative it's bad for you.- Adam37 Talk 17:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Adam37: You *want* to prove it? You actually *want* to prove such a ridiculous thing on this article and other postcode area articles, without giving a care about how appealing it may be to casual readers?

How does that Stones song go again? "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need..."

"Overlapping the maps seems a totally verifiable and really easy way." More bull excrement. Sorry.

I think it's time to bring someone like User:Redrose64 into this discussion... 2A02:8084:F1BE:9180:FD38:87ED:46E0:A2D6 (talk) 18:31, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

One thing I think we are agreed on is small post towns are of unknown value even if very very close to their parish precursor limits - even becoming used electorally? - over time. D. Byrne has written much on overlap in 1998 Complexity theory and the social sciences (Routledge) and more pointedly Understanding the Urban (2001, Palgrave). I can't say I'm keen enough to borrow a copy. So I am unwilling to put the academic side too strongly. We also seem to think neither of us have a monopoly on the kind of content (if any can be settled upon) to ensure a postcode area article gets GA status and keeps it. Very frustrating. And I know urban postcodes are becoming more of the standard reference point.- Adam37 Talk 19:09, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Adam37: Well let's see what User:Redrose64 has to say, shall we? 2A02:8084:F1BE:9180:91F6:7747:E957:35F1 (talk) 19:16, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes and any others. Also I found MPs as a matter of identity conflate Post Town with whole place identity, surpassing how that name has been used before. Gresham Cooke, MP, in 1964 said

“ Will the hon. Gentleman note that the residents of Twickenham are content to go on being addressed as "Twickenham, Middlesex"? —Hansard, 1964 ”

Andrew Rosindell, MP, in 2018 said [who by the way doesn't like Wembley being branded Brent, but wants Wembley to be mentioned in the name of a London Borough] says

“ Our postal address is “Romford, Essex”. —Hansard, 2018 ”

These things really seem to matter to some influential people. I'd rather they didn't. Hence I'd rather show the alternative picture. It's called liking the "underdog" picture if you see. Not just all the postal hegemony that grows year by year.- Adam37 Talk 19:50, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Which edit(s) am I being asked to pronounce judgment upon? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:56, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it is my overlaid map on this article, per History. And possibly the perhaps a bit grandiloquent/precious prose in hindsight I wrote to go with it. I'm very conscious!

I have also found a learned source which shows Postmasters (and successors) think government areas so vestry/parish successors too correspond, where possible, to such districts. Trim down might be a compromise. My maps (as Parker, MP, OK a bit too strongly claimed in the House of Commons) kicks that line out as false or weasly worded and locally very interesting in some chunky areas that never were associated with the post towns until they were drawn up. Quote:

“ John Parker (Labour politician), Romford

asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the great inconvenience caused to residents, and in particular new residents, in outer London by the fact that postal areas have no relation to local government areas; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this?

Major Tryon, postmaster general
Postal delivery districts are made to correspond with local government areas so far as that is reasonably practicable. The postal and local government organisations are, however, designed to serve entirely different purposes and the Post Office would be greatly hampered in its work and the efficiency of its services would be seriously impaired if it were to adhere rigidly to municipal boundaries. —Hansard 1936

”

I try my hardest to help folks.- Adam37 Talk 21:30, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: @Adam37: Yes, that map and that prose.

Also check out a similar map and similar prose that was added to the UB postcode area article. 2A02:8084:F1BE:9180:29D1:88AA:7B4F:2739 (talk) 22:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Addressing the matter of the prose concerned, it is unsourced; and per the policy on verifiability, if reinstated it must be sourced because it has now been challenged. If it cannot be sourced, it may violate the policy on original research. If it can be sourced but several sources are necessary to assemble verification for one claimed fact, this may also violate the policy on original research but in a more subtle way, see synthesis of published material. The maps are also unsourced, they are stated to be the "Own work" of Adam37 with no indication of how they were derived.

Therefore, I must conclude that the material cannot be reinstated in the same form. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

As regards historic parishes - consider the parish of Barford St. John and St. Michael in Oxfordshire. This contains two villages; and for a long time (until the 1990s IIRC) the two villages had different post towns, meaning that when postcodes were introduced in the 1960s, they also had different postcode districts: Barford St. Michael (post town Oxford) was in postcode sector OX5 4, whereas Barford St. John (post town Banbury) was in postcode district OX15. In the 1990s, the boundary was adjusted so that Barford St. Michael moved from one side to the another - both were then in postcode sector OX15 0, post town Banbury. The adjustment was not made to suit the locals, but for the convenience of the Royal Mail - Oxford sorting office was becoming overloaded, and it made sense to transfer some of its work to other sorting offices which had spare capacity. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:40, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

That is a very helpful change. I don't think what has been done around Harrow and Edgware could be described as particularly helpful. More like sacrilege. As is glaringly obvious, comparing the two maps, what came before and postal, side by side if that is preferred.

The superimposition of two maps for the very same mapped areas (as short-listed indexed in wikimedia) should not need explanation of how it is derived. Are we indulging in wishful thinking and utter verifiable perfectionism here. Maps are like maths formula side by side, the equation of past and present is there for all to see. Or are we willing to be fair cartographers as in historic streets of London and simply recognise the evident truth.- Adam37 Talk 18:34, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Adam37: Even if you don't agree with Redrose64's decisions, you might just have to accept them. Redrose64 isn't among the top 200 Wikipedians for no reason. 2A02:8084:F1BE:9180:8853:591:FC52:A574 (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

I will concede. But I don't want my learned dissent strongly backed by Mr Parker MP and others to go expunged rather than duly archived. Note.- Adam37 Talk 19:41, 20 May 2021 (UTC)