Talk:London/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

→

Archive 10

Good Article nomination has failed

The Good article nomination for London/Archive 4 has failed for the following reason:

This article has multiple places of inconsistent quality. For example, many sub-sections in the "London Districts" section are very short. The "Tourist attractions" section could be expanded into compelling prose instead of simple lists, and so can the "Parades" section. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:Former good article nominees

At 72 kilobytes it is well over twice as big as the recommendation at the Wikipedia:Article size style guide. While we would expect key Wikipedia articles like London to be longer than average (and certainly larger than 32 kilobytes) is 72 kilobytes not pushing the boat out just a bit too far? --Mais oui! 10:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

GDP inconsistency

The statement near the top of the article is that 17.5% of the GDP of the UK is generated by London, whereas another statement much lower down in the article says that it is 19%.

Having tried to look up these figures for citation, there are numerous possibilities which often contradict each other. The Corporation of London says "over 18% of GDP", whilst the Association of London Government says (on page 12) 21% in the year 2000. The London Chamber of Commerce says 17% (no year given). The Economist says "some 20%".

In the absence of a clear and official figure, we could use GVA instead (which is GDP - taxes + subsidies, and is apparently often equivalent to quote GDP figures as it is "GDP at basic prices" - though I'm not an economist so I don't understand it entirely), it's easier to get official, recent figures, because this is the measure required by the EU and produced by the National Statistics office. The most recent of those is here which says 16.4%.

Dave A 20:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hindu Population

The line "London also has the largest Hindu population outside of India." seems a little ambigious, does it mean that London as a city has more Hindus than any other city outside India, as surely Nepal has a much greater Hindu population than London, maybe "London also has the largest Hindu population of any city outside of India" would be better

Maybe a reference would provide the answer. Anyone know if this statement is supported by the truth? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:52, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I reckon there are about 290,338 Hindus in London[1] [2]. There are lots of countries with a higher population. Pro-rata I reckon Kathmandu has about 1,215,000 Hindus, and Dhaka probably has around 1,256,000. So this statement appears completely wrong. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

In light of that, I've changed the statement to "London also has a large Hindu population". -- Dave A 10:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Ta. Two things do seem apparent though - London has over half the UK's population of Hindus, so more than anywhere else in the UK, and, (don't quote me on this) it appears to be the city with the largest Hindu population outside of Asia. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Streamlining

My main impression of this article is that it's bloated. Obviously there is an awful lot to say about London, and the information on this page is generally very good, but I think that some bits could be farmed out to sub-articles, and that the general flow of the article is disjointed, in the way that the sections are arranged.

I've noticed that the size has been brought up before, and each time some bits are taken off to other pages. I propose a further streamlining that makes this main article a bit more readable.

The main culprit, in my opinion, is the "districts of London" section which takes up so much space even though each area has its own sub-article.

I think a good comparison is the Paris article, which has 12 sections compared to the 19 here (and only 8 "proper" headings, i.e. excluding the references etc, compared to 16 here!). The Paris article divides into these areas:

• Name
• Geography and climate
• History
• Demographics
• Economy
• Administration
• Transport
• Cultural centres and organisations

I'd propose reorganising this article in a similar way, perhaps retaining the Defining London section (which is fairly unique to London) in lieu of the Paris article's "name" section and various other difference (see below).

The Modern London section seems rather out of place - I propose merging the first paragraph of that into the introduction (which also seems to contain a lot of fluff - it reads like a tourist brochure, with statements like "it has many important buildings and iconic landmarks..." which probably apply to lots of other cities too), and ditching the second paragraph in favour of a replaced section on tourist attractions later on in the article.

Not quite sure what to do with the London districts section - people obviously place a lot of importance on it so I'd say maybe leave it in and streamline it as far as possible.

Government and Business & economy seem too important in their own right (and unrelated) to simply be part of Demographics, so I propose sectioning them as their own headings similar to the Paris Economy and Administration headings.

Transport and infrastructure looks OK, but the remainder of the London headings are all over the place. I propose a new master headings of Society & culture and Tourism, with the current Tourist attractions section rewritten prosaically rather than as a long, boring list, and the current headings of Education, Style & fashion, Sport, Religion and London in the arts moved under Society & culture as sub-headings. I also propose to either move media and technology into the earlier Business and economy section, or to give it its own page entirely, as the information is useful but perhaps too detailed for here.

I think that if we streamline the article in this way, it might stand a better chance of getting "good article" (or even featured) status.

Of course I invite comments on any aspect of these proposals. I've outlined the layout I propose here. -- Dave A 22:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with everything said here. I think the London districts section should simply be one paragraph describing the various districts, and have links to the main articles for each. Cut the crap, basically. DJR (Talk) 22:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Good call on the London districts edit - I think it's much more appropriate now. I've eliminated the Modern London section as I proposed, moving information mainly to the Defining London and Tourist attractions sections, with some other bits scattered into the new districts section and the business & economy section. The result for the tourist attractions section is a bit messy - introductory prose followed by a list - but hopefully this can be fleshed out in due course. -- Dave A 18:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the History section is the next one to crack... it's very long at present and is not really very good prose... needs some serious rationalisation... DJR (Talk) 20:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I see that it has already been done! Well in! DJR (Talk) 20:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Still needs some work and further rationalisation. However, in the meantime, someone disliked my edit of the introduction and has reverted it to the previous version (80.41.163.50) - I'd like a discussion of why from the editor... I think the slimmer version I created was much more in line with WP:LEAD. -- Dave A 21:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, in the absence of an argument, I've restored my version of the lead. If there are any overwhelming objections, let them be known! -- Dave A 21:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah it's good as it is at the moment. New section on my radar for cull... the "Buildings and monuments" list. That kind of thing can go on the London Portal - it's not needed here. Any objections before I wield the wikisword? DJR (Talk) 22:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

No argument here... -- Dave A 12:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

An additional thought on this - I removed any buildings which were already mentioned in the preceding sections, but it might still be worth mentioning some of the things in the list in the text. For example, it could be worth mentioning somewhere (not sure where) that London is a relatively low-rise city compared to many others, so particular skyscrapers stand out. -- Dave A 18:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

External links & references

Two things I've noted:

• In my opinion, the external links section contains a lot of irrelevant links and it's starting to turn into a directory (WP:EL). However, I'm reluctant to cull them excessively. I would venture that many of the travel guide links could be culled - this is an encyclopedia rather than a travel guide, so I think Wikitravel or the Open Guide to London are more suitable places for most of those links. Meanwhile, the "other" section is also full of all sorts of links which probably aren't encyclopedia-relevant (and calling it "other" may be asking for trouble, but I'm not sure anything could be done about that!).
• References and citations could probably be tidied up. Some references are probably unnecessary if they are used in the subarticles, so a clearout/move might be necessary for the sections with their own main articles, whilst other facts are mentioned in the article without any citation.

-- Dave A 18:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I went for a mass cull after studying WP:EL a bit further. Most of those links didn't add anything to the article. I've also eliminated the "Other" category to lessen the temptation for people to plonk loosely-relevant sites there. --Dave A 23:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

the references section is so long as to act as nothing more than a link farm. Its ridiculous.

The references section is supposed to be long, as it contains the sources for facts in the text. Each item in the references refers to a footnote for the text. --Dave A 21:36, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Article Alienating American Football or NFL Europe

The London Monarchs was mentioned in the sports section at one time and now it isn't. This article should show that London had a national American Football team from 1991 - 1998. And don't forget Scottish Claymores from 1996 - 2004. Renegadeviking

This article is meant to be a broad overview of various aspects of London. There is already an extensive Sport in London article, so I think the sports section here should really only mention a few highlights (i.e. Olympics, the bigger football clubs, Wimbledon, and maybe the cricket). The football paragraph could probably be trimmed a bit further anyway - here I think it's sufficient to mention just the big clubs present in London, rather than their history.

Although I agree that London's participation in American Football should be included in Wikipedia, I would suggest that it goes in the Sport in London article - perhaps expanding on the small mention it gets there? -- Dave A 11:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Have fun even trying to disambiguate the word football in this article. Soccer fans are extremely fanatical and parochial. Factoid Killer 20:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I should point out that in no way am I attempting to "alienate" other forms of football - I'm not a big sports fan so I have no vested interest! My proposal is merely to keep this section in the main London article as a brief summary of the most influential sporting activities in the city. There's plenty of scope in the Sport in London article for discussion of the various types of football played in London (obviously "real" is subjective, Factoid Killer!). -- Dave A 20:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I guess some of us are not familiar with the concept of irony Factoid Killer 21:16, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Just covering my bases... -- Dave A 21:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Delhi as Sister City

The reference for my addition is List_of_twin_towns_and_sister_cities#India. Confirm and add if convinced. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 13:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia counts a reference - the link next to Beijing lists London's sister cities as the 5 in the article at present - NYC/Moscow/Paris/Berlin/Beijing. I have not found a reference to any other city anywhere else. Wikipedia is not a reference. If you can find an external link, then feel free to add it back in with a suitable reference. DJR (Talk) 13:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia will never do as a reference, and that article doesn't cite it's sources. Searching around, there appears to be plenty of references to a future twinning event in August 2002 for the cities to become twins, but all references after the event refer to a Friendship agreement. Ken has signed Partnership agreements with Berlin, Moscow, New York, and Paris, and Friendship agreements with Delhi, Dhaka, Dublin, Johannesburg and Kingston [3]. I suspect this is not the same thing. But then again, this article mentions sister cities (?) -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Going by this article, it seems pretty clear. Also, a Google search seems to emphasise that London and NYC are definitely "sister cities"... DJR (Talk) 14:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes I know that a wiki article doesn't count as reference. The logic of my addition was that omission is more likely than vandalism. Anyway adding the link will definitely fix the page with error (this case it looks that the List of twin towns one was at fault). -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 15:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm gonna be honest mate - I've got no idea what you've just said! Doesn't seem to make sense! DJR (Talk) 20:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Good/featured article?

I think it would be good to get London moving towards good or featured article status once again. Does anyone have any thoughts about how this might be achieved? --Dave A 17:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Serious editing by someone who has not previously been involved in the article, would be my tip. It's the kind of article where lots and lots of people have added little bits, and it lacks an overall feeling of coherence. It's also seriously lengthy and needs trimming. One disinterested person doing a comprehensive review and cleanup would do it the world of good in my opinion. Worldtraveller 18:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I think we have made very good progress over the last week or so - it's one hell of a lot better in terms of size and content... but (talking from experience) those of us who have been looking at this page for a long time, its content becomes like the wallpaper and it becomes increasingly difficult to see where it can be cut down. So yeah, a review would be pretty useful really. DJR (Talk) 19:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

In terms of size, looking at it now, I'm thinking we might be able to farm off Demographics, Government and Business & economy into sub-articles, as although they contain useful information, they're not easy on the eye (particularly demographics with its extensive census breakdown and over-lengthy discussion of population definitions which might be hard to trim without causing a ruckus!). --Dave A 20:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the demographics bit could all be whacked into a sub-article and a reference could be made under the "Geography" sub-section (after all, human geography is basically demographics). Alternatively, it could be worked in with the society/culture section... but either way we should aim to minimise the size of its remnants in the article. DJR (Talk) 20:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I also agree the demographics can be trimmed down a bit - and combined with the religion section I would say. I think the climate table should go, in fact almost the entire weather section could go into the Climate of London article, with only a brief mention under geography. The buildings and monuments should be turned from a list into prose, and the history of London is far too long - most of it could be redirected to the existing History of London sub-article. The media and technology section is also too large. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to gradually trim down the History section to readibility. It's still probably a bit too long, but if compared with featured articles like Hong Kong or Boston, Massachusetts, it's not that much longer (especially since it has a much longer history than the latter). I would support some further trimming, but I think a widescale felling would lose something from Wikipedia, as there would be nothing between a this and the extremely long History of London. I agree for the most part on the weather section, and I would like to slash the buildings and monuments section but I'm not quite sure whether to just ditch it completely or prose-ify it. I also dislike the media and technology section - I think maybe the small "technology" bit could move into the communications part of the Transport and infrastructure in London article, and the media part could get its own article with a small part incorporated into Business and economy. --Dave A 20:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The article is now just 49kB after some good work by Dave. Size is no longer an issue - comparable featured articles are over 50kB. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of peer review. DJR (Talk) 16:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The article doesn´t have an infobox on the right. This is standard requirement for every city page in almost every language...User:Sashandre

It has been suggested that the layout suggested by WikiProject Cities is a good goal as other featured city articles have used a similar layout. Some other related suggestions have also been kindly provided in the peer review, which seem generally fair (although I'm not sure I'd agree with removing all the subsections of the History article - London has a long history relevant to its development which is hard to summarise in a couple of paragraphs!). I think I'll start fiddling around to see if we can move a bit towards the suggested layout. --Dave A 10:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to think about what an appropriate infobox would be, but I'm not really getting anywhere. We have infobox templates for ceremonial counties of England and regions of England, both of which include Greater London. However, Greater London has its own article... Additionally, neither of those boxes is quite as elegant for a city as those for others such as New York City. Does anyone have any ideas? --Dave A 12:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

We could just nick the one off NYC... though we'd have to subst it and adapt it for London. The problem as I see it is that London is so unique in so many ways that half the fields would have inherent ambiguities... which just lead to messy presentation and edit wars... DJR (Talk) 17:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Paris sister city?!?

the article mention that Paris is a sister city of London. This is false. Paris have only one sister city : Roma (since 1956). The others (like London since 2001) are only partnerships. See the french article about Paris. 84.99.239.234 04:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reference. This news article is, and the wording makes it fairly simple. Obviously the news article could be wrong, but as that is the only citation we have, that is what will have to remain. I must say I have no recollection of a London-Paris sister city agreement but, as I said, the reference is fairly clearcut. DJR (Talk) 10:40, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

"Major new construction"

This section has appeared recently and, to me, seems very unnecessary at a time we are trying to cut back the size of the article and smooth out its flaws. I don't think that when people come to read an encyclopedia article about London, they want a list of uncompleted tall buildings - especially when there is already a Tall buildings in London article. I would like to delete this section entirely but it seems to keep reappearing. This deletion was also suggested in the peer review (which is hardly surprising as the section didn't exist when the peer review was initiated). Whoever has objections to this deletion, please could they state them here? Thanks. --Dave A 14:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll definitely object given that what you deleted wasn't solely "tall buildings". Whilst I wouldn't make a case to roll it all back, many of these should, I feel, remain in the lead article, possibly in their appropriate sections. --Vamp:Willow 11:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Get rid of the whole section and move in into its own article. Link it if necessary. The main article is too long as it is, and does not need to be cluttered by anything that can possibly be avoided. This is one such thing. DJR (Talk) 15:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

As all can see, an infobox has been added as per suggestions in Wikipedia:Peer review/London/archive2. Although this brings London into line with articles for almost all other cities, I can't help feeling that it is ineffective for London. Compare the London infobox with that of New York City. London has no coat of arms, no flag, no nickname, no official metropolitan area... all the little pieces of information that an infobox is designed to contain cannot be used for London because either they don't exist, or they are unofficial and therefore open up a can of worms as to their definition.

Furthermore, the "London" described in this article is more a general overview of all the things that come under the general term of "London"... the only context in which "London" is an official term is as one of the nine regions of England - this is covered by the Greater London article.

Once all this is done, all that is left for the infobox is information that is either stupendously obvious (such as "United Kingdom") or already mentioned at the top of the page (co-ordinates) or information that requires further reading in order to be understood anyway!

Long story short - I don't think the infobox, in its current form, does justice to the article or to London. However, I'm at a loss as to how it can be improved. DJR (Talk) 19:25, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

This has come up before and I have to say this is *far* better than previous incarnations. However, your comments are valid; it doesn't add much value really and as most of the information is also in the Greater London infobox, the reader might wonder what the difference between London and Greater London is, and why there are two articles and not one. MRSC 19:56, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes are most useful for "quick glance" facts, so I think there should be some more of those in there. Some cities put in dialling codes, postal districts, date of establishment, the demonym (i.e. "Londoner") and elevation range - I think some of those would be appropriate quick glance pieces of info. Unfortunately I have no idea how to get those into the infobox... --Dave A 13:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

References style

Shall we use a different one? Skinnyweed 00:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sport, Cricket

Why doesn't the article mention the Ashes series? Surely it should. After all, the Ashes must be a commonly watched cricet series in England and it is wrong to not mention it.

For the same reason that it doesn't mention the FIFA World Cup - it mentions the sport in general and anything beyond that can go into the sub-article - Sport in the United Kingdom. DJR (Talk) 15:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggested edit for 'Defining London'

Speaking as Londoner, I found this section confusing and I doubt if all the information - particularly the historical information - is necessary in this article. Most of it would be better placed in articles about the administration or transport history of London. All that seems necessary here is to flag up the fact that 'London' is not a very clearly defined entity and point the reader in useful directions to find other information. I'd suggest replacing the entire first four paragraphs with something like this (suitably wikified, of course)–

Historically, "London" referred to the City of London; i.e. the area within the medieval city walls. Today, it is used informally to refer to much or all of the conurbation that has grown up around the City. "London" is often used more precisely to mean the administrative region of Greater London, but there are other definitions of "London" which cover varying areas, such as Inner London; the Greater London Urban Area; the London postal district; the area delimited by the M25 orbital motorway; the London commuter belt; or the area covered by the telephone area code 020.

Since that's a fairly drastic cut, I thought I'd see what people thought before diving in. The London link on the English Regions page just goes to "Greater London" anyway, so I thought that nuance could probably be skipped over in this article. The fact that Greater London is divided into boroughs is mentioned in the Government section and of course on the Greater London page. The stuff about the County of London can be found elsewhere; whether there needs to be a single page called something like "History of London government" as a first point of call I don't know, but I don't think it needs to be here. Anyway, you get the idea. Harry R 23:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The problems involved in defining London have been a constant issue really... I'm neutral over this proposal as I don't think it is that much better than many alternatives that have been suggested in the past... but it will definitely be interesting to see what other people think about this. DJR (Talk) 15:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the principle of downsizing this section. However, I wouldn't throw out the information on London's (lack of) city & capital status - I think it's important. On the other hand, I'm sceptical about how many people actually associate "London" with the 020 area code, the commuter belt, or the Greater London Urban Area (which is geographer's or statistician's construct). However, I imagine that this has all been argued about before.

I'll support this proposal, providing the city/capital status info is thrown in and the cut info is relocated somewhere (e.g. History of London) rather than eliminated. Oh, and if the trimming is successful, I also propose merging it into the Geography section. --Dave A 20:10, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I only intended replacing the first four paras with the above; ie the capital/city status stuff is separate. Personally I think that the capital status is quite directly relevant while the city status is an obscure quirk of English history that doesn't necessarily need to be in this article, but I wasn't intending to deal with either of those at the moment.

Like Dave, I'm sceptical about how many people think of 'London' as, for example, the 020 area code or the Greater London Urban Area; I was basically including them because they were already there. On the other hand, I do agree that there's no definition that has much of a hold on the popular imagination; for example, I think most Londoners would think of the outer reaches of Bromley as being countryside, despite being part of Greater London. How about:

Historically, "London" referred to the City of London; i.e. the area within the medieval city walls. Today, it is used informally to refer to much or all of the conurbation that has grown up around the City. For official purposes, 'London' would usually mean the administrative regon called "Greater London", but the name is usually used less precisely, and individuals disagree about which of the suburbs and satellite towns are part of "London".

Or something. I just think, really, that while it's worth making the point that "London" is loosely defined, almost all the details can be left to the appropriate sections. London can hardly be unusual in having slightly blurry edges (the Glasgow article, for example, mentions four different definitions of Glasgow) and I don't think the article should make it sound more complicated than it is. The current version is an improvement, but personally I'd be inclined to cut it further.Harry R 14:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That reads well to me - clear and concise. My only concern is that it will spark future arguments about including the different definitions of London within this article, so I would propose that the different definitions are relocated somewhere (outside this article) - perhaps into Geography of London. --Dave A 16:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and something I forgot: I think it may be worth qualifying the final statement by saying that Inner London is more closely associated with "London" than Outer London, or something along those lines - thus introducing those terms, which aren't explained any more in the Districts section. --Dave A 16:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Moved from article

User:24.64.223.203 said: A food section is needed in the Society and Culture section. I've moved the request here. Lupin|talk|popups 02:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Rollercoaster

I am looking for London rollercoaster where I can get a photo thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.58.85.85 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

• As far as I'm aware, London doesn't have a rollercoaster within it's boundaries, and the closest rollercoaster - excluding the Big round thing on the Thames which is probably too slow to be classed as a rollercoaster anyway :P - is Chessington World of Adventures located in Surrey. Chessington attraction listing has some details about the rollercoasters, and http://www.themeparks-uk.com/ has some details on the major UK theme parks. The other 2 main ones that come to mind are Thorpe Park (also in Surrey), and Alton Towers which is nowhere near London (located in Staffordshire). I'm not sure about pictures, but hopefully the names of the places will help. TheJC ^Talk_{Contributions} 02:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject

Shouldn't this page be part of WikiProject London? Simply south 16:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Removal of tourism section

I am far from convinced about the removal of the Tourism section to a sub-article. Unfortunately the user involved (User_talk:Jackp) characteristically seems unwilling to discuss the change before making it.

I don't think the change is necessary. The section had been cut down to a few concise paragraphs, it's a relevant section to contain within the main article (as long as it is short) as tourism is so important in London. I don't mind there being a sub-article (if it contains more information than it currently does) but I object to the complete removal of nearly all references to tourism from the main article. I'd like to know what anyone else thinks. --Dave A 09:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, tourism would be dealt with in the section on economy. However, the removal of the tourism section outright is ill-advised; it would have been wiser to substitute it for a paragraph in economy.--cj | talk 09:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this section should be merged into it's own article...or added into the econamy section, because it's really not relevant, and Wikipeda isn't a travel guide. Jackp 11:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia not being a travel guide does not mean that tourism should not be referred to - Tourism is of significant importance to London and the basis for this should be discussed to some extent. A sub-article could be made, but some reference should remain within the main article. DJR (Talk) 13:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My concern is that we have now lost a lot of links from this article to the landmarks that make London famous. Some of those places should be mentioned elsewhere in the article if we are going to ditch the tourism section, and the Economy section isn't the best place to do that. The subarticle would also need linking-in better (i.e. not just a link in "see also". --Dave A 13:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This article should be written in summary style. The linking of landmarks needn't be of concern – leave that to subsidiary articles. However, if they are vital importance, try the culture section.--cj | talk 07:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I can explain Jack’s action. Jack has no great concern for the content of the London article. Rather, his deletion of the tourism section and other comments talking of London’s global influence simply is a reaction to him not being able to fill the page on his native Sydney with hyped POV tourism promotion. His thinking seems to have been, if the Sydney article can’t read like a tourist brochure, then I will remove the tourism sections from London, Paris, New York and Melbourne. Have a look for yourself. He has been hounded to stop making the article into a tourist brochure (or property development prospectus) but instead keep it as an encyclopaedia. .--Merbabu 05:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Poor Part

Hey, you know how every city has a poor part where crime and poverty skyrockets and really crappy flats are for like, £23 a week? Well, I wanna know where that is in London? I know that it's probably on the East End, but what's the name of the neighborhood.Jim Bart

I'm pretty sure it is the East End, but I know London has a fair bit of poverty. Jackp 10:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

You'd be hard pushed to find £23/week flats anywhere in London, but the East End is the poorest part... Tower Hamlets, Newham and those kind of areas. DJR (Talk) 10:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The Office of National Statistics' deprivation map for London provides this sort of information easily. The most deprived areas (using the Index of Multiple Deprivation) are mostly the East End as mentioned, particularly places like Spitalfields, Blackwall and Canning Town. However, other deprived areas around London include Hackney, Peckham, Stonebridge Park, Woolwich, Somers Town, Tottenham and White City. --Dave A 14:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

London does have some deprived areas, and the majority have already been mentioned. The major problems with London is how vast it is. London and it's communities have changed a vast amount over the last 6 years (I would say especially in the East-End, but that's where I grew up) and every time I visit London (usually areas such as Custom House, Beckton, Stratford, Barking, Canning Town, Forest Gate, East Ham, Woolwich - admittedly all in Newham apart from Woolwich) the place is always filled with new buildings and people - since I left London the area I used to live is ALOT more cosmopolitan than it was just a few years ago. I'm not sure if estates (such as Tower Hamlets) are still being constructed or if most new houses are in the form of those at Beckton. In either case, most towerblocks were knocked down in the 1980s replaced with Maisonettes or houses - and more recently Luxary apartments have been going up all over London - including the conversion of old dock buildings along the Thames - so the chance of finding anywhere in London for that price is slim. Also, the majority of the poorest areas of London are benefitting from the Regeneration of East London project. Unlike other places in the UK that were previously industrial areas and haven't benefitted from regeneration, London - in my opinion - doesn't have any clearcut rich/poor part(s). You only have to take a look at places like Regent Street/Oxford Street of an evening to realise that even the "richest" parts of London have their problems like crime and poverty. Hope this helps (also hope I've not contradicted myself anywhere), TheJC ^Talk_{Contributions} 01:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

New Good Article nomination

I have nominated London as a good article as I think significant progress has been made with it since the last nomination. We'll see what happens! --Dave A 22:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Did you add it to Wikipedia:Good articles/Nominations? I can't seem to find it... DJR (Talk) 09:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It's under "Long articles" as it's over 25kb. --Dave A 11:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah ok - sorry! DJR (Talk) 16:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Tourist visits little problem

London#Economy London is the world's most popular city destination for tourists, attracting 27m overnight-stay visitors every year.[10]

Paris is the most visited city in the world,[1] with more than 30 million visitors per year.

I suppose 30 million is higher than 27 million. Skinnyweed 00:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but what if the Paris visit count includes day visitors, while the London count is specified as overnight stays? Apples and oranges, n'est pas? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mwanner (talk • contribs) 00:28, 6 June 2006.

It's a moot point really - the only thing in that sentence that isn't POV is the 27m figure for London as it is referenced. The rest should be axed really. DJR (Talk) 09:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the reference covers the "most popular city destination" as well as the 27m figure. The exact quote from the source is "Twenty Seven Million Visitors: London annually attracts some 27m overnight visitors. London is the world’s most popular city destination." The reference actually gets it from a secondary source (London Visitor Statistics 2004/5) which is not freely available. --Dave A 11:13, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Either way, I think any superlatives are generally unnecessary - there's no point saying "the most popular city destination" and trying to defend it when it can simply read "London is one of the most visited cities in the world" and leave the reference as a suitable source. DJR (Talk) 17:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There's been a lot in the British newspapers last few days about tourism to Britain declining, as it's seen as too expensive. Perhaps these figures are out of date - I believe there was also a slump for London after 7/7 although things have recovered quite a bit now. MarkThomas 09:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've reworded the sentence to "an extremely popular destination". --Dave A 16:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Parliament photo

Existing photo

New photo

Twice already today the photo in the infobox has been replace (by User:Miguellarios/User:71.80.186.30). I think it's fairly safe to say the existing photo is the better of the two - far clearer and properly exposed - and it should be kept. The existing photo is being used under a free-licence (PD), so there is no license reason to replace it with another. Thanks/wangi 20:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Now a Good Article

This article looks to be an excellent overview of a huge topic, well done to all those involved. The issues mentioned in the earlier rejection of this article as a GA have all been addressed: the districts, tourism and parades sections all look reasonable to me, and the article is now only 50 kB! I would suggest that the next step would be to submit this for peer review, and then go for WP:FAC. Nice job. Walkerma 04:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hooray! Congratulations everyone... --Dave A 15:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Now onto the quest for featured status... COME ON ENGLAND! DJR (Talk) 16:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Having looked through the past peer reviews, I can't see anything that hasn't been addressed except possibly the use of the copyrighted St Paul's Cathedral photo in the History section. --Dave A 10:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I agree. Having said that, PRs aren't exactly exhaustive... I imagine if we nominated this as a WP:FA|featured article]] people would find something to criticise. The biggest thing at the moment is the images I think... we could do with a couple of relevant images to put into the history section, and I think we should make the images a 300px standard - the clarity is a lot better especially when viewed on a high-resolution monitor. COME ON ENGLAND! DJR (Talk) 10:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The thumbnails are standard size - they are the standard size that a user specifies in their preferences. Remember the user does know better about the thumbnail size that fits best on their screen - not everyone has mega-high-res displays... /wangi 10:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah okay I didn't realise that... I'll adjust my preferences in that case! My last edits should probably be reverted in that case. COME ON ENGLAND! DJR (Talk) 10:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We now have decent images for virtually every section. --Dave A 11:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

continued...

Discussion continues at Archive 5...