Wikipedia talk:WikiProject West Midlands/Assessment

Top importance articles

I notice that currently the top-importance articles within the projects are only the County, conurbation and Birmingham articles. Surely at the very least Coventry and Wolverhampton (as the other two cities within the project scope) should be in there too? I would even go so far as to suggest that as far as the project's concerned all the old County Borough towns of Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Smethwick and Solihull are also potentially of that importance level, as well as the three New Towns of Telford, Redditch and Tamworth. Fingerpuppet 21:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I have just been pondering over that. It's actually quite difficult to determine if an article has international recognition or national recognition. I'm actually thinking it maybe best to change the importance criteria so that it just relates to importance within the project itself. I'm not sure about having West Bromwich and Smethwick in the top-importance category though. Whilst they are important settlements, I am not sure whether they really are amongst the most important. I think we really need to discuss the issue of the importance criteria though - I made a bit of a cock up going about it myself seeing as the WikiProject is a collaborative effort. - Erebus555 21:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it - getting everything started as you have will hopefully stir other people into action. I would suggest that importance within the project scope is the way to go, or we'll end up with at most five articles in the top category. If we simply follow the guidelines as they currently stand, then everything will be the same as the importance levels within other projects. I also don't think that it translates particularly well to non-geographical articles. Fingerpuppet 21:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the importance scale only seems to be useful for rating geographical articles. I think that even if we do rate the importance on an article within the project scope, we will still have problems rating articles about buildings or people. How are we to tell the difference in importance between Curzon Street railway station, the oldest surviving piece of monumental railway architecture in the world, and Victoria Law Courts, Birmingham, which has very little international recognition to note? Do we put them in the same classification of importance? - Erebus555 17:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would say they are both of high importance - Curzon Street has a historical significance, whilst the Victoria Law Courts as the largest courts in the area is highly significant in the present day West Midlands. I quite agree that there will be disagreements about the levels of importance, but it shouldn't be too difficult to overcome.

How about:

Label	Criteria
Top	Articles with UK or international importance (eg Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, NEC, NIA, WM County, WM conurbation)
High	Articles with singificant contributions WM area - both county, conurbation and region (e.g. Crown courts, modern local authorities, large stations - both current and historical, Towns that are former County boroughs without city status, New Towns).
Mid	Articles with some contributions to WM area (e.g. Towns with former Urban District or Municipal Borough status, medium sized stations, large libraries, magistrates courts).
Low	Articles with local area recognition (e.g. Suburbs, small stations/metro stops, branch libraries, leisure centres).

It will still need tweaking, but hopefully it will illustrate my thoughts. Fingerpuppet 10:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That's great. I'd have no problems with that. I actually think that's good enough to use for the assessment page. I think that the mid-importance category should also include electoral wards for city councils whilst parliamentary constituencies should go in the high-importance category. - Erebus555 15:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with either of those things - the list of examples is also in no way intended as being an exhaustive one in any way, just the way I was thinking. It could, therefore, be applied to, say, football within the area, so that (probably) Aston Villa, Wolves and West Bromwich Albion (as teams that have won both FA Cups and top division titles, with the first two also having extremely significant historical places in European football) would perhaps also be in "Top", whilst Birmingham City, Coventry City and Walsall being of High importance and then the various non-league teams being arranged depending on their success within the game to Mid or Low as appropriate. Fingerpuppet 20:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Listed buildings

I'm having a little trouble in deciding what importance different listed buildings should be. The current criteria of listed buildings is:

• Grade I: buildings of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest.
• Grade II*: particularly significant buildings of more than local interest.
• Grade II: buildings of special architectural or historic interest.

So it would seem right to me that Grade I listed buildings should be given 'high' importance, Grade II* listed buildings be given 'mid' importance and that Grade II listed buildings should be given 'low' importance. Would this be OK? - Erebus555 19:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, unless they fit into a higher category. The only one I can think of is Wolverhampton Low Level railway station, which is Grade II* listed, but is worthy of High due to it being both a large and important (former) station and its national importance within the GWR broad gauge system. Fingerpuppet 21:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sub Articles

I feel that sub-articles should be listed at one level below the main article. For example Birmingham is Top rated, so Transport in Birmingham should be High, whilst Walsall is High, and any future Transport in Walsall article should be Mid. Fingerpuppet 22:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Some High rated articles

I've dropped Sutton Coldfield from High to Mid - it was never a County Borough, so I feel Mid is more appropriate. For the same reasons, Brierley Hill should be Mid. IIRC, Cradley Heath was never even an Urban District (it was part of Rowley Regis Municipal Borough) so it should be Low. Fingerpuppet 22:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)