Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yorkshire/Sandbox

Show/hide facility

Maybe the examples could have a show/hide facility to give a less unwieldy appearance to the table?--Harkey (talk) 08:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Wards, villages & civil parishes

All wards are about the same population size. Some civil parishes have more than one ward. Some wards encompass more than one village. Some large villages have populations bigger than small towns. As wards are the only standard-ish measure, might it be useful to use the number of wards that a settlement has to signify its importance? Just a thought.--Harkey (talk) 13:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

(also posted on the project talkpage) A good point about wards. They are small (the ones in Greater Manchester are have a population of ~10,000 but most in Carlisle are ~5,000) but are bigger than some of the smallest villages and civil parishes, for example Dunham Massey has a population of 475. So arguably wards are more important. However, I believe that wards should be of the lowest important to any county project because they are transient (and so should the smallest villages and civil parishes). They undergo frequent boundary changes and usually the only source of information is the local council. Villages and civil parishes can have a history stretching back centuries. On the sandbox talkpage, Harkey has suggested measuring importance of a settlement by the number of wards. As wards are generally of equal size for the sake of voting, this is essentially measuring the importance of a settlement by its population. As a rule of thumb, I agree with this. However, the City of Carlisle has more wards and a smaller population that Stockport, but as it has city status I'd argue that it's more important. The status of a settlement as a town or city should, in my opinion, take precedence over size. Nev1 (talk) 19:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah,ha.. I agree here. I think we have sometimes to use "seat of the pants" judgements about importance as well as "rules of thumb" which is easy when we know the locality but a bit more hit and miss when its some place we've never heard of. Are some towns "governed" by town councils which have no more status and powers than civil parish councils? I am thinking here of Selby as an example.--Harkey (talk) 14:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Any parish council has the right to call itself a town council, giving the parish dual status as town and civil parish, but towns such Sale no longer have town councils and are instead administered by the local authority. I agree that assessing the article is best a combination of rule of thumb and seat of pants.

Thinking about it, using wards as an indicator of importance might be a very good idea. Partington is a civil parish and small town an part of a larger ward, but I wouldn't seriously argue that it's more important than Sale (with five complete wards and I think bits of two others) even though Partington has its own town council whereas Sale doesn't. Also, the population of wards does vary from district to district so population isn't so important; it's possible that this method could mean that even small cities could be more important than large towns. Nev1 (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)