Talk:United Kingdom

Wikipedia:Ireland disambiguation task force

An Ireland disambiguation task force (WP:IDTF) has been created. It will: free up various Talk pages for their respective articles, avoid inner and cross article repetition, avoid debate-postponing moratoriums from needing to be placed, and can accommodate all aspects of the issue of disambiguating the word "Ireland". --Matt Lewis (talk) 04:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Football

I think the section on football in the UK is disproportionately large. Before I prune heavily, is there any resistance out there? JMcC (talk) 23:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree that some detail could be removed, but it depends what and how you prune! Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:29, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Motto of UK Dieu et mon droit

Wow, this is my first read of this page and I find out that the motto of the UK is in French and is godly. I am astounded! Britain is not a particularly religious place... I think it would be nice if someone added a motto paragraph to the Symbols section describing some of the history behind that one! Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.217.44.73 (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about the specifics of its history, so I'm not really qualified to add that section, but the fact that the motto's in French and mentions God really shouldn't surprise anyone. After the Norman Conquest, the language of power in England was French; this was also true to a large extent in Scotland and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in Wales. The prestige value of French lingered for a long time, and this is reflected in the language of the UK motto (even though French was of far less importance in Britain when the UK came into existence). As for the mention of God: well, Britain may be less religious than the US now, but almost everywhere in Europe was pretty religious when the motto came into use. garik (talk) 12:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

UKCOUNTRYREFS - the shortcut of choice for those who accept UK countries

These Reliable Sources tables (and the Countries of the United Kingdom article they are home to) were designed to save valuable time repeating the facts within them, to those who raise again the question of whether the UK's constituent countries can in fact be called 'countries'. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyone can call them countries Matt; lots of folk do. It doesn't mean they meet any useful definition of a "country". NI being the most laughable example! Sarah777 (talk) 22:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Trust me folks. I've no intentions of bringing up constituent country (again) at England, Wales, Northern Ireland & particularly Scotland; no way, Jose. GoodDay (talk) 22:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I might though. Sarah777 (talk) 22:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You are actually starting to sound like a troll Sarah - but you are better than that, aren't you? Honestly - look for an article to edit. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that shortcut allowed? --Jza84 |  Talk  22:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Waggers saw it and he told me to lose the "WP" which I did (archive talk here). I could get the 'WP' back and put into MOS if it's an issue (it will mean moving or duplicating the table so please tell me). It's been ok so far for about a month.--Matt Lewis (talk) 22:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"United" Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is NOT a country but a union of countries. History tells us of similar situations similar to that of the USSR. People did not come from the USSR but from Russia, or Yugoslavia. The same principal applies to Britain. People do not come from Britain, but from Scotland or Wales etc. People are not British, but Irish, Scottish, Welsh or English. Britain, in a theoretical sense does not exist. Britain is slang. A term used by those who can't concur to England not having a common stereotype.

Absolute nonsense. Germany is made up of various "countries" (eg Bavaria and Prussia) in a union as is Italy and Spain) and you don't see people from Bavaria having the same problem as you implied. British is the legal nationality for someone from Britain. If you come from the legally recognised entity of the UK (also known as Great Britain) then you are a Briton and are British. There is a British national identity and there is also a Welsh, Scottish, English and (Northern) Irish identity. People of the UK come from both Britain and Scotland/England/Wales/Northern Ireland - if not, then why not? Your arguement is completely nonsensical. Britain is NOT slang.Darkieboy236 (talk) 22:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Im sorry but Yugoslavia was not in the USSR but was a totally seperate union of republics which were for a large period of time under Communist rule but not under Soviet influence. And contary to your opinion the UK is a country recognised under international law which is divided into four constiuent parts or countries, 3 of which now have a degree of automony within the "Union" Penrithguy (talk) 22:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes but lets keep in mind thatI am nonsensical. You have no point, no deprivation, no meaning, or otherwise passion. Britain IS slang, and should household waste by those of "Urban Dictionary". The Queen had her choice about who's right and what, if everything, is wrong. Everything is wrong...so is the system. The system doesn't work. That's why they have moulded your mind to believe that this "union" is a POWER and a right. But we have no right...everything we right becomes a wrong, so go back to Devonshire and praise the Lord that Margaret Thatcher isn't watching! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.44.63.90 (talk) 12:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

But Scotland is not a "country", it IS a country. Not a state, or a region of so called Britain, but a country. UNITED Kingdom...Union of countries. No problem for England, their media owns the place, so for the rest of us, we're a bit shadowed. Until something happens about this, Scotland will always be known as "that place in England."

I rest my briefcase!

Let's keep in mind WP:TALK and WP:TROLL here guys, please. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:36, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The passport used in the UK is the same for people living in Wales, England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.....if a person is naturalized that is, wasn't born in any of those countries nor were that person's parents, how can he consider himself anything other than "British" ? I mean, is there such a thing as a naturalized British being able to call himself English/Welsh/whatever , would that be right ? 189.106.50.153 (talk) 01:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Bring some citations not opinion otherwise sorry, WP:TROLL applies --Snowded TALK 01:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure why this debate is going on. The country is called the UK, United Kingdom of Great Britain. Its citizens are universally referred to as "British"; being Scottish is the same as being from Cork is in Ireland in legal terms. I think the example of a naturalised foreigner is a good one; clearly such a person is British, but not English or Scottish or Welsh. Sarah777 (talk) 21:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Unless Irish re-unification has occured within the last few hours (PS- I haven't watched BBC news or CNN, the last 6 hrs). GoodDay (talk) 21:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Whatever G'Day. NI is irrelevant. Sarah777 (talk) 21:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Sarah. I couldn't resist. GoodDay (talk) 21:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If the Scots want to be a separate country then all they have to do is vote for it. A rare luxury; not available to Ireland at the time of Independence; not available to many "countries" today eg the Basque Country or Catalonia. So until they vote to disassociate themselves from the British Entity they are not a proper country and are clearly part of the successor state to the genocidal British Empire. Sarah777 (talk) 21:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Would you have the courage to go to Scotland Talk and say they are "not a proper country"? "are clearly part of the successor state to the genocidal British Empire"? "and" being the other negative factor here of course. You just can't stop can you. Can't you keep your simmering dislike of Britain out of Wikipedia? I'm here to add UKCOUNTRYREFS - the shortcut of choice for those who accept UK countries. --Matt Lewis (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You know me by now Matt. Would I have the courage? Absolutely. Would I go to pointlessly provoke a bunch of folk I've no issues with? No. But if one of them were to claim Scotland isn't merely an area in Britain I'd have to put them right. And would. Just as I'd completely ignore anything whatever to do with Britain on Wiki were it not for thae fact that from the "British Isles" to "Republic of Ireland" various Britons hereon are inserting British POV into Irish articles. Sarah777 (talk) 22:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "Irish articles" - the "Irish" don't own Ireland-related pages. Wikipedia is an international project. I also find it offensive that you seek to polarise the "British" as inserting British POV. I think that is racist. --Jza84 |  Talk  22:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You reckon that we are different races do you?! And there was me thinking nationality in these islands was largely down to location and a state of mind! You reckon there isn't such a thing as an "Irish article"? I'd call an article about, say, the Wicklow Mountains an Irish article. As in "an article about Ireland". I'd not seek to say anything about "the British" if they'd stop trying to insert British perspective (POV) into Irish articles. As I said. Sarah777 (talk) 23:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Race is a taxonomic social construct, so no I don't believe that, and I didn't say that. What I did say is that I think your comment was racist... as in it was a discriminatary remark against a distinct nationality or ethnic group based on geographic locale. Certainly Sarah777, if you'd had made that remark in a place of work, you'd be looking at disciplinary action, even criminal charges if the recipient felt strongly enough. You've been blocked in the past before for anti-British remarks - I have no hesitation to reinstate a block for it again, so let's work in the spirit of what Wikipedia is about please. --Jza84 |  Talk  20:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This is one cat, who's not going near the article Scotland. I don't wanna get skinned. GoodDay (talk) 21:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Congrats to Sarah for some sense on this subject. --Michael Johnson (talk) 22:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we please just calm down and agree that country is an underdefined term, and that Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK all qualify as countries according to different interpretations of what the term means (or even under the same interpretation for some usages of the word)? The fact is that there just isn't an official definition anywhere of what a country is in this context. In fact, most words aren't defined officially. So any debate about whether or not Wales or the UK is a country is more or less pointless and bound to get nowhere. There are far more important issues to spend our time discussing here, surely. garik (talk) 11:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that has pretty much hit the nail on the head, well done. You can call anything a country if you want but it will only really function as our generally accepted definition of a country if it has complete political independence from its neighbours and that is something that Scotland has yet to achieve. That said, do numerous countries of Europe have complete political independence from the EU? No... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

But I don't think there even is a generally accepted definition of "country" that excludes non-independent countries like Scotland. I think the term is just underdefined in that regard. It may be that I'm wrong and most people's understanding of the term is explicit one way or the other in this regard, but in the absence of an official body or referendum on the subject, we just have to accept that the term "country" is not well enough defined to make clear whether or not Scotland can be considered one. We might as well argue about which end you should start a boiled egg from. garik (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography - "country (1) any political unit on a national scale, regardless of whether it is dependent or independent".Pondle (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Good. Let's make that an end of it, and direct future questions on this matter to the FAQ. garik (talk) 16:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to argue that neither of those definitions include entities like Scotland, Wales, England or Northern Ireland. They are not 'dependent' in the sense of a 'dependency' being an external territory of a state (rather like Gibraltar or the British Virgin Islands). As all of those areas elect MPs to the united Parliament at Westminster, it seems rather nonsensical to suggest they are 'dependent' on anything in the same way as an overseas territory which is dependent on the UK Parliament without being involved in it is. Whilst of course we exclude the UK home nations from the Wikipedia list of sovereign states, we also exclude them from the list of countries on this basis, whilst including actual non-sovereign dependencies. Yes, we can happily call them countries on Wikipedia simply out of verifiable usage, but I would argue they meet none of the accepted general definitions of a country and that such use term is simply a peculiar British idiom. --Breadandcheese (talk) 13:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

But this is the point: there are no accepted general definitions of a country except those established by usage. Certainly the Penguin definition includes the home nations of the UK; they are not dependent in the sense of being dependencies, but that's not the point. They are political units on national scales. garik (talk) 13:37, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh the sorta United Kingdom. What a splendid headache it can be. GoodDay (talk) 13:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Pre-review

This article is on my GA Sweeps Review list, and I'm concerned that as it stands I'd be forced to delist it. In spite of the volume of citations, there are large chunks without little or no sourcing at all (Other sports, for instance), and even a request for further citations tag. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be great to get this article fixed up. The focus of discussion is usually based on conflicting political perspectives (unfortuately, but probably naturally), however with the FAQs and the amount of quality regulars we should be able to fix this page up if we work together. If we could each just get two citations we'd crack this in no-time. If not, delisting it will have to be. --Jza84 |  Talk  12:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

There is total confusion between the references and footnotes, with duplicated numbers given in the text which point to references (on the one hand) and footnotes (on the other). Additionally, the format of the references is sub-standard in almost every case. I've already removed one anomalous footnote that wasn't pointing to anything really (though it was meant to refer to the currency bit in the infobox) by replacing it with a full-blown reference. I suggest we do what is done on other articles: have one monolithic section called "Notes and References" which contains all undifferentiated footnotes, no matter whether they are references or not, and then see how that goes: dividing them up into more than one conceptual category can come later. I've started that by replacing the anomalous footnote mentioned above by a ref, though it needs a real reference added, which can come at the end of the text that is currently in the footnote. Any comments?  DDStretch  (talk) 13:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

(Additional info) It is even worse, now that I gave it another cursory glance: the footnotes section contains additional references that begin the numbering afresh and do not appear anywhere. So, we are in the situation where there are (for example) at least three types of reference indicated by a superscripted 2 in the main text: one is in the main references section; another is in the footnotes section but isn't shown as a "2" in that section; and the third is an additional reference given in a footnote that doesn't lead anywhere, though it is a full-blown reference if one looks at the source code. It is a total mess, and I would immediately downgrade it from a GA status article on this basis alone if it were me.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you're right. I had at first glance thought that adding a few citations would be sufficient, but I see now after looking in more detail that there's also a serious structural problem with the citations that have been provided. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:03, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. I've now removed the last craziness of references within the footnotes that don't lead anywhere, and reformatted it a bit. This will more easily enable a merging of the footnotes and the references which, as I indicated above might be the best way to proceed. So, if you are reading this afresh, you won't see the last bit of craziness in the reference/footnote numbering now.  DDStretch  (talk) 14:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I've now totally re-cast the footnotes as references, thus removing the footnotes section. In so doing, I discovered that one of the footnotes actually went nowhere, and it seems to have been replaced at some point by a reference (not my doing). Although I've made the footnotes into references, I didn't really do much in terms of making them conform, and so now we are in the situation of a monolithic references section which needs to be sorted out in terms of checking links, providing them in a uniform and complete manner, and adjusting other aspects of them.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Scotland

When you read this article in its entirety you can't help but wonder whether this article should be called the United Kingdom of Scotland rather than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, judging by the fact that Scotland, despite making up only 8% of the population of the UK, is easily as represented as England if not more, despite England making up 83% of the population of the UK. It's even to the point where I had to change the Symbols section as only Scotland had a main article link or photo in it.

I have looked on other articles and I can't find other country articles where a minor region is as heavily represented, such as say Bavaria constituting almost 50% of the Germany article, despite Bavaria making up 15% of the German population, compared with Scotland making up 8% of the UK's.

As for the UK being a collection of constituent countries, Germany is a federation, with states holding more seperate powers than they do in the UK, just as with states in the United States, whereas the UK is a constitutional monarchy.

I see where all this started from with trying to represent each of the constituent countries equally. This is like the United States article trying to represent all 50 states equally throughout the article, which it doesn't. This trying to represent all the constituent countries equally on the UK article has peverted what the UK is and has made it look like a collection of sovereign states like the EU, rather than a single sovereign state, which is what it actually is, whether regions like Scotland or Wales or London have parliaments or assemblies or not.

The Unites States article doesn't represent all 50 states equally because not only would be hugely impracticle but because the US is a single soverign state as there's no reason why all regions of a country should be equally represented because they're not sovereign states who are members of a political union, like the EU, which is and does try to represent all member states equally on its articles, just as other articles where sovereign states are members of something do. I feel some nationalist editors have changed the article over time to make the UK look like a political union of seperate countries or mini EU, rather than as a sovereign state. Editors only a few months ago once tried to change the introduction from The United Kingdom is a union of constituent countries to The United Kingdom is a political union of countries, and so proving what I've said.

The main thing is that by having a quota system for each section, rather than putting what's the most important information into that section, whether it's mostly from a single region, which may be the case if a single region is dominant, means that the most important information isn't added and instead a quota for information from each region is added, whether it's relevant or not. Usergreatpower (talk) 16:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you point out the sections that you would like to change, and how you would go about it? --Jza84 |  Talk  17:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Basically less in each section about how the UK is devolved and more on the actual subject matter across the UK as a whole rather the subject being split up into England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. There's no need to split each section in this article up into England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as they have their own articles covering it anyway. Usergreatpower (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The main point I was trying to make anyway is that Scotland seems too heavily represented in the article. See my earlier comments here. Usergreatpower (talk) 17:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with your first point - something I've raised before with some limited success. There has been alot of forking about how the UK devolved - particularly Scotland. I compare it to writing about England on the basis of a region or county per paragraph. We need more about the UK as a whole. I think the 4-way split works for some sections (NHS being a good example, as the NHS is split this way), but not for others. We really need to do something about this article as the quality is clearly not improving. --Jza84 |  Talk  19:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jza84: many of the sections have to be divided by country to do justice to the topic under consideration. Apart from the issues of healthcare and education, other sections also have to reflect differences north and south of the border. For example, Scotland has a separate legal system from England and Wales - how could we describe law in the UK without reflecting this fully? Some may prefer the UK to be far more uniform in its organisation, but it is as it is. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 19:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) I also tend to agree that there is too much time spent on issues that are better dealt with in the articles about the separate countries with just a link to the relevant sections within those articles from this one. I view the approach needed here to improve the article as being basically a "top down" one in which this article deals with the issues that are mainly common about the UK as a whole, with a great elaboration in details of differences between the countries being dealt with as a short succinct summary here and a pointer to a relevant section within the separate countries' articles. Of course, where there are significant differences within the UK, it would be sensible to have them described in this article so that they can be compared and contrasted, however, because where else would such comparative material be placed? (NHS, Law, etc) If some think equal coverage (of the countries of the UK) is required, then I would try to make it more close to equal zero (excepting the just-mentioned cases where significant differences should be described as a comparison.) This would be far more sensible than keeping the cumbersome entity of an article we have at the moment. It may require some material to be added to the separate country articles if they are found to be deficient in some specific coverage, which should help those articles as well. So winners all round!  DDStretch  (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Great stuff! On the back of that, does anybody know of any cheap and cheerful "Introduction/Short guide" to Britain books I could get online? I'm struggling finding exactly the type of thing I want on Amazon. --Jza84 |  Talk  20:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

(<-) AFAICT, there's no reason why the following sections should be split into constituent country paragraphs:

• Geography : This should be split on a basis of something like "Overview, Relief, Soils, Rivers and drainage, climate, ecology", like (surprise, surprise) how Britannica handles it, as well as other sources.
• Transport : Paragraphs on Road, Rail, Sea, Air? Where is this stuff?
• Other sports.
• Literature.

Other issues include stop forcing the term "countries" on readers, when a neutral phrase (i.e. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) could be used. Stop mentioning politicised proposals by nationalist governments (Scottish independance is mentioned in the Devolution section - we don't need it more than once please), per WP:CRYSTAL and WP:UNDUE. Finally, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland only need linking once in the lead, not once (or more!) in every section. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:United Kingdom/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

In order to uphold the quality of Wikipedia:Good articles, all articles listed as Good articles are being reviewed against the GA criteria as part of the GA project quality task force. While all the hard work that has gone into this article is appreciated, unfortunately, as of October 3, 2008, this article fails to satisfy the criteria, as detailed below. For that reason, the article has been delisted from WP:GA. However, if improvements are made bringing the article up to standards, the article may be nominated at WP:GAN. If you feel this decision has been made in error, you may seek remediation at WP:GAR.

• There are at least 10 dead links in the Notes and references section.[1]

fixed, Tom B (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• The Culture section has been tagged as being in need of further citations since July.

• The Symbols section is flagged as needing to be converted from a list to prose, and has an unaddressed {{fact}} tag.

fixed, Tom B (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• There are many unattributed expressions of opinion, such as "The Beatles were and still are considered one of the world's greatest bands." Who says so?

fixed Beatles, Tom B (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• Large parts of the article are completely uncited, the last half of Football for instance, and almost all of the Geography and Christianity sections.

• "Golf is one of the most popular participation sports played in the UK ...". Who says so? How popular?

fixed, Tom B (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• "Heathrow Airport is the world's busiest international airport and, being an island country, the UK has a considerable number of sea ports." Needs to be cited. On what basis is Heathrow the busiest international airport in the world? Again, who says so? Why is the citation shunted off to an image caption? What does a "considerable number" mean?

fixed heathrow, someone else removed non-specific bit about sea ports and ugly grammar "being an island country", Tom B (talk) 14:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• "The City of London is the world's largest financial centre alongside New York." Doesn't make sense. Is it the largest, the second largest, or are both London and New York equally large?

fixed, Tom B (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

• Publishers and last access dates need to be shown for all of the citations.

--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)