Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Cambridgeshire

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cambridgeshire

The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The resulting WikiProject was not created

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Description

A project that will help raise awareness of the county of Cambridgeshire. I initially suggested having a WikiProject just for Peterborough, but then realised that it would make a lot more sense to have one for the county. Cambridgeshire is so historic and so well known that it really should have its own WikiProject. I personally think that every county in the UK should have one. AndrewvdBK (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Support

Please specify whether or not you would join the project.

1. AndrewvdBK (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
2. JVG (talk) 23:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC) - Would join, although my presence on here is best described as intermittant. Currently trying to rewrite one of the articles which would fall in such a wikiproject though, and would be interested in helping in other articles though, esp in East Cambs. Would also support a wikiproject with wider scope however, per discussion.

Discussion

Suggestion: Make it a broader East Anglia project (there was a previous proposal for a Norfolk & Suffolk project here). The boundaries in East Anglia are fairly arbitrary—Ely has more in common with Norwich than it does with Peterborough or Cambridge, while Newmarket has more in common with Cambridge than with Ipswich—and that way, there would hopefully be enough editors to give it a critical mass. I suspect that a stand-alone Cambridgeshire project would degenerate fairly quickly into a de facto WikiProject Cambridge University. – iridescent 21:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Do note that the county boundaries of Cambridgeshire have changed a lot over the years; Peterborough used to be in Northamptonshire whilst Huntingdonshire used to be a separate county for example. The scope of such a WikiProject may need a clearer definition. In addition, East Anglia doesn't really have solid boundaries, with the strictest definition being simply Norfolk and Suffolk, per the previously proposed wikiproject. That suggestion may work better though and is worth further thought - JVG (talk) 23:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Join Wikipedia:WikiProject England, or revive the nominally existing, but apparently dead, Wikipedia:WikiProject Cambridge. You can always split off from the existing project later if folks interested in Cambridgeshire seem to be taking over. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Totally and utterly oppose that. WP:ENGLAND deals with nationwide topics, not "every article in England", and it's not appropriate for local-interest articles to be tagged as falling into its remit; all that any attempt to do so would cause would be a lot of bad feeling. Category:Cambridgeshire and its subcategories currently include 16,029 articles, and there's no possible way WP:ENGLAND could absorb that many articles without being hopelessly unbalanced. – iridescent 23:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Second that strong opposition on the additional grounds that the wikiproject Cambridge applies ONLY to the City and not the county, and would thus suffer even worse from being dominated by Uni articles which this ISN'T meant to address. - JVG (talk) 15:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure about that?

For example, when I look at ENGLAND's pages, I find indications that they believe that all "local" things within England fall within their remit. Surely you would not say that West Wycombe Park or the List of places of worship in Brighton and Hove are outside of their scope, given that they've said these articles are within it? Is there anything you've planned here that is more non-national than a single house or the list of places of worship in a single town? Do you see any sign that tagging these articles (successfully, BTW, not merely attempting to) has caused any bad feeling at all?

As for CAMBRIDGE, my recommendation is that you deliberately expand its scope so that its scope is the entire county, rather than merely the city (its stated scope) or the university (your assumption about its scope). Thus instead of three half-dead projects, the community would have one half-dead project and one possibly successful one.

I make these recommendations for practical reasons: WikiProjects focused on a small local area have a particularly high rate of failure. If you want your group to to be successful, then your best bet is re-energizing ENGLAND. Alternatively, if you're determined to have a narrow focus, then taking over CAMBRIDGE has the advantage of saving you some of the hassles for setting it up, and the possibility of assimilating any extant members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

West Wycombe Park is a nationally significant Grade I listed building, and List of places of worship in Brighton and Hove is a list covering an entire Unitary Authority. Neither is comparable to Kingsgate Community Church, Six Mile Bottom railway station or Cambridge Beer Festival, which is the level of article you're suggesting we throw into the WP:ENGLAND remit. – iridescent 01:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Have you asked ENGLAND whether they think these articles are within their scope? Or are you just assuming that they don't want them?

They have taken Acrow Halt railway station, Alresford (Essex) railway station, Althorne railway station, Apsley railway station, and many more; is Six Mile Bottom railway station that different?

I see All Saints Church, Patcham, Highfield Church, Madron Parish Church, Sacred Heart Church, St Ives and many more; is Kingsgate Community Church so different?

Their list contains Bath Beer Festival and Stamford Blues Festival; how do you think those compare to the Cambridge beer festival?

Now—you might be quite right: ENGLAND may be opposed to all of these. But I think you need more "discuss" and less "assume" here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:49, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I didn't say that the Cambridge project was only about the Uni, I said that the number of Uni pages (due to the number of colleges, Uni buildings, etc) would overwhelm the rest of the project, looking at the history and settlements of the rest of the county amongst other things. There's a difference there. This is one of the larger counties in England, but the internationally renowned Uni within it does kind of cast a shadow anyway. The project should probably explicitly exclude the Uni if possible, although the line between the city and uni in Cambridge does blur quite a bit. - JVG (talk) 18:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, and what's worse, I thought I'd pulled that before saving the page. I had double-checked your comment at the time I wrote it and realized I was wrong. I apologize and have belatedly struck the erroneous text. It was not your writing, but my sloppy reading, that needed clarity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Why not try convincing the people over at WikiProject England to create an "Cambridgeshire task force"? (or "East Anglia task force" or even a "Peterborough task force"?) That seems like a natural place for such a project; if they go for that, then it would be easy to add an article to the task force, by adding a parameter to the banner {{WikiProject England}}. Mlm42 (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.