User talk:Monassoc

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Hello Monassoc!

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Again, welcome! --Steve 14:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Welsh Counties
The FamilySearch Wiki is a source of information for genealogists. It must therefore contain fact and not the opinions of small pressure groups such as the "Monmouthshire Association"; the "Association of British Counties"; "Friends of Real Lancashire"; "Historic Counties Trust"; ...

When I created the original Welsh county pages I tried to give an independent and unbiased set of facts, and to steer well-clear of politics. I believe that I achieved this goal!

However, your recent changes to these pages appear to me to be highly political in nature. You have removed all references to the local government changes of 1974 and 1996. This is unacceptable! Whether you agree with them or not, they took place and that cannot be written out of history !

Additionally you have failed to adjust hundreds of internal links throughout the wiki to reflect your changes, resulting in the horrendous number of directs now happening, for which you are entirely responsible!

The development of the FamilySearch Wiki is not as advanced as Wikipedia and we do do not have as many formal policies and guides on page content, but I believe that we can learn a lot from our far more experienced friends at Wikipedia. Their guide can be viewed at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(UK_counties)

It states clearly:

"In respect of England, Scotland and Wales, a fundamental part of this guide is to reaffirm the long established policy that we do not take the minority view that the historic/ancient/traditional counties still exist with the former boundaries. Unless (using consensus) a good reason is made not to, the article should describe any administrative and ceremonial changes differences within one article, including any difference in the statistics between them. In England and Wales, where the historic county boundaries are different to modern boundaries the article should discuss these differences, and not be split into new "Historic county of Exampleshire" articles."

"Where counties have been abolished or no longer serve any municipal role (such as Cumberland or Ross-shire) these should have their own articles, but maintain that they no longer function as contemporary counties/subdivisions of territory."

"Former counties of Wales (those that no longer function with an administrative role) ..."

These arguments are equally important here on our FamilySearch Wiki. Here we have a large number of users delving deep into their ancestry and, in many cases, the researcher is dealing with places of which they have little, or no, knowledge.

Therefore, it is important that they are provided with the correct facts, and in context, in order to make their own judgement. For example:

- David Jones was born in 1953 in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales - Samuel Davies was born in 1976 in Wrexham, Clwyd, Wales - Sarah Evans was born in 1999 in Wrexham, Wales

because, regardless of the opinions of the Association of British Counties, this is what appears on birth, marriage and death certificates!

This is extremely important when looking at counties like Flintshire and Denbighshire. In both cases the historic counties and the modern counties are very different in structure. We regularly come across researchers who waste valuable research time because they were not aware of these changes!

Therefore, I feel that I have no option but to undo all of your changes.

--Bromaelor 16:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The changes were a work-in-progress, and not political but attempting to untangle the geographical and administrative mess that the data as currently presented is in. No-one is trying to airbrush anything out of history. It just seems that the data incorporated on a single page would be better split out into three or more pages. Yes, the administrative areas can appear of birth certificates, but no-one is going to know to look at the Denbighshire page if they are looking for Clwyd or Wrexham to use your own example. If you will permit further editing and splitting out into separate articles I am sure you will agree that the end result is superior. Monassoc 08:13, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I can only point at the Wikipedia guidelines once more:


 * "where the historic county boundaries are different to modern boundaries the article should discuss these differences, and not be split into new "Historic county of Exampleshire" articles."


 * We just do not need the type of detail you are suggesting in a genealogy wiki. --Bromaelor 13:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for wanting to help improve the articles. One of the principles of working in a wiki is to be bold and to fix things that need fixing, but I agree with Bromaelor that when you removed the content already present, it was right to revert those changes. Please explain where you see the geographical and administrative mess that the data as currently presented on the talk pages of the articles in question. By doing so we can work together to improve the content of the wiki. I'm not against splitting up pages once they get too long, but better to explain the changes in boundaries in one place and any relevant redirects so that people using different search terms will find where the information is. --Steve 17:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)