Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of English Electoral Wards by Constituency

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep all. T. Canens (talk) 00:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of English Electoral Wards by Constituency

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Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Replicates near-verbatim SI 2007/1681. Wereon (talk) 23:27, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plus subsets of the above:

The Welsh equivalent:

And two redirects:

I can see that this is potentially useful, and has been collated in an extremely organized way - it doens't seem the least bit indiscriminate. What is the exact problem with these articles existing in Wikipedia? At the very least they should have a place in some Wikimedia project or another, if they are not encyclopedic could they be rehomed e.g. in Wikisource? TheGrappler (talk) 00:01, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think Wikisource accepts material under Crown Copyright. Besides, is reproducing secondary legislation really what any Wikimedia project is for, when HMSO / OPSI already do it? Wereon (talk) 00:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - What makes you think that this material is under Crown Copyright? These are just plain facts, no creativity seems to have been used even in the ordering of the facts. I think the source material is therefore ineligible for Copyright; besides which, it should be possible to wikify these pages to "add value" to them. The fact these improvements haven't happened yet doesn't seem a good reason to delete. As for whether any Wikimedia project is "for" reproducing information available anywhere else, the answer is a big fat yes, surely? The facts contained in Wikipedia are all from somewhere else (due to the rule against no original research); Wikisource contains lots of information straight from other sources as does Commons. TheGrappler (talk) 14:56, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - So, publications that contain only facts are not copyrightable? SnottyWong talk 01:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Actually, no, they are not. You can sell your own phone book by taking the phone company's and copying all the info, at least in the U.S.. See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:06, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep: Certainly the articles are not perfect at present. But there are advantages in having wikified articles in addition to the source documents; it is clearer to link from one article to a specific section of one of the above articles (and backlink to the relevant constituency, placename etc) than it is to link only to a less structured document on an external website. The article does not seem to breach the policies listed at Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion (though the list is not intended to be exhaustive). More specifically, it is not clear that the articles are "indiscriminate" in the sense described at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, since they are ordered and wikified in an accurate and potentially useful way. Perhaps it would be sufficient to merge the county articles into just four articles (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales – corresponding to the four boundary commissions), so as to balance the advantages of wikification against the disadvantages of duplicated and scattered content. — Richardguk (talk) 00:15, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The list of relevant wards would be a welcome addition to the individual constituency articles, but I'm not sure what the value is of listing them all by country or county in such a way. Wereon (talk) 00:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Suppose someone is interested not in which wards comprise a known constituency, but in which constituency each ward in a district is allocated to. More generally still, suppose someone wants an idea of the constituency to which each ward in a certain area is allocated (regardless of council boundaries). There is no perfect solution, but listing the data on one page makes it easier for the reader to gather information more flexibly than if it is only scattered across many articles or on an external site, allowing wikilinks to be used effectively. — Richardguk (talk) 01:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - This sounds entirely reasonable to me. TheGrappler (talk) 14:56, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The information provided is not indiscriminate. The fact that it has a good, reliable source is not a reason to delete. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep In a mass nomination, it's poor strategy to nominate the best of the articles first, and I think it will prove to have been "a lot of work for nothing". Many of the "afterthoughts" are actually duplicates of the information in List of English Electoral Wards by Constituency, except for (List of Welsh Electoral Wards by Constituency) so I see no reason to keep anything that duplicates info on a larger list. Rather than confusing the matter with a "keep this one, delete that one and that one and that one, but keep the next one" vote, I'll just leave the question of merger to others. Mandsford 17:07, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I know that, as the author, I am slightly impartial, but I feel that these articles are good reference guides and are useful. I also put a lot of hard work into them and would hate to see my work deleted. 07bargem (talk) 18:55, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Transwiki to Wikisource. There is nothing in these articles which doesn't appear verbatim somewhere on this site. SnottyWong talk 01:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The only issue I have with this article is that this will be a bugger to maintain. I wonder if the information would be better contained in articles like List of Parliamentary constituencies in Cleveland, where the people who maintain the pages are likely to be clued up on boundary changes. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 16:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Nothing indiscriminate here.--Mike Cline (talk) 13:23, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as copyvio. The information is directly copied from here. The material is under copyright. Nuttah (talk) 13:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*keep - useful and cited. The content is imo not a copyright violation, the copyright notice is here http://www.opsi.gov.uk/about/copyright-notice.htm it looks to me like they are actively encouraging reprinting and requesting hyperlinks to be created to their site which we have done in our article. Off2riorob (talk) 10:33, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"…provided it is reproduced accurately…" — it may be accurate at the moment, but how can we ensure it stays accurate? Full edit protection?? Qwfp (talk) 15:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we will try in good faith but I see your point. I am far from expert in copyright. User:Moonriddengirl is a good person to ask. Off2riorob (talk) 15:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It cannot be, unfortunately. The Crown Copyright exemption is that all material can be copied WITHOUT CHANGE. The nature of Wikipedia makes that impossible to guarantee. Nuttah (talk) 18:05, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting that copyright notice in full:

"The Crown copyright protected material (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of the Crown copyright items on this site are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged. The permission to reproduce Crown protected material does not extend to any material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned. OPSI encourages users to establish hypertext links to this site." — OPSI Crown copyright notice (emphasis added)

Wikipedia policy implications: So long as due attribution is given and the article is created accurately with a link to the source, we can't limit ourselves by the hypothetical actions of future vandals, which would in any event be subject to correction by other editors and be made evident by examining the history page or comparing with the source, to which we link.

After all, a vandal can insert text from any copyright publication on almost any page and immediately cause a copyright breach. This real risk does not cause us to delete every page of the encyclopedia! Instead, we maintain the articles and respond to informal and formal feedback as best we can.

Practical implications: I'm sure all of us here want Wikipedia articles to be accurate. If someone notices an inaccuracy subsequently introduced, how likely is it the Crown would sue Wikipedia (or the miscreant editor)? Frankly, if the Crown even bothered to complain, we should be grateful for them taking an interest, but it's inconceivable that they would object in principle to an article that Wikified the data contained in the statutory instrument.

— Richardguk (talk) 00:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm afraid that Crown copyright is not permissible on Wikipedia. :/ As is noted at WP:C and Wikimedia:Terms of Use, our content must be licensed compatibly with WP:CC-By-SA, which permits modification (obviously, public domain is acceptable). That Crown copyright mandate forbidding modification makes it incompatible, so it must be used in accordance with WP:NFC, which forbids extensive quotation. The real question, though, is whether this material is copyrightable under the US law that governs Wikipedia. While some countries recognize "sweat of the brow", U.S. copyright law requires creativity. The requirement here is minimal (most content easily passes the threshold), but lists that are simply straightforward and obvious compilations of facts are not creative. (As with Feist v. Rural.) I'm not sure here. When the Nielsen Company wrote to the Wikimedia Foundation to complain that we were reproducing their lists of U.S. television markets, our attorney removed the content (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive170#Nielson DMCA Takedown). Except in the case of an official takedown request (which in spite of the language bandied at this discussion this was not; note that Mike said, "Wikimedia Foundation has not received a DMCA takedown notice"), he does not do that in situations without merit. (He didn't automatically comply with the American Psychiatric Association wrote us.) I would be inclined to presume that there is no creativity in the content, but the Nielsen market precedent makes that a bit complicated. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:26, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know that I've asked Mike. Since there are 13 articles involved here, best to find out if copyright concerns are a factor. I'll update if he has an opportunity to respond to me. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Thanks for the advice, which is clearly an informed and thoughtful contribution, but I'm puzzled by the logic:

There seems to be an assumption that "accuracy" precludes "modification". The Crown copyright waiver (and para 12b of the relevant guidance) requires accuracy, but there is no "Crown copyright mandate forbidding modification". Modification in the articles consists only of wikilinking, annotating and layout changes.
Feist implies that facts per se are not copyrightable in US law. The article does not reproduce the other (creative and presentational) aspects. Nor are the statutory instruments the only authoritative source of the data (Boundary Commission reports, draft statutory instruments and National Statistics lists contain the same data in different formats, though are also Crown copyright).
The lists can also be derived from OS OpenData datasets which are licensed to be compatible with CC-BY 3.0. (Admittedly this is not applicable to most Crown publications at present, but does happen to apply to the content being discussed here.)
Unlike Nielsen, the Crown is not seeking to exploit its website content commercially, nor is it objecting to the current articles or similar instances. Clearly the Crown does not want us to mislead, but nor do we. If the content ceases to be accurate, the obvious remedy is to correct the content, not to pre-emptively delete articles.

I can see that the articles could be criticised for duplicating information; that's a plausible view to be balanced against the advantages of having the data listed together and wikified, hence the tentativeness of my Weak keep. But the legal point seems a red herring.

— Richardguk (talk) 16:49, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Content on Wikipedia must be licensed compatibly with Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. This license does not guarantee that the material will remain accurate; our reusers may do whatever they wish with it, even if they wish to deliberately mess it up. They may modify it in any way. Per our copyright policy and Terms of Use (both linked above), we can't accept content that is licensed more restrictively than that even if we should agree that accuracy is a good idea. (For background, see this 2002 pronouncement by User:Jimbo Wales. Plus there are plenty of conversations about it in Wiki.) The only question here is whether there is sufficient creativity in the content for Crown copyright to apply. I am inclined to doubt it, but as I said I've asked our attorney. Pending his answer, further discussion of the copyright question seems unnecessary, unless he tells us to settle it in house. If he says it is uncreative, there is no concern. If he says it is protected expression, it will be removed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:21, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Mike has kindly offered quick response; copyright concerns are off the table. The lists can and should be judged on other factors. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking into this. It's certainly complicated, but thanks for obtaining such clear and swift advice. — Richardguk (talk) 08:06, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: There is no consensus to delete. Copyright concern is inchoate at best.--Milowent (talk) 15:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Transwiki to Wikisource - I struck my comment after Moonriddengirl's comment. There are doubts as to the status of such content and for the limited value of the content I don't under the circumstances support Keeping it. Off2riorob (talk) 16:24, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the articles were moved to Wikisource, reproducing the statutory instruments verbatim, wouldn't it be harder to link to it from relevant articles on English Wikipedia, and vice versa, and harder to maintain those links? We don't need to reproduce the source unchanged, as it's already online at the official website; but by using the content here, we can enhance it with internal wikilinks. — Richardguk (talk) 16:49, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I also think that under the circumstances and the no consensus that is present that as there is no hurry and relisting to get wider community comment would be a fair request. Off2riorob (talk) 16:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That wouldn't hurt.--Milowent (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (t) (c) 20:16, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"If the articles were moved to Wikisource, reproducing the statutory instruments verbatim, wouldn't it be harder to link to it from relevant articles on English Wikipedia, and vice versa, and harder to maintain those links? We don't need to reproduce the source unchanged, as it's already online at the official website; but by using the content here, we can enhance it with internal wikilinks."

It looks pretty verbatim to me, as you say...it is already online...to me this content in an external link, through wikisource or see also or wherever but our hosting it verbatim here when it is already hosted and when there are issues with copyright is not part of the remit ot the project. Off2riorob (talk) 20:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are not "issues with copyright". Moonriddengirl consulted an authoritative source and reported above (20:19, 21 June 2010) that "copyright concerns are off the table. The lists can and should be judged on other factors." — Richardguk (talk) 08:06, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep; I don't see any major problems - organised, factual, and no doubt useful to those who study such things. I note the copyright issues; however, facts cannot be copyrighted, of course, only creative writing. TerriersFan (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTREPOSITORY It's a direct copy of material available elsewhere on the net, thus it should be at most on Wikisource per the guidelines.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 21:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Re NOTDIR: none of the seven cases listed there seem to apply; the information is lengthy but specific not indiscriminate. Conversely, the articles do not contradict anything at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Appropriate topics for lists.

Re NOTREPOSITORY: none of the four cases apply. The articles are not "original, unmodified wording", they comprise the relevant facts rearranged and reformatted with wikilinks, which is what makes them useful as articles on enwiki, and would make them ineligible for Wikisource.

— Richardguk (talk) 08:06, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep -- Many consistutency articles are weak on the description of the boundaries. Information on the local govenrment wards of which each consists is useful and should be added to those articles. However, I would be happier if the constituencies were grouped by District Council, so that it was clear which council the ward elected a councillor for. WP has many list articles, and this is just another. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One option would be to reformat the lists into a sortable table, so that readers can choose to view the list either in constituency order or in local authority order. This could also allow areas to be grouped by county or ceremonial county. — Richardguk (talk) 12:06, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting idea. The main list is 160kb long. Would sorting be practical, or might it take ages? I don't think there should be two copies of the info as this will be difficult to maintain. How about transcluding each of the sub-lists into the main list? Qwfp (talk) 12:18, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a go, at User:Richardguk/List of United Kingdom electoral wards by constituency. See note below for some initial thoughts. — Richardguk (talk) 03:27, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem I can see is that come Local Authorities are covered by more than one constituency, so the reader wouldn't get a list by Local Authority. 07bargem (talk) 15:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Reluctant Delete~~, useful information and a valid list, unfortunately the crown copyright requirements are incompatible with our licensing, which allows the work to be further altered. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Wikimedia's chief lawyer has advised that copyright is not a problem in this case (via Moonriddengirl, above). Sorry for the emphasis, but this seems to be repeatedly being overlooked. So can we please consider this matter on its own merits?

— Richardguk (talk) 12:06, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, he has. I trust that whatever admin closes this will take that into account when weighing "delete for licensing issue" arguments. There is insufficient creativity in these lists for copyright to convey under the U.S. law that governs us. (Closing admin: if you want more details about my e-mails with Mike, please feel free to e-mail me.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, Keep. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Transwiki or Delete. This is essentially directory information which should have a home somewhere but not on Wikipedia. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I've created a prototype of an alternative layout using sortable wikitables: User:Richardguk/List of United Kingdom electoral wards by constituency. It's a hefty 500KB page, but that includes all four parts of the UK so could be split.
The list includes official ward codes to distinguish between areas of the same name where ward boundaries have changed.
As this is only a prototype, I've not included county or review area details. Also, the constituencies are listed in the order published and would need re-sorting so that the default ordering makes more sense without needing to click the header first.
— Richardguk (talk) 03:27, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are two factors to consider here. The first is the status of Crown Copyright on Wikipedia (a matter on which, I've said several times, Wikipedia needs clear guidelines that it doesn't currently have). I'm pleased to see from Mike Godwin's remarks above that concerns about copyright may safely be disregarded in this particular case and we need only consider the benefits to the encyclopaedia.
The second factor is whether this is an indiscriminate collection of information. My position is that it isn't. The matter is clearly explained in the first pillar:- Wikipedia is not just an encyclopaedia. It's also a gazetteer, and gazetteers need content that organises material for navigation. So for example, paper gazetteer would have a contents and an index page. Wikipedia lacks those but we have categories, lists and navigational templates that ought to serve their function instead. The rule that governs these is WP:CLN. And over and above the considerations of WP:CLN, there's a secondary factor: this material also supports and clarifies the UK's political structure. In short, I can see a variety of reasons why this material is not an indiscriminate collection of information, but a highly focused and relevant one and I'd expect to find decent coverage of this on Wikipedia. Richardguk's version looks suitable for the moment, though in a perfect world we'd have a clickable interactive map.—S Marshall T/C 23:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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 article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.