Category talk:London borough templates

Railway and tube stations

I would like opinions as to whether railway and tube stations can be best presented like Template:LB Richmond upon Thames, now that I've added icons to that article using some researched coding. I note the guidance on icons does not discourage icons' use outside of the the mainspace body of articles. I hope this presentation might give people sufficient information far more comprehensively than repeating a list of names in a London Borough where districts replicate their stations (or have a station of a very similar name), and where it leaves just one or two stations are outside the heart of any one district. It might not be applied best in all cases but some guidance by consensus among all recent template contributors, who I have invited to this talk page, would be in keeping with WP:TALK. Whilst I am conscious that wikipedia is not a travel guide, a large minority of London districts have engulfed other areas by virtue of their station names or even become districts as a result of having a station. I hope people would agree with that observation which may be influential in how we can do the capital best service in its overview data.- Adam37 Talk 15:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I do not think it is a good idea, as it may not occur to many casual readers to click on the icon to find the station. A separate list is better. The Richmond list is very overloaded compared with other boroughs, and I would move some more - such as pubs and breweries - to 'other topics'. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

It's also not obvious why some (like Barnes) have two similar icons, unless you click them - or your browser displays an appropriate tooltip when hovering. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

RedRose I rarely disagree with you; your transport savoir faire is excellent. However as the Richmond template talk says Barnes Bridge station is actually in the heart of Barnes both historically and today unlike most other stations which have their own 'heart of community'. I sincerely doubt having two icons would lead one into a state of arrant confusion.- Adam37 Talk 16:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

No what I mean is that unless the reader takes some positive action that reveals the link (clicking it, or hovering over - which doesn't work on mobiles), they will merely see the word "Barnes" plus two double-arrow icons with nothing to distinguish them. It might not occur to them that Barnes has two stations. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

As Dudley Miles and Redrose64 pointed out, it's not at all clear that clicking on an rail or tube icon will take the reader to a specific station, let alone which, and so this approach is not helpful to the reader. If we're going to provide links to stations in this template, we have to do so clearly and explicitly.

More generally, the proposed principle that London districts can be identified with stations and vice versa has too many exceptions to be useful and should not be "influential". There are districts without stations or without stations whose names relate to the district, there are stations named aspirationally for neighbouring districts, and there are odd consequences of railway history whereby a station in the middle of one district has been named for another district, leaving the first district's name free for another station which happens to lie outside its eponymous district. Many district names have not drifted to centre on stations and some have moved the other way for other reasons.

I see I'm the third editor to raise objections here and that Headhitter and KenBailey have objected to the merging of districts and stations at Template talk:LB Richmond upon Thames#Railway stations etc. Adam37, this was a reasonable suggestion and a good bold edit of Template:LB Richmond upon Thames, but let's follow WP:BRD. (I was surprised to see that when your innovation was reverted, you'd re-established it saying "Per Talk. We were still rightly at the discuss stage."[1]) I'll restore the template to its unmerged state. NebY (talk) 17:15, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I think that is harsh and likely to discourage anyone to agree with me whatsoever. It appears I am an absolute fool.- Adam37 Talk 14:50, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Not at all! The Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle is a very ordinary way of working. It doesn't reflect on you or close down discussion. NebY (talk) 16:46, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, NebY. I agree with you that the proposed principle that London districts can be identified with stations and vice versa has too many exceptions to be useful. A particular example in LB Wandsworth is Clapham Junction station which is actually in Battersea, not Clapham. And I don't think railways are so important that they deserve such special treatment and prominence over other means of transport. Regarding Dudley Miles's observation about the RB Richmond template being "overloaded", I'd be open to suggestions for shortening it, provided that it still signposts to all the current material. Some while ago I moved the list of churches to a stand-alone template: perhaps pubs would be another topic that might be a suitable candidate for that approach. Headhitter (talk) 16:03, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I've now compressed Template:LB Richmond upon Thames a little, by moving some of the material to other new templates. Headhitter (talk) 17:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes but in this instance I seemed to have some support for putting logos by stations which has been quashed, stifled and censored by two editors on here, such that the other editors I invited to ask whether that looked good cannot now see such a prime example, due to a rigid assertion of 'bold, revert, discuss' which if you consider me bold, is not really true.- Adam37 Talk 21:38, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Adam37, you could post a link here to your most recent edited version of Template:LB Richmond upon Thames and invite other editors to comment on it. Headhitter (talk) 08:07, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I really cannot be fussed to code the link. You have clearly performed most edits to the better good, I would simply leave you to do as you see fit, with the wise words that we are very much in the 21st century and the use of multi-lingual logos in the London templates, having multi-modal transport in this city, is clearly not to be discouraged in my humble view as it frees up space for other information.- Adam37 Talk 19:22, 12 January 2016 (UTC)