User talk:Concrete Cowboy

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Hi Cowboy, sorry to dump my message here again, you need to tell me the most appropriate place to put it. I wrote the article on Godskitchen, it`s basically a blow by blow account of what they have beeen up to as I have been a regular attendee at their nights for about 8 years. However, the article is still only being treated as a stub, is there any way to make it into a proper entry? Cheers again for the advice - SteveSircull

Zzyzx11 | Talk 17:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Milton Keynes 2 Blue Lagoon 3 MK Dons 4 Template:Rail line 5 Watford Junction "old bakerloo" 6 Milton Keynes Dons F.C. (again) 7 Nuneaton station 8 Dead Links? 9 MK Dons (yet again) 10 City status 11 Milton Keynes pronunciations 12 Re: Talk:Buckinghamshire 13 Counties, etc.: A suggestion for consensus 14 Castlethorpe 15 Wolverton railway station 16 Open University 17 RE: Milton Keynes Dons F.C., Wimbledon F.C. 18 Parishes 19 Battle of Edge Hill 20 Homes of celebs 21 2006 estimates 22 Merry Christmas 23 AFCW 24 New category 25 AfDs 26 Wimbeldon F.C. Franchising whilst at Selhurst 27 Sports franchising 28 Glastonbury Festival 29 Station Stats 30 Peace Pagoda 31 RE: Stantonbury Campus 32 Carstairs 33 Station usage stats 34 Route 18 34.1 Carstairs 35 Milton Keynes article guardian angel 36 MK Pictures 37 Milton Keynes Dons F.C. 38 Roade and map refs 39 Stony Stratford Town F.C. 40 Image:ConcreteCows.jpg and Image:ConcreteCows.png 41 The Redway School 42 Chris@WikiPedia != Chris@WikiCommons 43 Wimbledon F.C. 44 Bow Brickhill 45 Extlink 46 Schools 47 Lord Grey 48 Re: Woughton/Woughton on the Green 49 Broughton and Milton Keynes 50 River Lovat 51 Buckinghamshire 52 Tyringham 53 AFC Wimbledon 54 Binliner Train 55 Popular culture 56 Population of Bletchley 57 Pete Winkelman 58 Energy World and Homeworld 81 59 My useful links 60 Re Plough Lane 61 Fenny Stratford sta etc 62 Hanslope Image 63 History of Milton Keynes

[edit] Milton Keynes

Thanks, ill head off down into the places you said, erm ill dig up some history on the site, i know it has declined in recent years (the blue lagoon) thanks again (Neostinker 18:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Blue Lagoon

Thanks for letting me know about the changes but thats all fine, as long as it looks more organised, at the moment i dont think i am going to the bowl but if i do ill send you some of the pictures, maybe a flower show or something. Let me know if you need any others pics of MK, im a local!!!

[edit] MK Dons

Although the article has had a lot of questionable edits recently, I don't think it needs to be locked just yet - that's only for quite drastic circumstances; at the moment there is a fair bit of POV material being added, but that's not vandalism per se (in my book). I might ask the UK Wikipedians noticeboard for help doing a neutral rewrite. Qwghlm 23:37, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Rail line

Hi. Its been a while since I've done any of those. I think I used the logos from the website and took them in to Photoshop to find the colour used by the company. In the case of c2c and 'one' this was the same as on the map you mentioned. It is documented here [1] Mrsteviec 15:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello & Good afternoon. The rail line template doesn't like any line breaks in it - will fix the problem. Mrsteviec 15:22, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Watford Junction "old bakerloo"

The Silverlink all stations stopping service from Watford Junction to Euston is commonly known as the "DC lines" Mrsteviec 15:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Milton Keynes Dons F.C. (again)

OK - I was just toning down what were quite strong words, not attempting for a final NPOV reportage of everything. As for what you wrote, my thoughts are...

In June 2004, Winkelman announced that Wimbledon would change its name to Milton Keynes Dons, having previously promised fans a vote on the issue.The committee of the official supporters' club had voted unanimously for the word "Wimbledon" to be retained in the name: Winkelman claimed that he had accepted the spirit of this by including the word "Dons".

This is fine.

When the club formally emerged from administration under the new name and ownership on July 1, he also announced new team colours and a new badge without consultating the fans (though no other club management does this either).

Strongly disagree with the addition of the caveat in brackets - Arsenal definitely consulted fans on their new crest; I believe Man City did as well. Many clubs with good relationships with their fans consult and discuss with their fans on a variety of issues, such as naming of new stands (like City), or choosing a new nickname (like Sunderland did when they moved from Roker Park). Qwghlm 09:36, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nuneaton station

In response to your message, you could add another line, and have one for Birmingham-Leicester local services (with Water Orton), and one for Birmingham-Leicester-Peterborough services (with BNS) - both linking to the Birmingham to Peterborough Line article. Our Phellap 16:44, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dead Links?

Hello Concrete Cowboy. Can you explain why the pictures of Milton Keynes and Information page are "dead links". The former actually allow people outside the city to see high resolution images of the city and are slowly being added to. The facts are actually more up to date than the offical web sites and are taken straight from the official publications for the city. --81.136.47.24 09:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean from Adstockweb.com? The whole domain disappeared - it was no longer registered. But I see that it is back again and so I've re-instated it. --Concrete Cowboy 10:46, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

By the way, the population figures on your site are for Borough of Milton Keynes : this article is about the designated area only. --Concrete Cowboy 12:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Will update and correct. (and get out there and update those photographs!) --217.39.118.221 16:14, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MK Dons (yet again)

Hi. I noticed you removed my edit of MK Don's history, claiming it was mostly conjecture and that any additions should be based on knowns facts. I am not trying to use Wikipedia as a soapbox, but rather attempting to give more background to MK Dons (i.e. how the groundwork was laid). As you seem rather pro-MK yourself, may I suggest that perhaps your reaction is a little over-dramatic?

Anyway, here is a list of known facts (see The Beautiful Game by David Conn for more) that I added but were then deleted:

• Winkleman plans to use the stadium development to get planning permission for an Asda store amons others (the backers of which provided the cash for the whole project)
• Winkleman approached several other clubs (Barnet, Luton, QPR) with a view to moving to the city before getting Wimbledon
• Milton Keynes City FC already existed but Winkleman needed a League Club

In addition, the part of the history where it says "Pete Winkelman, who had previously helped finance the Hockey Stadium's conversion for football, agreed to take the club over and save it from liquidation;" is inaccurate. Winkleman only helped finance the conversion after he had agreed to take over the club. Otherwise the conversion would have been pointless.

Could you please reinstate these facts. Thank you.

[edit] City status

Fair enough (re: city status in the United Kingdom) I suppose. If you think Milton Keynes is in a bad spot in respect of city status (being designed to be a city but without the official status of a city) try thinking about what a mess Rochester has got itself into! Rochester has been a City for centuries, but then in 1998 when the Medway Towns district was created a bureaucratic blunder meant that Rochester lost its official City status! Now it is technically a town... David "dpaajones"

[edit] Milton Keynes pronunciations

I'm afraid my grasp of IPA is just about good enough to read dictionary entries and no more. I didn't actually change the IPA in the Milton Keynes article, all I did was turn the XML unicode entities into UTF-8 while I was fixing up a spelling mistake. Cmdrjameson 00:48, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Talk:Buckinghamshire

80.255 pulls this weird shit on a regular basis. He is either a member or supporter of the Association of British Counties, which exists to promote an idyll of when Britain was split into "proper" counties and doesn't appear to get the point despite being talked down on more than one occasion. I have already added my 2p to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Trad counties of England infoboxes -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:17, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

3RR - it won't get that far. If an edit war breaks out it will be protected pretty sharpish - there is more than just the one admin watching what's going on! -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

FYI: Their website appears to be down at the moment, but I got this from the Google cached version of the association's website:

The Association of British Counties (ABC) is a society dedicated to promoting awareness of the continuing importance of the 86 historic (or traditional) Counties of Great Britain. ABC believes that the Counties are an important part of the history, geography and cultural life of Great Britain. ABC contends that Britain needs a fixed popular geography, one divorced from the ever changing names and areas of local government but, instead, one rooted in history, public understanding and commonly held notions of cultural identity. ABC, therefore, seeks to fully re-establish the use of the Counties as the standard popular geographical reference frame of Britain and to further encourage their use as a basis for social, sporting and cultural activities.

Totally POV, you understand... -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:28, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the POV of the United Kingdom Parliament.

"Association of British Counties, which exists to promote an idyll of when Britain was split into "proper" counties"

The ABC exists to educate people as to what laws have been passed and what the government has to say about the counties. In all cases, all the evidence confirms that the traditional counties exist. The evidence is there for anyone who wants to find it; sucessive governments have taken the same view, and it is therefore a mainstream legal view. For all the flapping around carried out by those users on wikipedia who disagree with the government in this matter, not one single piece of evidence have they presented in defence of this POV. All I ever hear are comments like "Well, our old milkman didn't know nuffin about this 'ere traditional counties existence lark.", when I, in my defence, have reproduced, word for word, legislation and official government statements! The anti-traditional county argument just isn't convincing.

Sorry for butting in, Croncrete_Cowboy, but I felt I was being misrepresented here.80.255 00:24, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

You still don't get it, do you. Nobody is saying that the trad counties should be erased from consciousness, á la 1984 (book). The issue is pre-eminence and proportionate content. It is interesting that Alphaton used to be in Gammashire, but only to the same extent that it was Alfraeston in the Domesday book and Deltium in Roman times. It does not deserve to have pole position, it does not even deserve equal status with the current data, it does not deserve to swamp the article such that it becomes very difficult to put in other images to the right. --Concrete Cowboy 09:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Without getting bogged down in some nonsensensical 'hierachy of counties', I agree that articles about ABC entity should not be swamped with information on XYZ entity. This is why they both need seperate articles. I am not advocating giving traditional counties a 'pole position'; there should be an article about the administrative county of Buckinghamshire, and it should contain only information on this entity; there should be an article about the traditional county of Buckinghamshire, and it should contain only information on this entity. Places that lie in administrative Bucks should be linked to the former; places that lie in traditional Bucks should be linked to the latter. What exactly do you disagree with here? 80.255 12:32, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Counties, etc.: A suggestion for consensus

I've posted a suggestion that should help resolve this dispute at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Suggestion for consensus. Please have a look. Thanks, 80.255 18:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Castlethorpe

Your changes to Castlethorpe are not really in accordance with anything being discussed at present. The current suggestion it to confine all mentions of all counties, etc. in the infobox. Whereas I agree that using terms like 'Mercia' instead dosen't help matters, perhaps a simple geographical description could appear on the first paragraph - e.g. XYZford is a town in the South West of England? I'd be quite happy with this, and it would avoid the silly use of long-gone kingdoms, too! Either way, it needs more discussion, so please avoid making controversial edits like this until we have agreed on a course of action, and I'll do the same. Thanks, 80.255 16:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've added an infobox to the Castlethorpe article, but haven't changed anything else. Now, just imagine if it said:

"Castlethorpe is a village in central Southern England, about 3 miles north of Stony Stratford, 4 miles west of Newport Pagnell and 7 miles north of Milton Keynes. It has a population of around 1000."

With all the county information in the infobox, don't you think that this would be simpler? 80.255 17:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I do, but then I'm not from C'thorpe and don't feel I have to but every bit of text I can think of into the article about it.

On the subject of the "everything in one article" debate, look at Wolverton, Milton Keynes, Wolverton railway station, Wolverton railway works. It underlines my point about a hypertext encyclopedia - clearly the railway buffs have a different perspective from the gographers! --Concrete Cowboy 12:18, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Firstly sorry about screwing up your article about Wolverton when I shifted some text out to the works page. What was your point about "everything in one article"?. The Wolverton railway works article is I think long enough to stand by itself. If merged into the town it would be too big. Some shorter articles for other works e.g. one paragraph, I included in the regular town's page, and in one case got chucked out. People will be coming to the pages will be coming in different directions, hence someone interested in a town's history may or may not want to read about the works, others will be coming from articles about particular railways or locos. The station articles may accessed by travellers, but also could build up a history of the line as in North Midland Railway. Chevin 14:13, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wolverton railway station

"The Advanced Passenger Train failed its trials here but the new Virgin Trains Pendolino tilting trains passed theirs" Do you mind if I insert "with another decade of development." Chevin 10:26, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Open University

Okay, I've changed it so that it says that it's the largest academic institution in the UK. Saying that it's the largest university may make some people think that MK has some huge campus with 180'000 (nearly the actual population of the place!) students around. I hope you see what I mean... David 17:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Milton Keynes Dons F.C., Wimbledon F.C.

I just reverted both articles and I'll keep my eye on them as well. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to disregard the 3 revert rule in this case since the POV edits are so clearly inaccurate. - Pal 15:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I'll try and keep an eye on the MKDFC and WFC pages over the next few days. Qwghlm 17:10, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Parishes

It's unusual because it is. If you look at User:Morwen/unparished you can see a list of unparished areas I'm building up - towns that are about the size of Milton Keynes are generally unparished or have one or two parishes. There is no urban area as large as Milton Keynes which is entirely parished - the next nearest (that isn't a single parish in itself, like Weston-super-Mare and suchforth) is Burton-upon-Trent which was parished in 2003.

I'm going to partly revert your edit to List of civil parishes in Buckinghamshire, because "joint town council" and stuff actually means something specific that doesn't apply to these parishes - it is where two or more parishes share a council whilst remaining seperate parishes. Something that does not apply with Bletchley and Fenny Stretford.

As to Parish Councils, I'm not sure it would be useful at this stage to have articles about them. There's very little verifiable information about them, certainly the small ones, what there is available is about the geographical parishes themselves. If, say, Keighley got too big we could split out Keighley Town Council from it, but if X and its town council are to share one article it should be at the shorter form, just for brevity. Can you imagine lists of civil parishes that go

*[[Ashby]] <br>*[[Beeby]] <br>*[[Crosby]] <br>*[[Dalby with Earby Parish Council|Dalby with Earby]] <br>*[[Freeby, Borsetshire|Freeby]] <br>*[[Garston-cum-Hoby Parish Meeting|Garston-cum-Hoby]] <br>*[[Ily-Jalby Town Council|Ily-Jalby]]

It would be unmaintainable. Morwen - Talk 19:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Edge Hill

Thank you for your contribution. It was one more step in the right direction. But there is a long way to go.:-) (RJP 22:19, 19 November 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Homes of celebs

It's fairly well known around here where certain people live - although I am willing to put the issue up for debate if need be. -- Francs2000 18:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes but it's already out there anyway: we're not the first people by any means to publish where the celebs live: [2] [3] [4] [5] -- Francs2000 21:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Just to let you know though I have brought it up here. -- Francs2000 21:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 2006 estimates

(a) all the pages are being updated. do you propose to revert them all?

(b) what makes you think that the 2003 estimate wasn't made in 2002? Morwen - Talk 10:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas

I'm not expecting to be online as much over the next few days so...

User:Francs2000/Christmas

-- Francs2000 09:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AFCW

The changing of the founding date is almost certainly false. I have reverted the edit. Qwghlm 14:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New category

I see you made a new category "Field hockey venues". I've been intending to something similar in another topic. Can you tell me where the process of creating a new category is documented, please? --Concrete Cowboy 11:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

All you need to do is enter a non-existent category in an article (copy the format of an existing category). Then click on the red link that will appear at the bottom of the page to start the new category. Otherwise there is no difference between creating a category and creating a new article. Choalbaton 13:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfDs

They're not that hard. :) Follow the instructions in WP:AFD#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion - all you have to do is copy the template tags into the relevant articles. Really simple version follows:

• Add {{subst:afd1}} at the top of Franchise F.C., and save
• Follow the red link created (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Franchise F.C.)
• In that empty page, paste in {{subst:afd2 | pg=Franchise F.C. | text=whatever }} ~~~~ (with your reasons instead of whatever) and save
• Add {{subst:afd3 | pg=Franchise F.C.}} to the bottom of today's deletion log (probably Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_February_1 but use the CLICK HERE link on the AfD guide to be sure)

And you're done! Quite painless, really. Qwghlm 23:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wimbeldon F.C. Franchising whilst at Selhurst

Its just that its quite 'p.o.v.' to call that a franchise move, since its not generally considered as one. Grimsby Town F.C. have been playing in Cleethorpes for years but it's not considered a franchise; Partick Thistle left Partick for Maryhill, but again this is not considered franchising. Indeed, I was tempted to remove Arsenal from the list too but left it as I'm less aware of the situation. However, during the Selhurst Park era the club was never referred to as being franchised out, and it would be wrong of WIkipeida to suggest that moving within a larger conurbation necessairily makes it so. Robdurbar 23:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting... I think that there is a place but the text needs to be re-worded to show that you're clearly talking about the relocation of clubs. I think perhaps two sepearte sections might be relevant here - one discussing the Wimbledon move to Milton Keyenes - and one discussing the various relocations, including Selhurst Park. Robdurbar 08:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sports franchising

Thank you for your comment. I'm afraid that because "sports franchising" is a UK term, a British person is going to have to work on the article. I'll do what I can, though. -- Mwalcoff 23:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Pursuant to the discussion, the former "Sports franchising" article has been moved to Relocation of professional sports teams. For now, I've turned Sports franchising into a redirect to franchising, as most of the links to it had little to do with relocation. -- Mwalcoff 03:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No offense or anything, but I think you're stuck on the word "franchise." As far as I know, the fact that American sports teams are "franchises" has nothing to do with the lack of promotion and relegation or anything else. If they were some other type of corporation, I don't think it necessarily would have an effect on the organization of the league. I bet that if Major League Soccer were to adopt promotion and relegation, the teams would still be called "franchises," simply because that's what we call pro sports teams in the U.S. -- Mwalcoff 00:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't know exactly how that works. You'd have to ask someone with a better background in sports business.

Since I'm not British, I don't know exactly what British sports fans mean when they call MK Dons a "franchise." If they use that term to mean the relocation of teams, that's already handled by the disambiguation page. We could also say, "Sports franchising is a term used in Great Britain to refer to the American model of organizing professional sports leagues." -- Mwalcoff 17:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll do that. Sorry I couldn't be more help. -- Mwalcoff 23:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

My use of the word "franchised" in the Dons article was because it was the first thing that came into my head. But it does look like a word fraught with dangers so maybe I should have written "funded" instead. Whatever you want to call it, it doesn't seem to have got Griggs very far - R&D are out of the Football League. Northampton Town should have snapped him up while the offer was there. By the way, that redirect of "Franchise FC" to the Dons article is absurdly POV - if we're going to do that we might as well redirect "Redshite Bastards" to Liverpool. Still, mildly amusing. Lfh 20:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glastonbury Festival

Hi, i notice you've worked on this article. It's up for featured article status. Please join in in helping if you can. Ta Logan1138 18:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Station Stats

AJR gave me a link to the SRA's stats [6], Thats where the data's from. Thanks Djm1279 16:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Think you've got something there, will need to do some research.Djm1279 19:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peace Pagoda

I put a clean-up tag on Peace Pagoda because the images were messed up. Now they are cleaned up, so I removed it. -SBrools ^(talk)

• Yeah, It's a lot better now. Thanks! -SBrools ^(talk)

[edit] RE: Stantonbury Campus

Hi Cowboy,

regarding me citing my sources relating to the changes I made to the Stantonbury Campus article, I'm afraid that I currently cannot.

The announcements regarding what I mentioned were only made official this week (being a student at the school myself), so I doubt there are any online publications as things stand. But I'll keep an eye out on their website, and make any references I can as soon as possible.

Cheers

[edit] Carstairs

Hello friend,

Sorry, got carried away by the discovery of two Carstairs railway sites, station and junction, both stubs and a splended request to discuss merging the almost empty junction site with the almost equally empty station site. Wiki is littered with virtually empty stubs that people seem keen to create but reluctant to add more than half a dozen words to. It was simply that your 'colour change' brought it to my notice.

Cheers, NoelWalley 09:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello again,

You know Carstairs is the only station in Scotland at which I have changed trains and that was in LMS days en route between Edinburgh and Crewe where I lived for over 20 years. So I do know the WCML and also the Watford DC lines which used to be four rail DC and then became three rail after the Bakerloo pulled out (I don't know how they work the complicated electrical switching between LT and third rail only sections but they do). Of course you know that the Watford DC lines diverge from the main line quite significantly. Firstly between Watford Jnct and Bushey DC and then between North Wembley and Willesden Junction where it dives under the mainline from west to east and then emerges to run round a loop through Stonebridge Park and Harlesden before running parallel again at Kensal Green. On the WCML only Bushey, Harrow & W and Wembley C remain open. I remember the time when Bushey was closed but its open again now and so is Wembley C and if Virgin needed to stop there I am sure they would because its operational and used daily by Southern's AC/DC dual voltage sets which cover the 9 miles from Watford to Wembley in 10 minutes compared with 23 minutes on the DC line.

Now we are really talking about the WCML not Network Rail's Route 18 but either way Wembley Central is on Route 18 not any other and it is certainly on the WCML. So we are perhaps actually talking about back room wishful thinking or perhaps simple mistake drawing a map at Network Rail rather than reality!

But you are not consistant, what about Watford J to St Albans Abbey (electrified single line single section) part of Route 18 and what about Kidsgrove to Crewe also quite recently electrified, part of Route 18, which hardly ever sees an electric train?

Cheers, Noel.

Hi, I have just read your note to me again. What has Chiltern got to do with it. These Southern trains don't go anywhere near Adrian Shooter's Chiltern lines, they leave the WCML at Willesden Junction and take the West London Line to Olympia and Clapham Jnct. NoelWalley 22:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I don't see your problem. The Southern electrics from Watford J to Clapham J and Brighton share exactly the same tracks as Silverlink and Virgin between Watford J (main line) and Willesden Junction (no main line platforms) and they all pass through Wembley Central main line station. Some of the Southern trains also stop there and the main line platform facilities were upgraded in recent years. At Willesden Junction the Southern trains leave Route 18 WCML and join Route 2 Brighton etc. Chiltern is Route 16 and has no physical connection with Route 18. There is absolutely no justification for removing Wembley Central from the list of operational passenger stations on the WCML. The entirely separate Watford DC Lines are not physically connected to Route 2. Please do not allow the absence of a dot on the Route 18 map to hide the fact that an operational main line station is physically there on WCML tracts and is being called at by trains that are under the operational control of WCML signals. Willesden Junction, where they leave the WCML to join Route 2 is entirely under WCML train control. This is important if only to show the great complexity of passenger traffic operating on and under the control of the WCML. NoelWalley 18:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, At Wembley Central there are six platforms, two on the Watford DC Lines and four on the WCML. As recently as 2004 some Silverlink trains on the WCML stopped regularly at the WCML platforms and may well do so in the future. At the present time only some of the Southern Trains stop at the WCML platforms. The Southern trains do not at any time use the Watford DC Lines. Willesden junction ceased to have main line platforms about 1945 so WCML trains (incuding the Southern trains) could not stop there if they wanted to. In terms of platforms, Harrow & W and Bushey are in the same situation with usable and used platforms on the WCML as well as the Watford DC Lines. I do not understand your talk of a loop, Wembley Central is on the main line not a loop or branch. NoelWalley 20:00, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks, best wishes, NoelWalley 20:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Station usage stats

You asked: Has there been a recent release of new stats? I'm surprised by how big the jump in traffic at Bletchley is. --Concrete Cowboy 20:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it's just that the way the stats should be entered into the {{UK stations}} and similar templates is to add together both the entry and the exit figures. What the table says is "Anuual entry/exit", but for some reason known only to the template's creator, the field is called "exits". It is confusing, but changing the template source so that the field is called something more illustrative (e.g. "usage") would mean having to change this in all the station articles! --RFBailey 21:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Route 18

Greetings and thanks for your note. We agree on what needs to be done. I am not sure that I want to do it myself at the present time. The Network Rail document to which you first drew folks attention appears to have been drawn up in 2004. There is a new document published in April 2006 which is somewhat different it is at: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/companyinformation/BusinessPlans/BusinessPlan2006.htm The Route 18 map has been redrawn but is at first glance basically the same except that an additional station is now shown on the WCML (AC line) at Queens Park in addition to the station on the Watford DC Line and yet it is years since it had an advertised service! hey ho! I need to spend some time reading the Business Plan first.

Regards, NoelWalley 21:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carstairs

Greetings, I find it difficult to follow the logic of your latest change. If Carstairs Junction needs a place in that table, then so does Colwich Jnct and Weaver Jnct and probably others. But why when the junctions and the ramifications of Network Rail Route Numbers now have a very comprehensive table of their own. But in any case I do feel it is quite wrong to exclude Carstairs when the station is used nightly as perhaps the last remaining place on the WCML where two sections are joined and in the down direction divided. It also picks up passengers both sleeping and overnight coach. In this it preserves a great tradition of the WCML against formidable odds. Three sections of the highland sleeper split and come together at Edinburgh but since the station is closed, passengers may not join or leave, I understand. Regards, NoelWalley 19:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Milton Keynes article guardian angel

Glad to see I'm not the only one watching over the MK article for accuracy. I noticed you had removed the City Status template from the article, you beat me to it ;o) . I have however brought up this factual error on the talk page for the template as Milton Keynes is linked on the template along with 3 other towns that dont have city status. Cheers for you help. JonEastham 22:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MK Pictures

Hello Concrete Cowboy. I understand entirely that you care about the MK article. Its good to see people take 'responsibility' for articles within their specific exertise. I have to admit to getting quite narky if anyone badly edits a few that i 'look after' too... Please feel free to use them (or not) as you wish. I quite liked them (especially the fountian one). But its up to you. If they are not going to be used, please tell me an i will flag them for deletion (no point in bunging up the server). :) Bjrobinson 20:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Milton Keynes Dons F.C.

I just wanted to thank you for cleaning up my edit and not removing it. Reading through the article, I had realized that there was no longer any reference to MK Dons being the official continuation of Wimbledon F.C., which is important even if most people don't like it (and plus the "see text" in the infobox doesn't really make sense without it). The page will probably have to be watched closely, but I think it far better to deal with an edit war than to leave out crucial info. - Pal 14:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roade and map refs

Hi. I see you commented in the edit summary for Roade that you could do with a map ref. Done! My method, which is probably horribly roundabout, is to look the place up on streetmap.co.uk then click on the almost-invisible "click here to convert/measure coordinates" link near the bottom of the Streetmap page. This gives you a Landranger grid reference (SP758524, for instance) as well as lat/long. You can also use the OS "Get-a-Map" feature at http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/ Then I've used the {{GBmap}} template to add the map. I've used Northampton as the location; look here for a list of the maps available Use the name of the map from that list without the trailing "dot.png". You might like to use MK as the marked location instead but as the dot on the map is only a fairly rough indication it's not too crucial, I'd say! Cheers. Tonywalton  | Talk 17:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I've never heard of Roade, though I must have driven past it on the M1 a few times ;-) Just a matter of stuffing the name into streetmap.co.uk, really, and discounting the ones it came up with that weren't in Northants. Tonywalton  | Talk 10:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stony Stratford Town F.C.

I've changed "is" back to "are", as that is the most usual way of referring to clubs and other groups in British English (although it's a fine distinction, and there are cases when "is" is more appropriate — see English plural#Discretionary plurals for more info). — sjorford++ 08:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean about "is a football club", although I still think it looks okay with "are", and I definitely think "they joined the league" and "they are members" sound better, and as its best to be consistent, I always prefer to use "are" throughout. I'm not that concerned about it, it's just your brief edit comment seemed a bit sweeping, I wasn't sure if you were American or something :) — sjorford++ 12:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:ConcreteCows.jpg and Image:ConcreteCows.png

I was cleaning out the incorrectly named files at Commons and saw you tagged the first with {{badname|Image:ConcreteCows.png}}. I wonder why, because the image is 8 times larger in the PNG-version. JPG is a better format for photographs, PNG is better for graphics like maps or icons. Do you have a specific reason to want the .jpg deleted, because it would be more logical to me to delete the png? NielsFTalk to me.. 14:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Redway School

The Redway School in Milton Keynes is The Redway School as opposed to Redway School is located in Southern Humboldt County California. Redway School is a K-7 school serving 325 students in a 773 square mile area.

The Redway School was named as such on 31 March 1993, because it is bounded on two sides by redways.

[edit] Chris@WikiPedia != Chris@WikiCommons

I don't recall adding any info to the WikiCommons, and was unable to login as Chris. Chris 03:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wimbledon F.C.

re your comment...

Your latest edit is reasonably fair and neutral, but one item opens another can of worms. You say that the club was "forced" to move out (nobody put a gun to their heads. You'll need to rephrase that slightly). The relevant bit of the detailed section says at the end of the 1990–91 season Wimbledon decided that its cramped Plough Lane ground was beyond redevelopment. Without getting into opinions like "everybody knows that it was worth more as a site for a supermarket" and "Merton Council put impossible conditions in their way", can you find out what really caused the first relocation? --Concrete Cowboy 16:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

In response, I disagree totally. This is not a controversial issue or one that needs rephrasing and no personall opinions were expressed. The club was forced to leave Plough Lane because of the implementation of the findins of the Taylor Report of 1989, which recommended that all terraced stadia in the top-flight be converted to all-seater or closed, imposing a deadline for doing so. Wimbledon F.C. had neither the money nor, more importantly, the space to do so and therefore were required by the footballing authorities to find an alternative ground, moving in 1992 to Selhurst Park. All fact. Matt derry 13:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bow Brickhill

Thanks for pointing out my error on that page. Brickhill is one of many MK-related edits I have done recently - others include V6 Grafton Street, The Hub:MK and many more... User:Tom walker 14:25 GMT 25 July 2006

[edit] Extlink

I wouldn't want to see that extlink there. Don't know if we have policy forbidding that sort of thing. Morwen - Talk 07:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, he's spamming lots of articles with extlinks to his blog. This sort of thing is frowned upon. And all the links need deleted! Morwen - Talk 09:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schools

Hey Concrete Cowboy, just wanted to let you know i have created a few stub like articles about some schools in milton keynes, i hope this will be ok until i can find out some more information about the schools. Let me know what you think (Neostinker 23:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Lord Grey

Ok, sorry about that, ill make sure im more careful with the others. Lord Grey has the most information on it , i think the other school articles are basic and to the point for now. Thanks for the pointer!! (Neostinker 08:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Re: Woughton/Woughton on the Green

Hi, the page history is important since Wikipedia needs to keep it to remain GFDL compliant. The way you did it could make it appear that you had written all of the text in the article, which wasn't the case. Furthermore, you probably could've just moved the article, a move can be done if the target page is a simple redirect to the current article (with no other history). The interwiki link seems fine as it is, since it (mostly) talks about the same thing. - Bobet 12:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broughton and Milton Keynes

Hi. This isn't a parish - the parishes of Broughton and Milton Keynes have currently got a joint parish council but this is different. election-maps.co.uk shows them as separate parishes, etc. Morwen - Talk 15:06, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

That one is a single ancient parish. If you want to verify that: google "site:visionofbritain.org.uk Tyringham" and it should bring up ancient parish info for Tyringham with Filgrave. Morwen - Talk 19:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] River Lovat

I recently changed the River Lovat article (since renamed by User:Roleplayer to River Ouzel) to describe what I believe is the actual use of the names Lovat and Ouzel (that Lovat is now only used near Newport Pagnell).

I notice that some time ago you added "(known locally as the River Lovat)" to the Leighton Buzzard article. Do you actually know someone in Leighton Buzzard who calls it that? I was going on information such as Ordnance Survey maps, books on the natural history of Bedfordshire, Google, and a Tourist Information leaflet on Leighton-Linslade, all of which just say "River Ouzel".

P.S. Thanks for your kind words at Talk:Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre about the article I created. JonH 12:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buckinghamshire

please, anything but having brackets like that - even ceremonial Buckingamshire would be preferable. Morwen - Talk 14:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tyringham

See: Talk:Tyringham Lozleader 19:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Volume I, which deals with "Southern" England (Beds, Berks, Bucks, Cambs, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Glos, Hants, Herts, Hunts, Kent, London, Middx, Norfolk, Oxon, Som, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wilts). Vol II (Northern England) deals with everywhere else. Lozleader 10:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFC Wimbledon

• Continued from our convo on User_talk:Matt_derry

First of all, cheers for the tips on where to reply and how to link to stuff!

In reply to you comment... Sorry! Cheers for clarification - no offence taken on my part. It just didn't come across that way from the text (which was why I acnkowledged that I could have misinterpreted the tone). Anyway, we're all friends now! :-)

Re the Wikipedia:Assume good faith policy, yeah point taken (altho it's tricky when watching a football club's wiki-pages as the amount of vandalism you get - most of it politically motivated / from rival clubs !!!)

ps dare I say that I thought I read a comment from you somewhere to the effect that you didn't expect edits from yourself to be welcome on the AFC Wimbledon page? (Just asking, like)!

--Matt derry 13:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Binliner Train

Sorry, that is perhaps a slightly informal term, but one that is used very frequently. It refers to the household refuse trains which traverse the GCR and Varsity lines to Calvert waste terminal as well as countless others around the country. Binliner is a generic term derrived from Frieghtliner. If you want you can change it to household refuse or something. User:Tom walker 17:16 GMT 8 September 2006

[edit] Popular culture

I did note why on the talk page of the article itself - is he responsible for the famous stereotype? Then he belongs in the intro - David Gerard 21:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

See article talk page again. It's not clear how you can claim the stereotype is irrelevant and Noel Edmonds' role in it is trivial when it's the single piece of text on your userpage - David Gerard 22:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Touché. I've deleted the 25 year old comment by this C-list celebrity. --Concrete Cowboy 23:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population of Bletchley

I collected the data from MKiObservatory. The settlements split up Bletchley into many parts. I added together the 2006 estimates of Far Bletchley, West Bletchley, Brickfields, Blue Lagoon Park, Water Eaton, Central Bletchley, Granby, Mount Farm, Denbigh North, Denbigh East and Denbigh West - but not Fenny Stratford. A map of settlements is here (in PDF). One thing though - I have no idea how to cite that source (I found this data a few weeks back with was reluctant to add it without a source).

It seems to me that any definition of Bletchley is arbitrary and it is hard to separate the areas south of the A421 and West of the A5 at all. This is why I only excluded Fenny Stratford from the maths. I will add a footnote for the population data stating as much. Also, I will be moving back to MK in just a few weeks time and my first wikitask when back is to work on the Bletchley article. Mk3severo 23:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorted within an hour :) Mk3severo 00:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pete Winkelman

Added the Pete Winkelman page to my watchlist as you asked. I had checked it out in the early days of being a Wikipedian but it was very brief and although it wasn't completely neutral there was nothing on there that wasn't true, and at the time I wasn't really sure of myself and using Wikipedia so I left it. Zorro77 07:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Energy World and Homeworld 81

Thanks for the tip off. I don't have many people wanting to talk to me! Gralo 23:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My useful links

• Antivandalism page is at WP:AIV.--Concrete Cowboy 23:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re Plough Lane

Cheers for the update. Yes I've had a look at the page and made a few changes. The new page looked pretty good and I made a few tweaks here and there (a few typos, a few irrelevant statements eg re new Vauxhall showroom on Plough Lane), but my main edit was to the Closure section where I did a bit of a re-work...

• Mentioned the Taylor Report as this was the reason the club couldn't just stay at Plough Lane;
• Re-emphasised the fact that the ground hadn't changed much from its non-league days
• Removed the bit about Plough Lane being officially the smallest Premiership ground (if did mean "Premiership" - the club moved out before the Premiership was established - if you meant "top-flight" - I'm not sure this is true)

Anyway, take a look, see what you think. --MLD 11:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fenny Stratford sta etc

Are you sure there are 2? Simply south 12:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hanslope Image

Thanks for the heads up but the image is still there. Wp's servers seem to be running somewaht tardy of late hence the missing image gizmo. Seeing as you seem to be somewhat adjacent to the village a photo of the same view today would be an interesting juxtaposition, eh?Albatross2147 23:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Milton Keynes

Good work so far on the article! I will, as you suggested, write the development of Bletchley section. I've added Clapson's excellent book A Social History of Milton Keynes as a source, for I intend to add some additional information from this book throughout the article. Regards, Mk3severo 01:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)