Translatable area / post names

[melynmelyn]

Please can we have support for translatable area / post names which are pulled from http://mapit.mysociety.org/areas/WMC.html ? (at Mark Longhair's request via Democracy Club Slack). This would benefit the Welsh YourNextMP site and possibly a polling station project I've heard NUS are planning in Wales.

[tfgg]

So I've found that "Cardiff Central" constituency is "Canol Caerdydd" in Welsh according to Wikipedia, but I can't find a reference to there being official Welsh names in the statutory instrument:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1041/schedule/1/made

So far our general policy has been to only reflect official underlying data (e.g. party names). Is there an official source, or shall we make an exception for Welsh translations of constituency names? Do people in Wales commonly know constituencies by Welsh language names?

I just found, e.g., this statement of results which gives a Welsh translation:

http://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/Documents/Our%20Council/Council/Elections/Election%20Documents/Results/Cardiff-South-&-Penarth---Declaration-of-Result.pdf

but this ONS publication lists Welsh names for Assembly areas, but not Westminster constituencies:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/geographic-policy/best-practice-guidance/presentation-order-guidance/electoral-areas/presentation-guidance-for-electoral-areas.pdf

Of course, this indicates that if we want to do Welsh Assembly elections, we need support for multiple-language constituency names anyway. Mapit only seems to have the OS names on e.g. http://mapit.mysociety.org/area/17003.html but seems like it could easily support language-specific extra names.

Side note: From monitoring the media it's surprising how often constituency names get mangled by newspapers...

[dracos]

Officially, looks like https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/231898/0743.pdf sections 19-21 show that for the fifth review, they decided they could only provide one name. Sections 2.13-2.16 of http://gov.wales/docs/bcw/policy/mapdata/2013reviewoctober12/121024RevisedProposalsTextOnlyv2en.pdf show that their current review would have provided official alternative names in the other language, but that review was halted. Doesn't mean it can't have them anyway, though.

[melynmelyn]

Thanks Matthew and Tim. I'll do some digging about Welsh constituency names and come back here.

[melynmelyn]

Interesting to read the links you gave. Makes me see the issue with translating constituency names outside Wales. It's Mapit/Mysoc's call re confidence in the Welsh names in Wales with regard to their official status. I've spoken with an old BBC colleague of mine who used to be Political Editor BBC Cymru Wales. He said the when the electorate=Local Authority (e.g. Torfaen) it's official because of the status of the LA name. Where constituencies fall within or across boundaries Local Authorities' Presiding Officers have agreed the names amongst themselves.

Here with $ delimiters are the Welsh-language equivalents from the Boundary Commission's http://gov.wales/docs/bcw/policy/mapdata/2013reviewoctober12/121024RevisedProposalsTextOnlyv2en.pdf link you gave dracos. I'm not sure which character encoding GitHub forms use but #5 Gŵyr has a w + circumflex. Where there's only one name (E.g. Blaenau Gwen) it's because the Welsh name is used in both languages. Irregularities in constituencies may be explained by boundary changes since 2011 Assembly Election.

1$Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire$Ceredigion a Gogledd Sir Benfro 2$South Pembrokeshire$De Sir Benfro 3$Caerfyrddin$Carmarthen 4$Llanelli 5$Gower and Swansea West$Gŵyr a Gorllewin Abertawe 6$Swansea East$Dwyrain Abertawe 7$Neath and the Swansea Valley$Castell‐nedd a Chwm Tawe 8$Aberavon and Ogmore$Aberafan ac Ogwr 9$Bridgend$Pen‐y‐Bont 10$The Vale of Glamorgan$Bro Morgannwg 11$Cardiff West$Gorllewin Caerdydd 12$Cardiff South and Penarth$De Caerdydd a Phenarth 13$Cardiff Central$Canol Caerdydd 14$Cardiff North and South West Gwent$Gogledd Caerdydd a De Orllewin Gwent 15$Caerphilly$Caerffili 16$Newport$Casnewydd 17$Monmouthshire$Sir Fynwy 18$Torfaen$Tor‐faen 19$Blaenau Gwent 20$Merthyr Tydfil, Rhymney and Lower Cynon$Merthyr Tudful, Rhymni a Chynon Isaf 21$Rhondda and Aberdare$Rhondda ac Aberdâr 22$Pontypridd 23$Brecon, Radnor and Montgomery$Aberhonddu, Maesyfed a Threfaldwyn 24$Denbigh and North Montgomeryshire$Dinbych a Gogledd Sir Drefaldwyn 25$Gwynedd 26$Ynys Môn a Bangor$Isle of Anglesey and Bangor 27$Conwy and Colwyn$Conwy a Cholwyn 28$Flint and North Denbighshire$Fflint a Gogledd Sir Ddinbych 29$Alyn and Deeside$Alun a Glannau Dyfrdwy 30$Wrexham Maelor$Wrecsam Maelor

On this basis, are you happy to support this application for Welsh name option on MapIt please?

[dracos]

@melynmelyn – As you note, those are the names of the constituencies that were proposed by the 2013 review that got cancelled. There are 40 constituencies in Wales, the names of which can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Constituencies_in_Wales (Parliamentary) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Assembly_for_Wales (National Assembly) (the same names, though the Welsh Assembly boundaries will change at the election next year). I'm happy for Welsh names to be in MapIt, but we'd need:

• A file (CSV, whatever) with English to Welsh name mappings for the existing constituency names;
• A management script to be written for MapIt that would import these names – the areas are added programmatically from OS' Boundary-Line product, so this isn't something that should be done manually.

[melynmelyn]

After I've heard back from the Boundary Commission and Assembly next week I'll send you a csv file so you or your team can write the script. Have a good weekend.

[melynmelyn]

This week I've been speaking with the Boundary Commission, Assembly, Welsh Language Commissioner's office and Welsh Government translation service. I now have the two constituency/region names Unicode, tab delimited.csv files. What's the best way to get them to you please? (security setting where I am reduce options)

[dracos]

Hi, sounds good! I don't quite follow your final sentence I'm afraid, but if you could add an issue to the MapIt repository https://github.com/mysociety/mapit about adding Welsh names to the UK installation, and then either paste it in that issue (though preferably actual CSV rather than TSV as the tabs would presumably be lost in a paste) or put it anywhere that it's publicly accessible. That way if anyone wishes to implement the script for that issue they can find the data for it.

[melynmelyn]

I've done that here dracos: https://github.com/mysociety/mapit/issues/205 Changed tabs to commas and pasted them into the post. The last sentence refers to not being able to access Dropbox, GoogleDocs and other useful sharing spaces from my workplace.