Talk:William Bruce (architect)

Good article

A perfectly good well-rounded article, I feel. Comprehensive, sourced, illustrated, polished. Shimgray | talk | 20:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree, there are at most 5 sources, if anything this feels like the bare bottom research paper written by a high school student, hardly a featured article on wikipedia. Maybe I'm wrong I just figured Wikipedia had a little higher standards for their featured articles, but then again I really don't edit articles as often as I should. fullphaser 23:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Bare bottom? I assure you I kept my pants on throughout! But I'd be delighted if you could improve the article. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 09:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether a date is autoformatted or not). MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
• (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. Does anyone object if I remove it from the main text in a few days’ time on a trial basis? The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 11:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Who really built Heriot's?

There appears to be some confusion over who exactly built which part of Heriot's when. At one time there was a popular fallacy that it had been designed by Inigo Jones and this found its way into Chamber's Encylopaedia. If you consult the Wikipedia articles on William Wallace, William Aytoun, John Mylne and his nephew Robert Mylne, you will see the dates don't add up. The joker in the pack seems to be John Mylne. The school's own website makes no mention of him. Also, the school believes that Robert Mylne designed the clock tower, whereas the Wikipedia article has Mylne carrying out its completion to designs by Sir William Bruce. Confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.111.38 (talk) 07:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move to William Bruce (architect); there's clear consensus for a move, and this appears to be the best supported of the suggested options.. Cúchullain ^t/c 16:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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Sir William Bruce, 1st Baronet, of Balcaskie → Sir William Bruce, 1st Baronet – Unnecessary disambiguation. There was one other Sir William Bruce, 1st Baronet (of Stenhouse), but going by his entry in GEC's Complete Baronetage it's unlikely he'll be notable enough ever to have his own article. Also, though this William Bruce was "of Balcaskie" when he was created a baronet in 1668, he is better known as "of Kinross", the estate he acquired in 1675, and is so styled in (for example) the DNB. Opera hat (talk) 13:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Move back to William Bruce (architect), which is where the article was prior to an undiscussed 2009 Move (lacking an edit summary) which was against the clear instructions at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility): the "best disambiguator" for this person is their occupation, ie. architect, as is standard throughout the entire encyclopaedia. --Mais oui! (talk) 13:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support either "Sir William Bruce, 1st Baronet" as primary usage or "William Bruce (architect)" as a more recognisable search term. DrKiernan (talk) 16:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
• Revert to "architect" as the effective founder of classical architecture in Scotland. All the other article titles are puffery. -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 05:08, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. No reason the other Sir William Bruce shouldn't have an article (since he was awarded a Baronetcy, which certainly counts as a high enough honour), but since he hasn't got one yet we don't need to disambiguate. I would favour using his baronetcy as a disambiguator over his profession, as that is generally how we disambiguate baronets. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support William Bruce (architect), as this is how he is best known. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose -- There was another Bruce baronetcy, whose first holder was also Sir William Bruce. In Bruce baronets, he has been delinked - no longer a redlink, but can we be sure that we will always think he is NN? Peterkingiron (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if the other Sir William Bruce does get an article at some point in the future, this one will still be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Opera hat (talk) 11:13, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.