Wikipedia:GLAM/Oxford/hillforts

The newly launched Atlas of Hillforts (link) is a comprehensive listing of hillforts in the British Isles in the form of an interactive map, placing a lot of research about each site on public access. This project page is for organising activity across multiple Wikimedia projects to improve open knowledge about hillforts, using the Atlas as a source.

The Atlas is a joint project between the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh, with the assistance of colleagues at University College Cork. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Wikimedia collaboration involves Wikimedia UK; the Wikimedian In Residence at the University of Oxford, Martin Poulter; and the Wikimedian In Residence at the University of Edinburgh, Ewan McAndrew.

Each hillfort in the atlas has a four-digit code which is used to link to the individual entry. For example, Maiden Castle, Dorset is number 3598. This has been accepted as Wikidata Property P4102. In the user interface of the Atlas itself, this is usually prefixed with a two-letter country code, e.g. EN3598.

Data uploading and visualisation

An initial dataset about all 4147 sites was uploaded to Wikidata on 30 June 2017. For Wikidata queries using the hillfort data set, see wikidata:User:MartinPoulter/queries/hillforts.

Some advantages of the data sharing:

Hillforts now appear in applications such as WikiShootMe, Monumental and Wikidata's Nearby function
Hillforts appear in custom queries: e.g. for geographical features, fortifications in a specific area. Example: Archaeological sites and fortifications on the Isle of Man
We can now see which hillforts lack Wikipedia articles.
As well as each hillfort in Wikidata having links to the relevant entry in the Atlas, the Atlas now includes links to Wikidata from each entry.

Language labelling

The names and aliases have been imported to Wikidata as English language. For hillforts in Wales, Ireland, or Scotland, the name by which a site is known to English speakers often comes from the local language. I haven't copied the names into those languages because I might be making an error. It would be good for a Welsh, Irish, or Scottish Gaelic speaker to copy across or add the labels that apply to their language.

As of 12 October 2017, there are 248 entries from the Atlas with labels in Welsh, seven in Irish and one in Scottish Gaelic. These numbers will increase as existing entries are merged.

Merging

Barbury Castle: number 0387 in the Atlas of Hillforts

I went ahead with the upload before all the new data had been matched against existing hillfort records. This means that there are some existing items which need merging into the new records. This map shows hillforts without an Atlas identifier. Compare to the map of hillforts imported from the Atlas.

Tip: to merge items on Wikidata you need the Autoconfirmed user right. The easiest way to merge is to enable the Merge gadget (Preferences -> Gadgets -> first on the list).

Note: if a Wikidata entry has { instance of -> hillfort } as well as { instance of -> contour fort } (or any of the other sub-types of hillfort) then the former can be deleted, since the latter is more specific (and will cite the Atlas which is the most up to date publication).

Target: the query for hillforts in the British Isles without an Atlas ID should return no results.

Other data issues

In the first upload, some site names were uploaded in ALL CAPS. Done This has now been fixed.
To simplify the bulk upload, two fields from the shared data were excluded: Alternative name and Parish. Martin will work on adding the alternative names. Done
Add the Atlas of Hillforts IDs to every entry once that property has been created. Done
2,783 of the sites have lat/long pairs with excessive precision: 8 or 9 decimal places. The extra digits after 4 or 5 decimal places serve no purpose and for the sake of display in Wikipedia articles it is better not to have them. Done by User:Pasleim on Wikidata
The initial data upload did not include whether the sites were confirmed or unconfirmed. Unconfirmed status can be represented in Wikidata (thanks Richard), so these data should ideally be added.

Sharing images and links between Commons and Wikidata

At the start of the collaboration, we have more than 4,000 Commons images of hillforts in the British Isles. More are being uploaded all the time by researchers and by members of the public. Now that we have Wikidata representations of all the forts, we have a chance to tag each image with a link that gives further information about the site and allows users to confirm its location with a site that uses aerial photography.

Ideally:

each hillfort image or category in Commons could mention the appropriate code and link to the appropriate page of the Atlas. (need a template for this?)
each Wikidata entry for a hillfort to have an image, if one is available, linked via property P18.
each Commons category for a hillfort, e.g. commons:Category:Alfred's_Castle, should be linked from the relevant Wikidata item by property P373.

As of 12 October 2017, 276 hillforts have an image attached to their Wikidata entry.

There is a big task to be done to link these images to the Wikidata entries. Here is the map of only those hillforts that have a linked image. Here are only the hillforts that lack an image.

Here is a feed of images recently uploaded to Commons depicting a hillfort in the British Isles, using Magnus Manske's tool, PETscan.

Current status (12 October 2017): there are 201 links from Commons to pages on https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk, according to commons:Special:LinkSearch.

Through the Hillforts Study Group, we are encouraging researchers to upload their own hillfort images to Commons, adding a suitable category tag and the four-digit code.

Free image search

The Wikidata Free Image Search Tool can search for images which may be linked to Wikidata items. It needs to be authorised by WIDAR. The queries below are set to find images on Commons within 100m of a Wikidata item.

Wikipedia improvements

As of the time of the data upload, around 90% of the hillforts in the Atlas have no representation in English Wikipedia. At User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts and User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts in Wales I am experimenting with using ListeriaBot to create target lists of Wikipedia articles for creation. List of hillforts in Ireland and List of hillforts in Northern Ireland were created by adapting drafts from Listeria.

Existing hillfort articles should also link to the Atlas, at least as an external link, since the Atlas will have up-to-date descriptions and research.

Stats for list-of-hillforts articles

Notified Talk:List of hillforts in Wales, Talk:List of hill forts in Scotland, Talk:List_of_hill_forts_in_England, Talk:List of hill forts and ancient settlements in Somerset, Talk:Promontory fort, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Celts Done

Stats for hillfort articles in English Wikipedia

According to Massviews, for May to June 2017, there are 483 articles under Category:Hill forts in the United Kingdom‎ getting a total of 5,299 hits per day. The most popular are Aylesbury and Old Sarum. 2 articles in Category:Hill forts in Ireland get a total of 41 hits per day. 2 articles in Category:Hill forts in the Isle of Man get a total of 114 hits per day. That's a total of 487 articles in scope of the project at the time of the data upload.

Infoboxes

{{Infobox ancient site}} now includes parameters for the NHLE code (nhle =) and the Atlas of Hillforts number (hillfort =) and will automatically generate links to those databases. Down the line we may be able to pull these and other parameters directly from Wikidata. See Bury Camp for an example of this in use.

Citation template

{{Cite Atlas of Hillforts}} can be used to quickly cite the Atlas, e.g.:

{{subst:Cite Atlas of Hillforts|0425}}

"Bury Camp". Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 2024-12-01.

Navigation template

{{Hillforts}}

Hillforts that haven't been matched to the Atlas

These are usually mislabeled in Wikidata (usually with incorrect latitude and longitude).

England

Ireland

Scotland

Wales

Trefadog Castle