Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 10

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Scots language lede

There have been some changes to the lede of Scots language which concern me. The result is two statistics clumsily tacked to the end which appear to be intended to balance/counter each other (although I'm not sure about that) but are more like cherry-picking of overly detailed points to advance POVs, with the same material being better and more appropriately covered in context in the article subsections.

In fact re-reading the whole lede, it would appear that far and away the most important thing about Scots is whether it holds dialect or language status, with only about 20% of the lede covering other aspects. Surely there's more to the topic than that for mention in the lede? Mutt Lunker (talk) 03:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Missing topic: Relationship between N Irish and Scottish politics

Given the influence of Northern Irish politics in Scotland (e.g. Sectarianism in Glasgow, Old Firm, Cairde na hÉireann, Unite Against Republicanism, etc.) and given the intensity of the debate over the topic of Scotland's own future within (or without) the UK, I (as an outsider) would be interested to know how these two questions relate to each other, and whether or not activists in one arena also tend to be active in the other. However WP is almost silent on this question. A major gap, I think. Are there no mentions of this is the literature? --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 21:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

There is some degree of relation with Unionism in Scotland and Northern Irish politics but overall there's much less relation between pro-independence Scottish politics and NI politics. Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:11, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

A brandnew example of relations between pro-independence Scottish politics and NI politics was the gift of thousands of gallons of drinking water from the Scottish Government to the Northern Ireland Executive. Renata (talk) 22:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess you might argue a case that pro-independence Scottish politicians were making a political gesture to show their assistance and generosity, independent of the UK government but I'm not sure that it relates to the politics of Northern Ireland. Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Going back to Kevlar's question, I'd say they're pretty much different things - in fact I'd argue what (s)he's talking about is neither really Northern Irish nor is it politics, and it's not really a "Scottish" question. It's mainly a social thing in places which experienced Irish immigration (ie mostly Glasgow) in the 19th century and earlier, in which different tribes have adopted symbols of the two sides in Ireland fossilised from a time that predates much of the kind of republicanism that led to the Easter Rising, it's got more of the flavour of the tensions of the mid-1800s. Generalising wildly, it's much more about picking a fight with someone wearing the wrong football shirt than it is about discussing the finer points of the Good Friday Agreement or the latest goings-on from the Northern Ireland Executive, despite recent attempts to put an intellectual gloss on it. In contrast, Scottish independence does have a veneer of Edinburgh intellectualism to it, and you might want to compare the way an Edinburgh football team has historically downplayed its Irish roots to the extent that the Edinburgh derby games are largely free of the nuttiness surrounding the Old Firm games. You can't expunge all the history, but in general the relationship between Hibs and Hearts is more like a "normal" cross-town rivalry. Scottish unionism/independence and the Irish equivalents are obviously related to some extent but I'd say there's no need for any new article, the Sectarianism in Glasgow article in particular could do with more historical context, and there could perhaps be something in Scottish national identity.FlagSteward (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Parliament election 2007 map

In terms of the direct political consequences of Northern Irish politics in Scotland (as opposed to the indirect effects via social/cultural impacts mentioned by FlagSteward above), it would seem that that strongly held views about the sectarian divide in general and by extension Northern Ireland, tend to decrease support for the SNP. Unionism and Catholicism are strongest in the west of Scotland, where the SNP is weakest. I don't have any hard facts to hand, but I think it is well-understood that by definition the former are opposed to independence and that links between the Catholic community and the Labour party are historically strong. However, the extent to which this is a reflection of attitudes in that part of the world, which would remain unchanged whatever happened in N Ireland, is hard to judge. Ben MacDui 09:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's any real place for an article of this nature. The SNP has close ties with Wales' Plaid Cymru, but not with any Irish political parties. The major unionist parties which operate in Scotland (i.e. Tory, Labour & Lib Dem) are subsections of their overall UK party. In turn, these UK parties deal with Scottish & Irish politics separately for the most part.

In respect of Ben MacDui's "hard to judge" comment, I believe events in Ireland have little-to-no impact upon Scottish politics. I agree that "unionsts are unionsts" & that there is a history of Labour support within the Catholic community, however I think at the moment, most people who vote Labour in the west of Scotland do it because they don't like the Tories and don't think the SNP can win a general election.

Waterwynd (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand that the pan-UK parties are all Unionist, I'm most interested in the SNP. Do they look at Ireland as an example (both positive and negative) of what a small state in that region would look like? So does the SNP not have any position on the peace process? Certainly if they expect to be running a separate Scottish state they must expect to need a foreign policy, especially in the region. How does it feel about the Celtic League and/or the British-Irish council? Anyway, your comments have already told me much, so thanks. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 16:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Salmond was very keen to compare an independent Scotland to Ireland and Iceland, he invented a term called the arc of prosperity as recently as 2006. Since it turned into an arc of insolvency, he's been less keen on the comparison - he knows that if Scotland had had to rescue RBS and half of HBOS on her own, the Irish austerity would have looked a picnic in comparison. It was only really in terms of economics though, with a nod to the fact that the Republic gained independence not very long ago, they don't really get too involved with the politics of the Republic let alone Northern Ireland. Any Scottish politician with a brain knows that if you even start sniffing round NI politics, you'll instantly alienate half the electorate of Glasgow, so they prefer not to stir that particular hornet's nest - at least not at party level. As far as foreign policy goes, the SNP's basic policy seems to be to not think about it too much beyond delegating it to the EU, as they probably correctly think that their likely voters aren't that interested. Anyway, this is starting to get a bit off-topic though, since we've agreed it doesn't deserve an article on the subject? Le Deluge (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear, I thought bias was banned from Wikipedia - good thing this is a discussion page... Waterwynd (talk) 15:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Bias is banned on Wikipedia!? The only reason I came here in the first place was to push my biased opinions onto everyone. Damn! :) John Hendo (talk) 15:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Not at all. The Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is actually created by taking two or more examples of bias and describing them. But we only have to use NPOV on the article pages. On the discussion pages, bias may be silly but it's perfectly permissible. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Local Authority names in page titles/ URLs

Apologies if this is the wrong place to make this suggestion, but I wonder if the use of Local Authority boundaries is the best way to separate articles for locations which have the same name as other locations. For example, the Ayrshire village of Moscow is located at "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_East_Ayrshire". Had this article been written twenty years ago, the page title may have been "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_Kilmarnock_and_Loudoun". To my knowledge, Scotland's local administrative areas have underwent two major changes since the mid-1970s. In light of this, it's feasible that they'll change again, which may render the term "East Ayrshire" (and its counterparts) redundant (perhaps even in the near future). It may be better to use old county names (Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire etc) which are long-standing & widely-understood terms of reference. Waterwynd (talk) 15:23, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

IMO your version sounds a reasonable application of WP:COMMONNAME as well as making for more concise article names; the guys at WP:WikiProject UK geography may have views. Le Deluge (talk) 17:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

See the naming conventions for this: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Scotland. Note it says where disambiguation is needed, if its the only place in Scotland with that name, then it should be named placename, Scotland. So as there's only one Moscow in Scotland, it should be named Moscow, Scotland. It does say if further disambiguation is required then use the council areas. Though IMO its often better to use a well-known/historic area (not necessarily the historic counties), if that makes more sense. eg using council areas, you end up with things like Tarbert, Argyll and Bute, when it is clearly in Argyll and not in Bute at all. Plus that is an overly long/complicated name. --Vclaw (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The advantage of using the current local authority boundary is that it is definitive. However, I do agree that it can be clumsy and wordy and/or unhelpful. Achnafoo, Highland is especially frustrating usage as it is neither the way people speak, nor especially helpful in terms of locating the settlement, given the size of Highland. I have noted these difficulties at Category talk:Villages in Highland (a cat with >550 articles with a wide variety of naming systems) and suggested that "If anyone has the energy to attempt [creating sub-cats] I recommend using.... Template:Districts of the Highland region as the geographical basis." I think there is a case for doing the same for Highland place names (no few of which are probably sub-notable). Ben MacDui 08:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Aye, I think the Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Scotland link posted above basically covers what I was requesting anyway. Thanks for the links from everyone though, gave me plenty to read through about this.Waterwynd (talk) 15:23, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful here. First of all, to lay my cards on the table, my preference would be to use the local authority names where disambiguation is needed. This may have something to do with the fact that the parts of Scotland that I work in — Aberdeenshire, Moray, Angus, Fife, Orkney, Shetland — tend to have simple local authority names and we don't have those awkward double-barrel names like "Argyll and Bute" or "Perth and Kinross". (We do have awkward double-barrel names for the committee areas into which Aberdeenshire is subdivided, but that's a different matter.) Whilst the naming convention referred to above does indeed advocate the use of e.g. "Kintore, Scotland", in practice over the time I've been observing Wikipedia I've seen editors moving most of these to e.g. "Kintore, Aberdeenshire". I guess this is because, in this part of Scotland at least, that tends to be how we describe places. In practice it's the local authority name that you see on the litter bins and the bus stops, the local authority name you need to know to look up planning applications or archaeological records or library opening hours, and so on. I think we had in fact reached the point where all disambiguated names in Aberdeenshire were consistently using the local authority name (Banff, Macduff, Boddam, Hatton, Maud, Ellon, Newburgh, Blackburn, Kintore, Westhill, Gourdon, Huntly), until an editor recently moved "Alford, Aberdeenshire" to "Alford, Scotland". Now whilst this move follows the guideline, I have to say as someone who lives and works in the area I find it just sounds odd. The fact that other editors have moved, say, Huntly, Kintore or Ellon from "Place, Scotland" to "Place, Aberdeenshire" citing "naming conventions" or "normal dab syntax" in their edit summaries suggests I am not alone. What are we to do if the guideline says one thing and instinct based on real-world experience says the opposite? I appreciate that using the local authority name works less well with those double-barrel names. Do we need different guidelines for different areas? We already have some variants, e.g. "Broadford, Skye" makes a lot more sense than "Broadford, Highland" or "Broadford, Scotland" would. I don't think using the "old" county names would be advisable — many of the younger people I work with don't know the pre-1996 borders let alone the pre-1975 ones, and we should primarily be documenting things as they are today rather than as they once were. I am of the generation that grew up with names like "Grampian" and "Tayside", but we have had to come to terms with their successors, such that to me to talk of "Banff, Aberdeenshire" doesn't sound as contradictory as it does to those of an older generation. But if, heaven forbid, the powers-that-be were to redraw the maps in future and come up with another new set of local authority names, would I then advocate the use of the new names? I'm not sure. --Deskford (talk) 03:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Broadly, I agree. Argyll and Bute need not be a problem as if it is Rothesay, Bute, it might just as well be Cardross, Argyll as Cardross, Argyll and Bute. It is inevitable that the maps will be re-drawn sometime, but we can deal with that as and when it happens. Ben MacDui 09:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The existing text of WP:PLACE says:

Where possible, articles on places in Scotland go under [[placename]] . Thus Glasgow, not Glasgow, Scotland. Where disambiguation is required, [[placename, Scotland]] is used. Thus Perth, Scotland, not Perth, Perth and Kinross. Where further disambiguation is required, [[placename, Council Area x]] is used. Thus Abernethy, Highland and Abernethy, Perth and Kinross. If even more disambiguation is required, then another form of natural and recognisable disambiguation is used, such as traditional regions, committee areas, etc, as in Kinnaird, Gowrie and Kinnaird, Atholl, both in Scotland and in Perth and Kinross. Where the necessity for disambiguation with other Scottish locations is unclear, as with smaller settlements unlikely to be widely known outside of the region, disambiguation by council area rather than Scotland is probably preferable, as many place-names in Scotland are used more than once. Settlements on Scottish islands generally, where disambiguation is required, are followed by the name of the island or island-chain rather than by Scotland or council area…..

I suggest the following alternative, based on the premise that "smaller settlements unlikely to be widely known outside of the region" vastly outnumber larger ones: (outdent)

Where possible, articles on places in Scotland go under [[placename]]. Thus Glasgow, not Glasgow, Scotland. Where disambiguation is required, [[placename, Council area]] is normally used. Thus Cullen, Moray, not Cullen, Scotland. Where further disambiguation is required, [[placename, Council Area x]] is used. If even more disambiguation is required, then another form of natural and recognisable disambiguation is used, such as traditional regions, committee areas, etc. as in Kinnaird, Gowrie and Kinnaird, Atholl, both in Scotland and in Perth and Kinross. Settlements on Scottish islands generally, where disambiguation is required, are followed by the name of the island or island-chain rather than by Scotland or council area….. Exceptions include:

• the small number of larger towns that are likely to be well-known outside of the region, that also require disambiguation such as Perth, Scotland.
• settlements in Argyll and Bute. As island settlements will be styled in the form Rothesay, Bute mainland Argyll settlements may be styled [[placename, Bute]].
• settlements in Highland. This large area has many small settlement which should be identified by District where disambiguation is required, save that as island settlements will be styled in the form Broadford, Skye mainland Skye and Lochlash settlements may be styled [[placename, Lochalsh]].

Ben MacDui 19:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

That sounds much better, and it reflects current practice for the most part. I had a look through all the subcategories of Category:Towns in Scotland and Category:Villages in Scotland and gained the impression that the substantial majority of mainland names needing disambiguation already use the local authority name, even in the areas with cumbersome local authority names. I had been thinking along very similar lines to your suggested new guidelines. For the case of Perth I was thinking we could say that places may be disambiguated as e.g. Perth, Scotland if they are the principal settlement in a local authority area and give their name to that authority. In practice I cannot think of any cases other than Perth, as Stirling, Dumfries and so on do not need disambiguation. If we allow places in Argyll and Bute to be disambiguated by "Argyll" or "Bute", should we make similar allowances for Perth and Kinross and for Dumfries and Galloway? Highland is clearly a special case, and your suggestion of the use of districts is probably the best option. At present, there seems to be very little consistency in the way Highland places are disambiguated: we have

• Ardmore, Ross-shire, Highland
• Clashmore, Assynt
• Kilmuir, Easter Ross and Cromerty (not Cromarty, note)
• Salen, Ardnamurchan
• Strathy, Ardross
• Tomich (village)
• Westhill, Inverness

just to pick a few non-standard examples. --Deskford (talk) 02:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Good grief. I think you are right that Perth is currently unique

• "the small number of larger towns that are the principal settlement in a local authority area and give their name to that authority, that also require disambiguation such as Perth, Scotland."

would do it.

Not sure what to suggest for P&K and D&G. It is clumsy to use the whole name although Category:Villages in Perth and Kinross and Category:Villages in Dumfries and Galloway seem to use this form already quite happily, with a few exceptions such as Borgue, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which is hardly less keyboard friendly. Ben MacDui 09:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

On reflection I think this might be too prescriptive and what I'd like to achieve is a clear guideline that follows current use rather than something that may result in contentious page moves for long-established articles. Jura is another exception. Suggest:

• the small number of larger towns or islands that are likely to be well-known outside of the region, that also require disambiguation such as Perth, Scotland and Jura, Scotland.

I have also added a semi-pedantic Lewis and Harris caveat.

Current proposal

Where possible, articles on places in Scotland go under [[placename]]. Thus Glasgow, not Glasgow, Scotland. Where disambiguation is required, [[placename, Council area]] is normally used. Thus Cullen, Moray, not Cullen, Scotland. If even more disambiguation is required, then another form of natural and recognisable disambiguation is used, such as traditional regions, committee areas, etc. as in: Kinnaird, Gowrie; and Kinnaird, Atholl; both in Scotland and in Perth and Kinross. Settlements on Scottish islands generally, where disambiguation is required, are followed by the name of the island or island-chain rather than by Scotland or council area. Examples include: Uig, Skye; Tarbert, Harris; and Balfour, Orkney. (Lewis and Harris are treated as separate islands for this purpose). Exceptions include:

• the small number of larger towns or islands that are likely to be well-known outside of the region, that also require disambiguation such as Perth, Scotland and Jura, Scotland.
• settlements in Argyll and Bute. As island settlements will be styled in the form Rothesay, Bute mainland Argyll settlements may be styled [[placename, Argyll]].
• settlements in Highland. This large area has many small settlement which should be identified by District where disambiguation is required, save that as island settlements will be styled in the form Broadford, Skye mainland Skye and Lochlash settlements may be styled [[placename, Lochalsh]].

Ben MacDui 08:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree this is much more sensible. It's also nice and flexible unlike some overly rigid naming conventions I can think of. Just one comment: what does "Where further disambiguation is required, [[placename, Council Area x]] is used" mean in this context? What do you put in place of the x? I think this just a hangover from the original text that needs to be removed. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 11:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

True and removed. Ben MacDui 18:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this seems fine, and you are right not to be too prescriptive about the Perth case. I don't think I would worry too much about the P&K or D&G cases — current usage suggests no-one has found them a problem — but then I probably wouldn't have worried about A&B either. That sentence beginning "Where further disambiguation is required" seems redundant now, as the earlier sentences have already covered disambiguation by council area. --Deskford (talk) 01:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

True and also removed. I will leave this here for another day or two and then change the text at WP:PLACE unless there is further input. Ben MacDui 09:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Now done. Ben MacDui 09:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh

I have been trying to improve the Edinburgh article. Quite frankly, it was terrible, and I hope I have improved it in a small way. I would appreciate it if the members of WikiProject Scotland would contribute to the improvement of our capital city article. John Hendo (talk) 23:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

'The last GA review details the outstanding issues. Yes, work to be done, but 'terrible' is harsh. Dalliance (talk) 23:52, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Cullen move

Someone recently moved Cullen to Cullen, Moray, changing the resultant redirect to point to the disambiguation page, but without cleaning up the many links in other articles that are now left pointing to the wrong page. I requested a revert, but an IP editor has opposed this. I would welcome the opinions of others in this case. Please comment at Talk:Cullen, Moray#Requested move rather than here. --Deskford (talk) 06:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Notability of small places

User:scope creep and I are engaging in a melancholy dialogue about the value or otherwise of having articles for small places in the Highlands. When I come across articles that are little more than a sentence describing the location of a few houses I sometimes redirect them to a nearby settlement. Ideally this would be a larger or more well-known one, but in some locations even this is tricky to find. Our main area of dialogue is Category:Villages in Skye, which despite my best efforts has no fewer than 82 entries - about one for every 112 people. That is about the same number of pages as in Category:Neighborhoods in Manhattan. Perhaps I should be pleased that these small places are worthy of recognition. However, WP:NOTE makes it clear that existence does not equal notability. I have no problem at all with, for example, Stein, Skye, which is a grand little spot with an interesting history. I wonder about Kingsburgh, Skye, which is essentially a house or two [1], but at least it has a history. However, what is there to say about Digg,Skye (sic) or Earlish? Perhaps something but probably not much that could just as usefully be mentioned at the article for the relevant area e.g. Trotternish, which is itself only a stub.

There seem to be very few editors active in Highland geography and the volume of non-notable stubs there seems never ending. scope-creep is aware of the issue and has him/herself recently argued for the removal of very small places from the Highland list - it's just that the standard of notability we use is different. My limit would be something like a minimum of 200 people unless something of note could be found to justify its existence (and there are plenty of small and uninhabited places that are genuinely notable). scope creep has recently noted that "anything with more than 7 houses has passed Afd and has set a precedent", which is way below my limit. There have been several discussions in the past e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 4#Villages in Blah, but I think it would be helpful if we could reach some simple agreement on what is and is not notable and article-worthy. Ben MacDui 09:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Ben for bringing this up (again). I have previously noticed that the Category:Villages in the Scottish Borders is also getting a little excessive, with 172 villages apparently being notable. Several of these, such as Darnhall Mains, are not villages at all, this one is just a farm in fact (I have never got around to doing anything about all this, of course). So in answer your question, there seems to be a long-held beleif that geography is inherently notable. But I really can't see why notability for places should diverge from the general notability guideline, which is that "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list." In other words, there can be no "cut-off", since a couple of houses may in fact be notable, while a settlement of 10 houses may not be. Regards, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 09:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Same problem with lots of articles on sub-villages in Aberdeenshire and Angus. When you visit these places or examine them on the OS map, many of them turn out to be just a single farm or estate house, perhaps with a few cottages attached. I've been thinking for a while we ought to have a clearly defined standard but couldn't find one documented anywhere. --Deskford (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I can offer experience from the Italy project, which in some ways is a bit easier because their government administration is relentlessly organised around the 8000 or so comuni - a unit that's somewhere between a municipality and a parish, they go down to villages of 1000-2000 although the average is about 5000 (if you exclude one or two oddities, like most of Rome is a single comune). So from a Wikipedia point of view, if you know you've got the 8000 comuni, then you have 100% coverage of the surface of Italy, and everything on Italian soil has a potential "home" in one of the comune articles. I think that idea of 100% coverage of the land surface is quite important. Beyond that, each comune may be divided into several frazioni, which typically are not very notable hamlets of a few dozen or few hundred people. However, some of the frazioni are very famous (ski resorts are one example, battlegrounds another) so the Italy Project is fairly relaxed about creating frazioni articles, but from memory there was only about 1000, mebbe 2-3% of the potential number.
In the UK things are a bit more complicated than the Italians' relentless comune-centricity, but I'd propose that as a basic target, we make sure that we have 100% coverage of Scotland at the parish level. That's precisely defined, there should be lots of government documents referencing them and so on. Below that, I'd make an assumption that smaller hamlets get merged into their parent parish, but not protest too much against them having their own article if there is genuine notability beyond existence on an OS map. I'd certainly take the view that if an article hasn't managed to expand beyond a few lines in 10 years of Wikipedia, then my working assumption would be to upmerge it to the parish.Yes, I know there's no time limit, but I honestly believe that scope creep's attempts to create a WP:DIRECTORY of every farmhouse in Scotland is inhibiting work on the geography of the Highlands rather than helping. FlagSteward (talk) 13:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the general idea, although parishes are no longer in use and "parishes" as a concept does not seem to be be much used outside Orkney and Shetland. Civil parishes in Scotland states that "A new system of communities was created by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973" although no such list exists on-wiki at present. It would be interesting to see if it might cover the problem in the Highlands. Ben MacDui 19:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC) PS See List of community council areas in Scotland hiding in an obscure category. Ben MacDui 19:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I had this conversation with User:DGG a while back and I recommended a merger of the tiny hamlets or those which seemingly couldn't be expanded much into a tabled list with a village summary. But we reached the agreement that virtually any populated settlement can be expanded and researched in libraries... My concern was it said ...is a village and indeed it was little more than two cottage and farmhouse for example when looked at on google maps... However, I expanded a few like Aberchalder, Achanalt, Achany, Achduart etc. Based on that I'd say it would be possible to get the vast majority of settlements up to a decent standard to make it worth having. I think it is important eventually to cover any settlement on the planet on wikipedia..But I haven't the time or patience to expand every village in Scotland!♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

there are sometimes reasons for not splitting a general article: Sometimes it might be intrinsically impossible or highly unlikely for the article to ever be expanded. An example of that is elementary schools, which we almost always mere into the towns or school districts. But as Dr.B says, and he know better than me, there are enough accessible sources for UK local history to expand any of these. Another reason is when the topics are best covered together for clarity. An example is closely related family members who are not really of more than very borderline individual notability. A village is a village, and the name makes it clear enough. A third is the convenience of the reader, though this is not really a factor with hypertext. But the fourth, and for me the deciding one, is the likelihood of attracting authors. Because editors usually leave after a few years at most, Wikipedia must continually attract new editors or die. New editors will most often be inexperienced, and not really ready to start expanding major well-established articles. They need ones to start with that will be somewhat formulaic, and easy to research with sources that might be in a local library. (One example is earlier holders of a particular local office or constituency.Another is local places. Having a stub of an article in place gives them a good starting point, and they're likely to look for it by name. DGG ( talk ) 23:29, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Dr B - you have done an excellent job with some of the above and are certainly an encouragement. However, taking Achanalt as an example, it suffers from the usual mis-information in the lead, which is part of my concern about the proliferation of these stubs. It said: "Achanalt (Gaelic: Achadh nan Allt) is a village in Garve, Ross-shire, in the Scottish council area of the Highland." It is not "in Garve" which is a village some miles away; it is not in Ross-shire, which has not existed since 1889; above all, by no stretch of the imagination could it be described as a village - I count five buildings and a phone box. The co-ordinates are wrong and send one to a nearby hill. (I realise none of these errors are yours). In the second sentence there is a link to Achanalt railway station. If, as I have changed the lead of Achanalt to read, it is a railway halt and not a village, do we need two articles? DGG, I quite take your point about wanting to attract new editors, and Dr B's efforts are to an extent persuasive. I am prone to an occasional interest in small places such as Lochbuie, Mull myself, but I wonder if (in addition to any suitable merging and redirecting) we might need a category of "hamlets in Highland" or similar to avoid the pretence that these are villages in the normal sense of the word. Ben MacDui 09:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Ben for that mistake but I believe it said it was a village and those were the coordinates which I started with. But that's what happens when you can only access old public domain material to write articles... I am usually 100% accurate with my coordinates though.... My concern is that at least half of the Highland "villages" are little more than a farmhouse, a few barns and a cottage. Tiny hamlets many of them... But I think with research it is possible to expand most of them... Category:Villages and hamlets in Highland or simply Category:Populated places in Highland would be better... There of course would be split opinion on what is a small village and what is a hamlet.. For instance I also expanded Achentoul, which was claimed to be a village but its obviously a hamlet... But let Achentoul be an example that even small hamlets can be expanded into something worthwhile. I adore Scotland, I really should try to keep ploughing through the Highland villages as they are neglected. But its a daunting task... I did my best to expand Achavandra Muir but that was all I could find.... I suspect that will be the case for at least a few of the smallest hamlets.. As you can see I started going through alphabetically... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

One point to bear in mind about the hamlets is that some of them were larger and more important before the rural depopulation of the 18th-20th centuries. So a place may not be notable in modern times yet still have a notable history. Of course most do not. Kincardine, the former county town of Kincardineshire falls into this category and there are probably others. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat reluctantly, I find myself being persuaded by Dr. B's efforts that these wretched stubs may have a purpose after all. I do however caution that taking close note of the potentially misleading information in the existing one-liners is an essential feature of any improvements. I also think that there is good case to be made for further categorisation. I will enlarge on this asap. Ben MacDui 18:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll make a note to gradually go through them.... but I may get tired of doing so!! Maybe somebody else could work through them from Z...♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Derek Ross makes a telling point that the population before the clearances may have been far greater, and a broader point is longevity. A ghost town that existed for perhaps a decade with a population of perhaps a thousand is probably less notable than a community of a hundred that has existed for many centuries. ϢereSpielChequers 23:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Cats

I think it could be fairly simple to distinguish between a hamlet and a village - the latter having a shop i.e. a genuine general store, not just a garage that sells papers and fags or a candle shop for tourists. There are grey areas, but I am not really interested in something rigorous - just a way of trying to distinguish between villages that would be notable anywhere and tiny settlements (largely in the Highlands) that may have notability due to their history, but possibly not be credible in other places.

I see that we have Category:Hamlets in Scotland with tiny places from all over. Clearly there could be LA sub-cats per Category:Hamlets in England with further sub-categorisation by District in Highland which would be congruent with the above discussion about "Local Authority names in page titles". A minor problem is that "hamlet" is not much used in Scotland. On Skye and the Outer Hebrides "crofting townships" would be an alternative, although I doubt that really applies to Caithness. "Small settlements" or similar sounds a bit wet to me. Perhaps the combination of crofting townships and hamlets might work, but suggestions are very welcome. "Populated places" seems to be used for higher level categorisation e.g. Category:Populated places in Europe. Ben MacDui 18:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

No that's not true. Populated places generally is used for articles in any given region for anything from a city to a hamlet. I personally oppose having seperate categories for hamlets. Populated places in ... is far better in my view or at least Villages and hamlets in Highland.. BTW the next one I tried to expand is Achgarve and that is all I could find.. Not good but I hope I can find a lot more for the others... I suspect that a lot of the small hamlets have very little info even in google books.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 23:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree (I think) - and that's what I meant - if you look at a sub-cat of the above e.g. Category:Populated places in Norway, it contains "Category:Populated places by region x" which in turn contains town, village etc. cats. I realise looking at all of these stubs is a daunting task, which is why I think sub-categorisation, both by district and type may be useful. Let's say we took Caithness and split all small settlements into the cats "Villages in Caithness and "Hamlets in Caithness". We could do an analysis of how many were genuine villages, how many were not and, over a longer period of time, how many of the latter had so little information available that they should be redirects, which might give an indication of the state of affairs elsewhere. We could probably get a few volunteers from here to pay occasional visits to the cats and make sure they were still in shape. It would be harder to keep track of Category:Villages in Highland in its present state. Ben MacDui 12:48, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I would oppose a split into villages and hamlets by county as that would make me less likely to bother with the hamlets and assessing which is a hamlet or not will take a lot of time and possible indecisiveness, I make the following proposal which places villages and hamlets in the same category but avoids naming them as such as I am certain there will often be dispute on what is really a small village or a hamlet.

• Category:Populated places in Badenoch and Strathspey
• Category:Populated places in Caithness
• Category:Populated places in Inverness committee area
• Category:Populated places in Lochaber
• Category:Populated places in Nairnshire
• Category:Populated places in Nairn
• Category:Populated places in Ross and Cromarty
• Category:Populated places in Skye
• Category:Populated places in Sutherland
• Category:Populated places in Lochalsh

Map of above districts here. Ben MacDui 12:54, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

They would feed into Category:Populated places in Highland and in turn Category:Populated places in Scotland and the village categories would be redirected/shut down. This would avoid misleading editors into thinking they are "villages" (each article can be reassessed and changed anyway if we believe its a hamlet in the text), It would also split what is quite a daunting category and at least split it into sizeable categories which would make the task seemingly easier to accomplish. At the same time I'd propose new templates for each county to link all of the settlements in, much like {{Vale of Glamorgan}}. This way we can better improving connection and navigation by area like {{Badenoch and Strathspey}} etc. Eventually I want every settlement to at least have a bit of info beyond xxx is a village in Highland.. If there is support for this I can arrange for the categories to be sorted and new nav templates made within the next few days This system could also be done with the other Scottish regions and split villages and hamlets by county and region, but it seems Highland is the most unmanageable at present.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not wild about "populated places" but it could work. However, why would Category:Populated places in Highland not just be a sub-cat of Category:Villages in Scotland - if you go direct to Category:Populated places in Scotland Highland would be the only LA area without a presence there. Where would Category:Towns in Highland be placed in this system? Note that the following already exist:

• Category:Lochaber villages
• Category:Villages in Inverness committee area
• Category:Villages in Skye

Note also that the Cat police are vigilant these days and it would makes sense to try and get this right without creating too many tedious move discussions.

"Villages in Skye" could be a sub-cat of "Populated places in Skye and Lochalsh" or possibly moved to Category:Populated places in Skye, although I am still keen on the village/hamlet separation idea there if nowhere else as an experiment at least.

"Lochaber villages" should be "Villages in Lochaber" if it stays. Ben MacDui 14:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I would move Category:Villages in Skye to Category:Populated places in Skye.. I honestly think the village and hamlet categorization splitting would make the situation worse in terms of tackling them..♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems that there is a sort of internet consensus that a hamlet is a small cluster of houses with no church. A village will consist of a larger number number of houses and have a church and some commercial buildings. A town will be composed of a large number of houses, more than one church and more commercial buildings. -Bill Reid | (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Towns in Highland would be a subcat of Category:Populated places in Highland.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

OK I've begun on this. I've sorted Lochaber places and created Template:Lochaber to organize them. Please help fill these templates with articles as I create them. I understand that some areas may have an extreme number of lochs or munroes but as long as the most important ones are listed and the template is a decent size but not overly bloated. I really need help thoough with recategorizing the 540 odd remaing villages in Highland. For instance Aberchalder is part of where?? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry, this is not OK - you have been Bold, which is fine, but Category:Villages in Skye needs to be kept in some form and not merged with the mainland and I suggest you stop moving things until this agreed in some way. You may find Highland Council wards 1999 to 2007 useful. Ben MacDui 16:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you identify the settlements then in Lochalsh which are in Category:Populated places in Skye and Lochalsh and place them in Category:Populated places in Lochalsh and I will request an AWBer to recat simply as Category:Populated places in Skye. Sorry but we have 540 Highland villages in desperate need of sorting out and improving. I really do not see anybody else bothering to do what I've been doing. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I have made the move as requested to Category:Populated places in Skye, I hope not prematurely. I also was never keen on "populated places", scarcely an improvement non the non euphonious "Settlements in", however it is liveable-with. I do agree that where necessary tiny places with nothing of note sans their existence might profitably be merged into a "habitable places in Foo" article (or whatever), my plea would be to preserve the categorisation on the old article (new redirect) pages, as well as the content on the target page. Rich Farmbrough, 18:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC).

Here's an example of this: Ranochan at grid reference NM827816 - a single building, possibly not even inhabited. I have redirected it. Ben MacDui 19:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Further tweaks necessary. If we are sticking with the Districts solution, then:

• Duirinish, Lochalsh should be in Category:Populated places in Lochalsh and
• Category:Populated places in Nairnshire should be Category:Populated places in Nairn as "Nairnshire" vanished in 1975. Ben MacDui 19:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

'Nairn' refers to the town, not the area/district/county. As the category is for the whole area, it is unhelpful and confusing to just call it 'populated places in Nairn'. The area is still commonly referred to as 'Nairnshire', and signposted as such by the council (see for example [2]). Or name it something like 'Nairn area' or 'Nairn district' etc. A similar name for the Inverness area category would be good, seeing as the committee area no longer exists, I would suggest just 'Inverness area'. --Vclaw (talk) 19:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sigh Nairn is also a town.... Inverness district and Nairn district then?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I think "area" to avoid confusion with the earlier "districts". Ben MacDui 20:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi folks Nairnshire is still very much an entity in the minds of the citizens of Nairnshire. The link to the signpost picture shows a new bilingual sign installed last summer on the southern borders of the couny. Highland Council installed the sign as a replacement for a much older one and note the use of Gaelic too. Please don't delete Nairnshire from Wikipedia - we deserve to live on :-) Thanks

I've filed a request for an Isle of Skye pin map and also one for the districts of Highland. Nilfanion however mentioned the wards which have existed since 2007. Can you discuss it with Nilfanion which divisional maps we could do with? I just think the Highland region is so large is would be good to have sub locator maps. A window locator will show where in Scotland it is anyway.Blofeld Dr. (talk) 00:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Problem places

• Achateny - fixed OS coords so it can be found on map. Looks like a farm to me.
• Invermoidart. Apparently a "hamlet" on an island with a total population of 9. Honestly don't see the purpose and should be merged with Eilean Shona. Ben MacDui 19:38, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Your Achateny has an error with the OS. I surveyed it on google street view when I expanded it and it looked like a small hamlet to me.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, fixed. I will look at street view later. Ben MacDui 20:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I see a farm house, some farm buildings and a caravan. However the views of Rum and Eigg are stunning - perhaps this is enough to confer notability? Ben MacDui 08:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah a search of Invermoidart in google books just mentions it with no info on it..♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Abrechalder location - dunno and must dash - will look at it later too. Ben MacDui 20:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say it is Inverness, based on its proximity to Fort Augustus relative to Invergarry and that its on the east bank of the canal. We'd need a detailed map to be sure, which I have not been able to find so far. Ben MacDui 08:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Aberchalder is in modern Caol and Mallaig ward (Lochaber): The Lochaber/Inverness border crosses the A82 at Newtown just to the north. However, this is a recent change which happened when the wards were re-drawn in 2007. Aberchalder is in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency not Ross, Skye and Lochaber, so would have been in an Inverness ward in 2005. The constituency boundary is the northern tip of Loch Oich, and this is also the historic border that dates back to at least 1975, possibly earlier. Therefore Aberchalder has "changed districts"...--Nilfanion (talk) 11:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Achateny is the one of the first one's I created. I think the first few Highland articles I created were possibly bordeline. I don't think Achateny is notable. Even though it is beautiful and isolated, it's empty. I agree with the comments regarding Invermoidart. I'll go back and check all the 2008 and early 2009 Highland articles. scope_creep (talk) 16:33, 6 Feb 2011 (UTC)

An apology

I would like to make an apology to all my fellow Scottish Wikipedian editors for this comment and edit summary at the Scotland article talk page. I was annoyed at the lack of Scottish Wikipedian participation in the discussion without realizing that you are all probably cheesed off at the same thing being brought up again and again. Even if that were not the case I had no right mouthing off like that. Once again, my apologies. I hope nobody bears any grudges. :( John Hendo (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least somebody has the "balls" to identify their mistake and apologise eh John. Wink wink.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

As my wee maw used to say, always stick up for yourself but never be afraid to apologise when you're in the wrong. John Hendo (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Roshven

I removed the biography info and poorly written, unsourced material from this yesterday. It uses numerous peacock words, claims "people come from all over the world" to visit it. Its very poor. Yet the article writer has reverted me. I've applied tags but the work actually needed on it is obvious. We do not need all that irrelevant biographical info on that person (its COI being the writer's greatgreat grandmother), and saying about its wonderful B&Bs is utterly unencyclopedic/ Can somebody please address this article or explain to this editor why most of the material is not appropriate?♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

This is what he said to me

Your edits to this page have been undone. I have trimmed down the jemima bio info to just the stuff that refers to Roshven. All the other info (i.e. vegetation, economy) should be left. You say it is unsourced - untrue. There was a reference to www.roshven.com. This is the website my grandparents created. Jemima is my great great grandmother and the info on roshven.com is information that has passed down through the generations of my family. My grandfather also gave me more information to add here combined with my knowledge of Roshven. (My grandparents lived there for over 60 years and owned roshven farm (my family has lived there for hundreds)) Therefore I have a lot of knowledge of this place. This info has been added again and must remain.

Much of this reads like a tourist guide rather than an encyclopedia article. As you say, the work required to address matters of tone and content is fairly obvious. Mentions of Jemima Blackburn and Hugh Blackburn should probably be reduced to a single sentence as they each have separate articles. --Deskford (talk) 13:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems a lot of edits have been made to improve it since- if you view the version when I posted here.... No worries I've rewritten and further expanded and sourced this so it doesn't remotedly resemble the tone of the original version this morning. However, should my edits be reverted....♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability of small places

Its worth noting that all the populated places in the Highland council area have now been added, to my knowledge, except for 3 small places, which are borderline. I'm an inclusionist by nature, and work by the principle that available information can be worked on, whereas no information is useless. Being a software engineer, I work by that principle every day, and have seen it being misapplied numerous times in my industry. And it costs. I also think having more villages, as long as they achieve a modicum of notability, promotes tourism into Scotland and increases the chance of retaining younger editors. Commenting on the notabily aspects of adding multiple villages, which are small and may only have 10+ houses; all of them have been checked on Scottish Gazeeteer, Google street view and Google maps. I've removed some 200+ entries that were originally scheduled for articles, but were found to be huting lodges, estates, crossroads, farms, single or 3+ isolates houses. Please notify me if you any articles, you think aren't notable, because you think they are too smal. The core set of Highland article, I think, are all notable. As regards the expanding stubs, its a finite set and the basic articles are now created. I intend to expand each of the stubs over this year. If there are any articles which need the co-ords or address locations fixed, which Ben flagged up, notify me please. Some of the earlier were out of range, as were their addresses. The co-ords were taking from an early version of multimap and were inaccurate. scope_creep (talk) 16:01, 06 Feb 2011 (UTC)

That's good to hear. Another concern I have is that as the volume or articles grows but editor numbers remain static that large numbers of articles become unwatched. It is asking a lot of anyone to add 500 settlements to their watchlist but once the "populated places" cats are filled we could perhaps draft in a few volunteers to take this on cat-by-cat. Ben MacDui 20:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Lochaber is now mostly done. I think Stronenaba is a farm and I have redirected it. The co-ords of Dorrery are wrong (- or the description is wrong). Coille Mhorgil at grid reference NH112010 would appear to be - as the name implies - a wood. Ben MacDui 16:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Lochalsh underway. Ardintoul has no ordinary vehicular access and seems to be a farm - redirected to the palindromic Glenelg. I don't know what to make of Balmacara Square and Balmacara. They both have the same OS coords, but whilst I have heard of the latter, it does not actually seem to exist as a separate place - possibly the name of a small district? I don't think Corran, Skye and Lochalsh is anything other than an extension of tiny Arnisdale, but I have let it be for now. Avernish looks like an abandoned village/farm to me. Port an Eòrna - not one of yours - is a half decent attempt at a tiny place, but "is the home of a special resident heron, called "Harry"," is simply extracting the Michael. I have left it as is for the benefit of those wondering why watching these articles might be useful. Ardnarff survived a prod a while ago but it clearly a single building and has been redirected. I was wondering why so few Lochalsh articles. I see that a large number have ended up in Category:Populated places in Ross and Cromarty. What a guddle. Ben MacDui 12:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, these are places I know well. Balmacara and Balmacara Square are quite distinct (wrong grid reference on the article for the Square: should be NG806283), as are Corran and Arnisdale, though in each case I'm not sure if there's enough to be said about them to sustain separate articles. Avernish is still thriving. Neither Ardintoul nor Port an Eòrna are nowadays notable, and any coverage probably belongs in the Glenelg and Duirinish articles respectively. Writing in haste; I'll look at these when I have a moment, but it might not be for a few days. --Deskford (talk) 13:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Good news. Further Lochalsh update. Couldn't find Allt-nan-Sugh (and it is probably a river). Morvich, Highland looked like a farm to me, Galltair seemed to me simply part of Glenelg, and Aldie, Highland is a farm. All redirected, but kept in the Populated places cats. Abernethy and Kincardine is quite a good and rare example of a parish article. Achmore, Highland is a typical example of an article that had a sentence or two containing misinformation and (unsourced BLP material). Achintee, Wester Ross, a typical example of an article with a grid reference pointing to the wrong place that seems to be a farm and a house or two on the doorstep of Strathcarron (which of course has two articles as it has a railway halt) - Achintee also redirected. Ben MacDui 09:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Caithness - refreshingly free of obvious problems except Dorrery - coords are way out and I can't find it after a quick search. Ben MacDui 18:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Dorrery is at ND074550. Not much there now, but a lot of history. --Deskford (talk) 19:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Allt-nan-Sugh is a sizable settlement of 12 houses in the village itself and a few others around it, with several more planned, not a river. It passes the precedent, so it's worth leaving in. Arnisdale has some 40+ houses and is a sizable village. Galltair is the name of the estate house, I think at the time I was planning a redirect. Achintee is a new build village with 7 houses, south of Strathcarron, so I think it is borderline notable. As regards co-ords of these places, it's a reflection of the quality of the co-ords in first multimap, the google then bing maps. Multimap co-ords, I thought were decent, google map co-ord's are useless really. Satellite and street view is useful. I've found too many mistakes. house as village, jetty as port and so on. I think it's worth looking at Bing maps. There has been a fair amount of work done their to make them accurate and you can see the ordanance survey maps underneath. Well worth a look if you can't find them. I had a look for Morvich as well. Can't seem to find any mention of it. I think it's one of Googles or Multimap false positive. Scottish Gazetteer lists it as a village, it's only a farm. scope_creep (talk) 22:53, 18 Feb 2011 (UTC)

I tend to use the Ordnance Survey "Get-a-map" site to get a reliable grid reference, then use "Geohack" to convert it to lat/long co-ords. I'll have a look over these when I have time for more than a flying visit. If I remember rightly, Allt-nan-Sugh is virtually an extension to Sallachy, so probably should redirect there if we decide it can't sustain its own article. In general, though, I would favour separate articles for such borderline cases. If I lived in Allt-nan-Sugh I might object to being lumped in with Sallachy, just as Corran residents might not appreciate being conjoined with Arnisdale. --Deskford (talk) 00:13, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Aberarder is confused. The coords put it in the Inverness area near Strathnairn, the OS grid refs to a farm on Loch Laggan side and the description to somewhere else. Ben MacDui 11:12, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, three places with the same name. Well most of the info in the article, including the picture of the old school, relates to the Aberarder in Upper Strathnairn at NH622254. The bit about the Farquharsons of Invercauld, however, refers to the Aberarder on Deeside at NO209935. The postcode quoted in the infobox, though, refers to the Lagganside Aberarder at NN478875. Looking through the history of the article, it appears to have referred exclusively to the Lagganside Aberarder until 28 September 2010, but details relating to the other places started to creep in subsequently. I'm not sure if any of them merit an article. If the Strathnairn Aberarder once had a school then it was maybe once notable. --Deskford (talk) 12:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Problematic Highland settlements. Problematic hamlets which can't be expanded or are incorrect or whatever should be listed there.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, there are 3 places called Aberarder, but I think it's a mistake to have it in. The location detailed in the article points to the farm, but the main village is half a mile along the road. The Scottish Gazetteer [[3]] lists it as a hamlet in 1882, part of an estate, Aberarder House belonging to it. I can only see 3,4 perhaps, so it's depleted it's notability allowance, unfortunately. The other two locations, are Aberarder Lodge, close to Glen Aberader, down near Kinloch Laggan, and is not notable. The other location is single house in a remote location. I think it can go. The following places can also go into oblivion. Taagan (Single farm or croft), Anancaun (Anacaun Estate House), Proncycroy (Single house), Pulrossie (Single House). I was going to raise these with Ben about 6 months ago for deletion. scope_creep (talk) 15:44, 23 Feb 2011 (UTC)

Thank-you for pointing these out. I think it is actually more effective to redirect anything that may be created again from a Gazetteer list, but you can Prod them anytime you wish if you prefer. Ben MacDui 19:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

File:Isle of Skye UK location map.svg...

...has been created, FYI. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 15:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

It was requested by the currently retired Dr B. I doubt that anyone here knows how it is supposed to work in the context of the UK infobox, if that is what it was intended for. Ben MacDui 08:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there a Primary Topic for "Hearts"

Traffic stats data indicate that Heart of Midlothian F.C. gets a third more hits than the card game, yet the card game currently takes position as primary topic contrary to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Although the football club in the leading topic, there is probably no primary topic. In this case Hearts should probably be a dab page. I have opened a discussion at Talk:Hearts (card game)#Primary_topic. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Alien on the banks of Loch Ness at Achnahannet‎

Its bizarre, have a look at google street view at here. Zoom in where the green marker is. Do you spot the alien like figure (looks like The Stig) in white standing at the side of the road there one minute, gone the next? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I think I have a logical explanation of why he appears and disappears (suppled on request!). His car jumps up and down the side road too. But when I look he is wearing a dark top, cut-off blue jeans and only his shoes are white.[4] And I can't explain that! Thincat (talk) 21:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Cat watchers

The new Highland council area "Populated places" cats are, per the above.

• Category:Populated places in Badenoch and Strathspey - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Caithness - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Inverness committee area - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Lochaber - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Nairn - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Ross and Cromarty - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Skye - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Sutherland - recent changes
• Category:Populated places in Lochalsh - recent changes

Map of above districts here.

I think it would be helpful if a few people would volunteer to watch the contents now that they are in more bite-sized chunks. It is not likely that there will be a lot of activity. I have Skye and Lochaber on my watch list. Ben MacDui 19:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Tony Blair

Editors here may be interested in assisting with the Good Article nomination of Tony Blair. The review can be found at Talk:Tony Blair/GA1. GA is reachable, but it will require hard work. Any assistance would be appreciated. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

First Minister bio infoboxes

I'ver deleted Elizabeth II from these infoboxes, as she's not the Monarch of Scotland. What's the view here, concerning my deletions? GoodDay (talk) 01:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My view is that you are wrong. Could you explain further why you think that? (For convenience, I am going to concentrate the discussion here, since you raised the question for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.) I'd be happy to explain why I think that Elizabeth II is the monarch, but it's so obvious that I fear I'd be acting foolish if you've got some kind of subtle point here. I will post pointers to this discussion on the other pages: [5] and [6].--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

At first glance, Liz's inclusion could be misconstrued as Monarch of Scotland. However, there's a way to avoid this potentiality - have Monarch shown as Monarch of the United Kingdom in these infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 01:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Elizabeth II is Monarch in Scotland, but not of Scotland. For example: She's not shown in the infoboxes of the Canadian provincial & territorial premiers, just like the US President isn't shown in the infoboxes of state governors. GoodDay (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding whether Betty has a place in the box: as the monarch has a constitutional role in Scotland (6th para.), appointing the First Minister and acting on the advice of the Scottish Government, that role makes inclusion notable. I'm not sure what the case is for Canadian provinces and territories. As to the semantics as to what she is monarch of, that's another matter but not necessarily crucial here. Mutt Lunker (talk) 02:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

What about changing 'Monarch' to 'Monarch of the United Kingdom', as a possible change? GoodDay (talk) 02:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not clear what the purpose of this would be, whether it is more correct or not. Monarch of the United Kingdom as a title is at best a truncation of any official title and specifying what she is monarch of in the box is likely to lead to arguments without adding to clarity. She is the relevant monarch to the First Minister of Scotland, so surely simply monarch is correct and uncontentious. Mutt Lunker (talk) 02:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That something might be contentious, is never a good reason to avoid clarification. Unfortunately, when I recommended Monarch of the United Kingdom in the infoboxes of Wales, Scotland, England & Northern Ireland - it was rejected with some insults thrown at me. GoodDay (talk) 02:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If your preferred designation - contentious or not - did add to clarity you may have a point. I can't see how it does in any way. I'm not suggesting avoiding contention but advocating a term which so happens to be uncontentious. Mutt Lunker (talk) 02:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, I wouldn't advocate Monarch of Scotland or of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories or ...of anything else, if for no other reason than they are superfluous in the context. Mutt Lunker (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll sit back & wait to see how others feel about these concerns of mine. I wish to note, there was an inconsistancy among the infoboxes-in-question - some had the Monarch included, while a few didn't. GoodDay (talk) 02:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Consistency between the types of infobox may not necessarily be appropriate since the constitutional set-ups in each context may not be consistent and this may have a bearing. However, because of the constitutional role of the Sovereign in Scotland I'm certain they are pertinent to First Minister bio infoboxes at least. For this case can we establish agreement at least on inclusion?

Haven't fully thought this through but it just occurs that it's her role as Sovereign that's crucial in the context, not that she happens to be a monarch (let alone 'of' what). Sovereign rather than monarch..? I'm sleeping on it. Mutt Lunker (talk) 03:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather deletion of Elizabeth II or changing her discriptive to 'Monarch of the United Kingdom'. I seek either of these changes as the office of First Minister represents a non-sovereign state (same with the Welsh & Northern Irish FMs). GoodDay (talk) 03:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Please don't make changes here or on the other country information boxes until you have agreement. The case in Scotland is stronger given the Union of Crowns anyway. Assent in the various assemblies is given by the Queen so the constitution position is clear. --Snowded ^TALK 07:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Making such changes, is called being bold. GoodDay (talk) 16:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

When a discussion is taking place on those changes and its not showing a consensus in your favour then its not called being bold, its called being disruptive. --Snowded ^TALK 18:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You're boring me, again. GoodDay (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I think what we have is perfectly fine. Monarch is correct. She is the Monarch, and she has a constitutional role. The First Minister of Scotland is appointed by the Monarch. The First Minister of Wales is appointed by the Monarch. In Northern Ireland, the situation is more complex (the Queen doesn't seem to appoint, as far as I can tell, but she does assent to legislation). The analogy to the US President and the US States is entirely unconvincing. The President of the United States has no role whatsoever in the State governments (they are not devolved parliaments). He neither appoints Governors nor assents to legislation in their legislatures nor has any power of veto, theoretical or otherwise. Arguably, the Canadian infoboxes are the ones that should be changed, per Monarchy in the Canadian provinces. I'd like to note, just as an NPOV observation, that User:GoodDay has a huge Canadian flag and the byline "May we someday become a republic". Anti-monarchy sentiment is not a good reason for removing relevant information.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

GoodDay's prominent user page assertion is a bit of an elephant in the room but it puzzles me as to how removing references to what one sees as an undesirable institution would further any agenda, were there to be one, against it. Surely one is as likely to wish to highlight the existence of the object of displeasure. If there is an angle it seems more to be to shoe-horn in another opportunity to flag that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not sovereign states, which is neither here nor there as far as providing the information in the box is concerned. The office that the First Minister reports to is highly pertinent for inclusion. The office, like it or not, is that of the monarch and that is clear and sufficient. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Whilst sympathising with GoodDay's wishes that Canada, and by extension the constituent countries under discussion here, should take a more circumspect view of the House of Windsor and their role in the affairs of state, I can't see any reason to either avoid QEII's appearance in these infoboxes, or to use 'Monarch of the United Kingdom'. The former would mean the absence of relevant information, and the latter would be seen as inaccurate, point-scoring, or both. Nonetheless, thank-you, GD, for bringing the subject here for consideration. Ben MacDui 11:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a Canadian republican. But I don't push my political views on monarchial pages. I've approached such articles in a NPoV way, that there are editors who have suggested I'm a closet monarchist. Anyways, Monarch of the United Kingdom would've been more accurate & educational showing, then just Monarch. But since the response is 'no', I'll revert my deletions (if Snowded hasn't beaten me to it). GoodDay (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. I meant no offense. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem. GoodDay (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

This is completely fascinating. I didn't spot any argument that Liz was not Monarch of Scotland in the thread above. Could anybody supply one? I mean a constitutional one: not merely a potential alternative claimant. Scotland has a monarch; she is that person; Scotland's monarch. If I asked someone in Dumfries 'who is your queen?' they would answer the same as in Swansea.Unoquha (talk) 23:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I know I'm eight months late, but I feel I can help by explaining. There has been no "King/Queen of Scots" since 1707, when that sovereign state ceased to be due to the Acts of Union which created the new sovereign state of Great Britain and Queen Anne and her successors became "Queen/King of Great Britain". (Which sovereign state ceased to be in 1801 when the new United Kingdom was created. Her monarchs have since been "King/Queen of the United Kingdom"). The simple reason there is no Monarch of Scotland (or of England, or of Wales, or of Northern Ireland) is because there is no longer a sovereign state "Scotland" (etc.) of which to be monarch (sovereign). DBD 11:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

WPENGVAR template:Scottish English

{{Scottish English}} use of the flag is in question, see Template talk:American English

184.144.160.156 (talk) 02:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Engender/Engender Women's Budget Group/Scottish Women's Budget Group/Women's Budget Group of Scotland

Hey, I'm having a bit of a problem here. I'm having trouble figuring out what relationship these groups have to each other.

1. This source says that EWBG and SWBG are the same group.
2. This source gives Engender's web address as the address of the EWBG.
3. This source gives Engender's web address as the address of the WBGS.
4. Engender and SWBG currently have separate web addresses.
5. This source says Engender was founded in the mid-1990s (and here is an article on it from 1994), while this source says the EWBG was founded after devolution in 1999.

Can anyone help? Thanks, Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Feature failures

Does anyone know why we keep a list of failed FA candidates? Whilst this is a salutary warning as to the difficulties I am not sure if it achieves much other than putting off anyone attempting to write one. I will remove it unless there are any objections. Ben MacDui 16:11, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Done Ben MacDui 10:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Monro's Scots

I have provided a translation of Dean Monro's comments about the Shiant Isles, but I am baffled by one phrase: "mair nore an arrow shot of any man under the eirde". He is referring to a sea cave and I have guessed "longer than the arrow shot of any man on earth" (which would be an exaggeration). Clarifications welcome. Ben MacDui 10:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Henderson Street

Could anyone please help improve Henderson Street (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - in particular, fixing the issues with tags, because it is the first article from a new user, and I am trying to get it worthy of DYK here. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  05:11, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

TFD:Former possessions of Norway

Template:Former possessions of Norway is being considered for deletion. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. Ben MacDui 12:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

New article: Scots Wikipedia

The general benchmark for having WP articles about WP sites is third-party coverage, so I dug up an article with a variety of comments on whether Scots Wiki is an embarrassing parody or a reclamation of a culture, and added that to the boilerplate and stats to make a basic article. Thought folks might find this interesting, and if anyone else can lay hands on a reliable source, most likely the media commenting on the site, it'd be good to add that to the article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Elgin spam

A large section on the DIY music scene in Elgin, Moray has been repeatedly added by several IP editors, all BT addresses so probably one editor with a dynamic IP address. This text is full of embedded links to Facebook, MySpace, Bandcamp pages and the like, and seems to have no reliable third-party references. In the latest edit summary the IP editor asks that we remove content selectively rather that reverting wholesale. I can't find anything in this section that could pass as encyclopedic, but what does anyone else think? --Deskford (talk) 23:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Left a tiny bit but it's about big shot acts visiting Elgin rather than the Elgin scene, citations could be better and I wouldn't object if it's felt that this should also be ditched. Mutt Lunker (talk) 08:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems a bit mean to remove the local scene entirely, although I have no enthusiasm for extracting/finding sensible sources. Ben MacDui 16:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

If pointed in the right direction the IP editor(s) might be shown how to find some better sources and how to find out how to use them but it's difficult to know on which talk page to leave any advice. Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

You could just try the Elgin talk page... Ben MacDui 17:31, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs?

{{SLD MSPs}}

I'm wondering whether we should delete this as "practically empty" or simply merge it with "others".--Scott Mac 13:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

This is most unfair. They still represent many important islands - although I fear Labour is now down to The Bass and the tiddlers in Loch Lomond. Ben MacDui 16:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking that too, but then it seemed to me that this would be crystal ball gazing (and perhaps hubris). Mind you, there's a lot more articles linked to it than there are SLD MSPs, and the same is true of {{Labour MSPs}} and many other parly related templates. This is a clue that there are no end of MSP and former MSP articles need updating. My factoid and template updates may be OK, but I'm not sufficiently disinterested to be writing new articles. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

These things go up and down. Sure there are very few Liberals at the moment. But who knows what the situation will be five years from now. I would just leave the templates. In my opinion, removing them within such a short time would be a form of "recentism". -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Lighten up. It was a political joke at their expense. Maybe we should also merge the UK LibDem MP cats with the Tory ones. We could put a dotted line in the middle to remind ourselves of the difference.--Scott Mac 17:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Didn't realise that I was being heavy... -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Requested move - Mike Russell MSP

• (Discuss) – Michael William Russell → Mike Russell (politician) – Per standard Wikipedia policy regarding naming of biographical articles, eg. see Bill Clinton and Bill Aitken (politician).

Please contribute to the Talk page discussion. Thanks. --Mais oui! (talk) 14:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Mass deletion of Scotland-related articles?

I am extremely concerned by an absolutely horrific AFD:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hinduism in Scotland

No argument whatsoever is made for deletion of the articles, except that the topic is "already covered" by the UK article. Followed to its logical conclusion, are we about to see a mass campaign to delete thousands of England-, Wales, NI- and Scotland-related articles? This place is hostile enough to Scotland-interested editors at the best of times without such a blatant British Nationalist AFD being allowed to go unchallenged. --Mais oui! (talk) 00:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh Castle

I've nominated Edinburgh Castle for an A class review. Anyone is welcome to make comments at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Edinburgh Castle. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 08:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Scotland in the modern era

I have created this article to cover the embarrassing gap in the series of Scottish history articles. It is basically the text from Scotland and History of Scotland (and a few other places) with a few additions and a lot of extra citations. It needs some expansion (particularly the post-WWII era), so if interested editors can take a look and add (sourced) material that would be really helpful.--SabreBD (talk) 08:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

UNESCO "inscribes" what Wikipedia doesn't even describe

Recently I was happy to learn that something (English) that I appreciate had been listed ("inscribed") in something called the "UK Memory of the World Register", of which I'd not previously heard. (The international one, yes, I knew that; but not the British one.)

It turned out that this UK Memory of the World Register was on the up-and-up: it's created by UNESCO (though in Britain), and its inscriptions are appreciatively noted by the BBC and others. I thereupon created the "article" (all right, stub plus list) "UK Memory of the World Register".

At least a couple of Scottish items within the Register seem to go almost unmentioned in en:WP: the Chepman and Myllar prints (see this and this), and the Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collections (see this and this). Would anyone here care to have a go at boning up on and then writing up either? -- Hoary (talk) 07:52, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh Meetup - Monday 20th June

There is going to be a meetup in Edinburgh next Monday - from 6 pm on at the Beehive Inn, 18-20 Grassmarket. Just an informal chat in a pub. All welcome - ideally sign on the page if you plan to come, or just turn up. I'm not sure why this doesn't seem to have been notified before here; hopefully there will be a banner ad as well. Johnbod (talk) 11:59, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Local election articles

Hello. Scottish local elections, 1999 is missing vote totals by party. I haven't been able to find these anywhere. Anyone got them handy? This isn't the only local election article to be short on info if anyone has the numbers to hand. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems odd, but I have had a look and can find nothing - and the cited Denver and Bochel article fails to mention it for some reason. Ben MacDui 13:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Kirkcaldy

hello, i would like to inform members of the WP:Scotland that the Kirkcaldy article recently underwent a peer review [7] which has been sorted by myself. as an editor working on the article, over a period of time, Kirkcaldy is in the process as a candidate for feature article status. here lies the problem, i'm not very sure how the feature article status nomination process works, nor i am sure if or when the article will be dealt with. currently, there are no comments. [8]

even though the article is well-written and well-sourced, i do need help from fellow members on the WP:Scotland who are willing to lend support.Kilnburn (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Cfd relating to renaming of categories for Alumni of Scottish schools

There is currently a discussion, started on August 1, in Cfd relating to the renaming of categories for Alumni of Scottish schools. Any contributions to the discussion would be appreciated. Cjc13 (talk) 21:51, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

What makes a good local article?

I'm writing a blog post about what makes a good local article (or set of articles) on Wikipedia - in other words articles about a specific place, such as a town or village, and its features, people, etc.

What do you think we currently do well, or badly, in that regard. What do you, or would you, like to see, in such articles? What are the best examples?

Please feel free to prior discussion, if you know of any. Cheers, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands/How to write a Good Article and the somewhat anglocentric How to write about settlements. The best examples are presumably the FAs, As and GAs as listed. Ben MacDui 17:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Very helpful; thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal being made on WT:IMOS

Might be of interest this proposal Mo ainm~Talk 15:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Gaelic

I was wondering if there was any task-force to do with the use of Scottish Gaelic throughout Scotland, for instance in the media, government, schools and also the cultural background behind it all. A lot of articles to do with this subject are out of date and are lacking up to date statistics. I don't know if it is just me, but I think it would be useful to have a task force within either this wikiproject or possibly the languages wikiproject (I will ask there if there is a negative response here.) Do people think this is worthy of coverage? Is it already covered by another project? I look forward to hearing opinions! JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 17:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice. I'd join if there was such a thing but I don't have time to set anything up. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I knew I'd see you around as soon as I put this discussion up! :) I have the time to do it but don't know how, so I may go ahead with this after some more discussion with other active members and reading up on procedures for this stuff. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 19:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Please note that the task force has been created for the moment at Scottish Gaelic task force. Also, is there anyone who can edit the WP Scotland talk header to include a section for Scottish Gaelic with the tag scottish-gaelic-task-force? JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 19:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

When was BBC Scotland first established?

Please see:

• Talk:BBC_Scotland#Date_of_foundation.3F

... and you might also like to take a wee keek at our brand spanking shiny new cat:

• Category:BBC Scotland

Please add to the cat if you are aware of any missing articles/subcats. Ta, --Mais oui! (talk) 04:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Missing articles (potentially)

Done a WP:AWB scan of all the Scots wikipedia articles and created a list of articles not linked to the English wikipedia. See list here. Maybe require interlinking, creating article here on .en or no action at all if topic is not notable. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks useful, I'll try and work through some of it. What should be done with articles on the list after adding interwiki links? Should they be ticked off, or removed from the list?

Also, can you produce an equivalent list for gd.wikipedia? It would be helpful for the Scottish Gaelic task force. Thanks. --Vclaw (talk) 01:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

My preference would be to remove stuff that is dealt with but do whatever works best for you. gd.wikipedia list now done. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Edinburgh Meetup this Saturday

Apparently there is a meetup occuring in Edinburgh this Saturday, 1st Oct. Notified on WP Edin and the Portal talk page, posting here too. Details here. Thanks Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 11:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Location map Scotland images reversed

In the location map template for Scotland (i.e. {{Location map Scotland}}), the relief map is used as the main image while the political map is used as an alternate (specified with image1). This is not consistent with {{Location map}} nor other location map templates. If I were to pass relief=1 to Location map Scotland, I should see the relief map but instead I see the political map because of these being reversed. Does anyone know if there's a particular reason why the Scotland location map template is not following the standard? What adverse side effects would result from switching the map images? I made a similar comment on the template's talk page but just wanted to ensure a broader audience of interest would be aware of this issue. RedWolf (talk) 04:56, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Patrick Hume, 1st Earl of Marchmont

Do we have any experts on Covenanters and Jacobites? The Patrick Hume, 1st Earl of Marchmont article is clearly a copy n paste from somewhere, and completely contradicted by another article. Could someone please clarify, preferably with ext refs? Please see:

• Talk:Patrick Hume, 1st Earl of Marchmont

--Mais oui! (talk) 07:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Chicken tikka masala

Prompted by a disagreement over the inclusion of Chicken tikka masala under Scottish cuisine, there's a discussion regarding inclusion of foods on the basis of being traditional or otherwise, etc.. Any thoughts? Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Gaelic placenames

Over the last few years a loose convention has evolved whereby articles about Scottish towns and places include (where available) the Gaelic form of the name in the lead and in the infobox. User:Uvghifds has taken issue with this in the Montrose, Angus article, removing the Gaelic Monadh Rois from the lead and infobox. While I understand his reasoning (Montrose is outwith the Gàidhealtachd), I believe some discussion is in order to reach a consensus on this. See discussion at Talk:Montrose, Angus. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 20:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I feel strongly that these should only be included where there is proper third party reference to Gaelic (and Scots) versions of the name actually being used, per WP:V. Hobbyist lists won't suffice. --John (talk) 04:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a discussion of sorts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland/Scottish Gaelic task force which could use more input. --John (talk) 18:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

External link discussion

A discussion which may interest members of this WikiProject has been stated at WP:ELN#eastkilbride.co.uk regarding an external link currently in use on an article within scope of this WikiProject. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

FA review

I have nominated Encyclopædia Britannica for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Snowman (talk) 19:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Dunnet Head

I reverted an addition at Dunnet Head that looked like promotion to me, but was reverted myself. Seeing that Andy Strangeway has his own article, I'd like to know wheter the added information should be kept after all. And what about the external link, is that spam or not? Cheers, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it is trivia and of marginal relevance and that it's up to you. You may wish to avoid any allegations or ad hominen remarks as I think I am correct in recalling that Mr. Strangeway lodged a complaint after someone made an off-hand edit. In my view the external link is spam. See also his talk pageBen MacDui 10:12, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I see another editor has removed it again. I don't think it's appropriate to have details of Mr Strangeway's expeditions in the articles for every place he has visited. I've removed these details from Out Stack and Soay, St Kilda. Other editors have already removed him from Mull of Galloway and Bound Skerry. I've left him in Rockall as in the context of placing plaques and asserting ownership he seems possibly more relevant here. --Deskford (talk) 12:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I see someone reverted my changes without explanation. I don't want to get into an edit war, not least because at the moment I tend to be away from here for several days at a time. Can we establish a consensus, perhaps on the talk page for Mr Strangeway, then refer to that when removing him from other articles? --Deskford (talk) 00:46, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted them again. They are clearly promotional in intent. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we're going to have to keep an eye or two on this! --Deskford (talk) 14:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, just seen your assessment of the sources on Talk:Andy Strangeway. Good work! My feeling is that he might just be notable enough to have an article, but not to be mentioned in all the place articles. --Deskford (talk) 14:45, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Copyvio problem - Thomas Muir (political reformer)

This is an important biographical article for our project. We ought to have some quality, referenced content. Please see:

• Talk:Thomas Muir (political reformer)

--Mais oui! (talk) 09:02, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I have restored the article to the version prior to the copyvio. That allows it to now be rebuilt. The place the material was copied from [9] could be a good source of information, providing it is rewritten and properly attributed in the sourcing. Anyways, those interested can now work on this.--Scott Mac 10:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Season's Greetings! - brand new article today: Christmas in Scotland

One for your Watchlist!

• Christmas in Scotland

Fancy helping this become a Did you know? All help with expansion and referencing greatly appreciated. I imagined several sections, eg pre-Reformation, the long period of abolition, and the modern era. Cheers.

Archaeological resources

I stumbled across this, which might be of interest to some here - a complete digitised run of Archaeologia Scotica and the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, plus a number of monographs published by the society. Not open content per se, but certainly free-to-use. Shimgray | talk | 21:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Pittenweem: possible copyright issue

I notice that a substantial block of text in the Pittenweem article — the paragraphs in the Religion section from "The Tolbooth was home to..." to the end of the section — appear verbatim on many other websites. These range from tourist websites to the BBC Scotland site. It is possible that all these other sites copied the text from Wikipedia, but since it is unreferenced and largely unwikified it looks like it could have been copied and pasted here from one of the other sites. Should we remove it? --Deskford (talk) 22:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The text in question appears to have been added in this edit with no edit summary by an IP editor in 2007. --Deskford (talk) 22:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The same text appears here on the BBC website dated April 2006, so I will remove it from our article as a copyvio. --Deskford (talk) 22:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit war over at Gallowglass

Hi. It would be appreciated if we could have some extra expert opinion over at Talk:Gallowglass. Cheers.Mais oui! (talk) 12:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)