Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 6

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Assessments

Perhaps it doesn't matter very much but as a project I suspect we are way off the pace in this area. The Assessment department stats show there are more than 1000, and that's just those with the WP Scotland banner on them. At a guess, I'd say there are probably between 10,000 and 20,000 articles without a banner at all. The reviewers are keeping up-to-date with the occasional review requests, and many new articles are being assessed and old ones re-assessed all the time, but please don't assume "someone else" is keeping up with the numerous new articles that are being continually generated. There may be a case for attempting to split the task into various sub-sections if anyone is so motivated. See also Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Scotland articles by quality log if you are curious. Ben MacDui 19:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you think its worth attempting a "tag and assess" drive, similar to the drive carried out by the Military History project? (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive) Would enough people want to participate in such a drive? Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this drive, and yes, I think its a good idea. The task is probably too big for any single individual to take on, but if a few willing hands were found the backlog could be cut down considerably. It doesn't have to involve major commitments, just a willingness to watch the new articles list and Assessment department stats, and tag and assess when so inspired. I'd say an ideal minimum number of participants would be 10, although it could probably be done by 5 if they were willing to stick to it. By all means count me in as one of the willing if there is a sufficient head of steam. Ben MacDui 20:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Coincidentally, the Template:WP Scotland has just been updated too. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The GA's now all have an "importance" rating bar one where I have a COI. Ben MacDui 16:49, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The Top and Highs all have a rating although the system is not yet recognising the List class articles. Ben MacDui 17:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I fear we are largely snoozing on this subject. So it goes. Ben MacDui 20:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello Ben - I undertook the GA review a little while back on Scotland during the Roman Empire, and have just recently started to get involved in the assessment side of this project. I found some of the above comments a little hard to follow. Sometimes, material on this discussion page reads like the second half of a conversation that happened... somewhere (my favourite is one of Shoemakers Holiday's contribs below). What are you meaning by articles with "no banner at all" - do you mean articles that would be within the Scotland project scope but are not tagged as such on their talk pages? That would certainly be a lot to hunt down... I'll go back to my sporadic tagging and rating for now, but will try and keep an eye out. Is there a reason to leave assessment requests on the assessment page once they have been responded to? I noticed some marked with strikethrough, and did that myself for one, then thought "why am I not just deleting this, now it's done?" Am i missing something? Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:44, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to reply. Yes, I meant by "no banner at all" as you surmise. Re the assessments it is only useful in that it shows something has been done. They could be archived or removed. Incidentally, at WP:IS/A there are list of "Unassessed" and "Completed", which I think is easier and neater, but no matter either way. Ben MacDui 13:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Does the list look any better now? <g> I'm sorry if I've deprived you of your fun hamiltonstone... I did a couple of hundred manually, then threw my assessment bot at the rest. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good (previous tests have shown >98% agreement with human assessment of quality) - and assessment can be pretty subjective anyway, even when doing it manually I find myself dithering over 10% of articles. But having saved many hours of manual assessments, I'd appreciate it if as many people as possible spend 20 minutes skimming through the final list. I'm not going to take offence if you change things, but getting everything roughly right is more important IMO than having some done "perfectly" and a whole lot of unknowns hanging over us.

The data I generate for the bot allows me to do other things to tidy up articles - I catch instances where Talk pages have become detached from their articles, and Project banners are on redirects for instance. I've already added categories to all 100-odd unassessed articles that didn't have any, my attention's now turning to the articles that had already been assessed. I'll add cats, and reassess articles that have grown without being reassessed - I've already done those listed as Stubs that had grown beyond 6kb for instance. I can also do things like slapping {{reqphoto}} on articles that don't have images. There's two switches I've used that don't actually do anything in the banner yet - auto=yes is just a visible reminder that a bot has been used for the assessment, and I encourage you to remove it once you've eyeballed the article yourseld. Towards the end I started adding needs-infobox=yes - the bot doesn't detect all infoboxes perfectly, but it was one of those things that I thought was worth adding to the appropriate articles and then we can decide whether we want the banner to use that switch to create a category or something.

As for Ben's request to add untagged articles - it's actually quite a bit easier for my bot to operate on untagged articles than to reassess existing banners, so I'm happy to do something on that front. It certainly saves a lot of work for my bot to do it than have something like SQLbot raid the categories and then we have to assess the results manually. But it won't be tomorrow, it's more of a winter job. <g> Then again, it's not as though the Project is short of things to work on already.... Sorting through the categories takes time, but I might do the town and village categories in the next few weeks, as that should be fairly quick to do.

I did some preliminary work on something similar for the Italy Project, they had ~11,000 articles already tagged and there were about 13,000 biographies and 8,000 non-biographies untagged. So I'd guess that by analogy it's probably closer to 10,000 than 20,000 Scottish articles untagged - and up to two-thirds of those will be biographies. It might make sense to start thinking about a Scottish taskforce of WP:WPBIO rather than tagging them directly with the Scotland banner? FlagSteward (talk) 12:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Amazing to see only 20 unassessed articles - great work indeed. Interesting stats from Italy - I am not really much into Bios myself but it may well be an easier way forward. I'll have a look at the list when I get some time. Ben MacDui 13:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This cunning new wheeze is described at Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing. Essentially a bot will deliver updates on all articles with a WP Scotland banner that are up for deletion, DYK, assessments and reviews etc. When its operational it would probably make sense to watch the sub-page it creates for changes rather than the News section of WP:SCOWNB as the updates are transcluded. Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Article alerts should appear in a few days. Ben MacDui 10:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sleeping Warrior

With a degree of perhaps over-enthusiasm I decided to add a gap in the Arran collection of articles and started work on The Sleeping Warrior. This turned out to be a rather baffling and unusual assignment. Firstly numerous websites refer to somewhat different profiles and I have found nothing definitive as a written description so far. However, a quick hunt around Flickr seems to reveal some semblance of sense. If this is clearly the head and shoulders, and this a rather wonderful and definitive image of the whole shape, all becomes clear. Local knowledge, better references etc. appreciated. Ben MacDui 20:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Scotland in the Early Modern Era

I've created this by pasting text from History of Scotland. Please review this creation, esp. in terms of periodization, which is rather random, and name (Early Modern Scotland better?). It leaves one more period article to be created, the one covering the period after the Napoleonic wars (the HoS templat calls it "Scotland in the Modern Era", but this title is far from satisfactory as it isn't exclusive of Early Modern Era). There is however not enough content in the HoS article to create a fork. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:52, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Edinburgh coat of arms

The Edinburgh coat of arms image got deleted as it had no license info. I have re-uploaded it, with a fair-use rationale for the articles Edinburgh, Politics of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Castle, and Coat of arms of Edinburgh. If there are any others that need this image, please add further rationale to the image page. I also removed the coa image from templates, replacing it with a home-made alternative image. Hopefully it won't get deleted again! Maybe worth checking if other coats of arms are similarly at-risk. Regards, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 15:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Merged the article created for it into the primary article for Edinburgh, and added the image to the Edinburgh infobox. What significance does it have aside from being symbolic of Edinburgh? DeMatt (talk) 09:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:39, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

CoI alert on University of St Andrews pages

Students in a campaign group at the University of St Andrews are editing wikipedia to promote their campaign ("Lower Rents Now Coalition"). Please be on the look-out for this and watchlist the relevant pages, which include University of St Andrews, David Russell Apartments, and of course the group itself, Lower Rents Now Coalition. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Categorizing 16th century biographies

How should articles about men and women of the 1st half of the 16th century be categorized? In the example Janet Beaton, Category:Women of medieval Scotland seems too early; I am happy to make a new category, but I am not sure what would be consistent with this project. Thanks. - PKM (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't put any woman born after the 15th century in that category. It will probably be a good idea to create new categories for women who lived afterwards: E.g. Category:Woman in 16th-century Scotland, Category:Woman in 17th-century Scotland, etc. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Micklewood bridge at Doune

The 19th Century Micklewood bridge at Doune is mentioned on Underspanned suspension bridge; could anyone add details (such as fate of the bridge) or photos? --Una Smith (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, I'll have a look next time I'm at the library. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 08:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Local chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation

We are Wikimedia UK - the group of local Wikimedians helping the Foundation to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Love Wikipedia? Based in the UK? Can you support us in projects such as generating free-content photographs, freeing up archive material and media relations? Or are there other projects you'd like us to help with? if so, please click here to Join up, Donate and Get Involved

AndrewRT(Talk) 21:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Pre-Union parliamentarians

Hi all.

I'm currently redrafting George Heriot, and I noticed that the Dictionary of National Biography talks about his father (also George Heriot, 1540-1610) being an MP; it doesn't give details, but I'd presume for Edinburgh. Does anyone know if there's an accessible list somewhere of c16th Scottish Members of Parliament? It'd be nice to sort out a footnote about him... Shimgray | talk | 19:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Peer reviewer required

Would anyone like to do a peer review of the Susan Boyle article. SunCreator (talk) 04:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I am not a member of this project. You may want to standardize and expand the Susan Boyle related article Blackburn, West Lothian. I did some minor edits there. The article needs new ratings as well. Just thought that I would bring this to the project's attention. ~ All is One ~ (talk) 10:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Blackburn - done. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:15, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Targets for end of July - Homecoming?

I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for ways to tie Wikipedia in to the events of Homecoming Scotland 2009 in three months time? As I've suggested over on the Clans project, it might be asking too much to see one or all of Scottish clan, Tartan and Kilt as the front-page featured articles for the three days of Homecoming, but it would be nice to get them (and Sept (social)) up to WP:GA by then. Anyone fancy taking them on? They're pretty fundamental articles in any case - and some of the most popular, that big 3 are all averaging over 18000 pageviews/month - so it's an opportunity for someone to really make a difference. Scottish Highlands is another "biggy" that could do with some work, and the Homecoming article itself is pretty stubby, although I understand it's hard to write the article before the event happens. Le Deluge (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Northern Scotland

I came across the above article and frankly, its a bit of a disaster - totally unreferenced and full of POV statements. I've cleaned it up a bit but it needs a lot of work to bring it up to scratch. I'm not a member of this wikiproject but took the liberty of adding your banner to the talk page to flag it up. Could somebody check it to see if the ratings are right (I'm not sure what the importance should be) and give it a bit of TLC? Thanks Richerman (talk) 23:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Forget that, its a complete cut and paste from a BBC website. I've put it up for speedy deletion. Richerman (talk) 23:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Scottish nationality

Watchers of this page might like to contribute to a discussion at Talk:Alex Salmond about the nationality field in the biography infoboxes of Scots, especially those of SNP politicians. Or perhaps the discussion should be here. Viewfinder (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Featured pictures and sounds

You've fallen a bit behind here - I've just added two more of each that I've nominated, and am in the process of scanning and preparing a series of Featured picture candidates on the works of Sir Walter Scott. Rob Roy is up at the moment, The Bride of Lammermuir just passed. Thinking of Black Dwarf or Ivanhoe or Heart of Midlothian next, though I'll have to check - the set isn't complete, so it may be that some simply aren't possible. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

spurious orthographic reforms on Scots Wikipedia

I've expressed some concerns on my talk page regarding the manufacture of entirely new, supposedly Scots, spellings of proper names that are already Scots on the Scots wikipedia, and their potential for tainting the wider wikisphere. The particular example regards the infection of the Kirkcaldy article with the spurious Scots version of the name as Kirkcaudy. It's evident that this was a good faith edit, but sourced from a new spelling, cooked up on the talk page of the Scots article. I reverted the addition to the English article as the only apparent source is the Scots article. I'm discussing the matter on the Scots article but there is as yet no consensus and what I would view as worrying disrespect for wiki policy in regards to active advocacy of the concoction of new orthographies - essentially original research. I elaborate a little further on my talk page.

I fear the issue is wider than just the name of Kirkcaldy, and such maverick action on the Scots wiki could, and probably has, spilled out in to the English one and those of other tongues. Er, help... Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been pissing me off for ages. I have removed "Embra" from the Edinburgh article. The whole point is that the word "Edinburgh" is Scots! The English language merely uses the original Scots name. Same for all other Scottish towns. All unreferenced names purporting to be Scots must be removed. --Mais oui! (talk) 10:47, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a huge issue, been bothering me for ages too. Scots is not a written language, and in the time when "Scots" was a written language it was not clearly distinguished from English and spellings weren't consistent. Some body with real authority, likes the ones they have for Celtic languages, needs to standardize an orthography based on local pronunciations, for this to work on wiki. In reality, the prestige written form of modern Scots is standard Commonwealth English, which its as close to as many other English dialect groups. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It is huge, and contentious (e.g. I have some disagreements* with the para above, but not over the fundamental issue, so I won't divert the discussion). I'd agree that it is highly desirable that a body with authority draw up conventions and standardized orthography, potentially constructing neologisms or promoting previously unused or unconventional spellings, and that this should inform usage on the Scots Wikipaedia. The problem is that some editors on the Scots wiki seem to believe that they are this appropriate body, to me in clear conflict with policies and guidelines, particularly on verifiability. I'm not sure whether this is through ignorance, wilful flouting or a bit of both. To give the benefit of the doubt, the help pages, policies and guidelines etc. on Scots wiki are as yet rather undernourished, with some that are there as yet untranslated from English. It may also be from my comparative lack of familiarity but they also seem a little harder to navigate. Improvement of these may be a worthwhile start in tackling this issue.

Also, my impression is that citation of material (in general and not just in regard to orthography) seems to be less widespread than in other wikis and could be improved.

Despite personally largely inhabiting the English wiki, I'm as keen to see the Scots wiki flourish and develop and certainly don't want to have an apparent battle between the two. However the ripples to the rest of the wikisphere mean that this is not just an internal issue to the Scots wiki. Any ideas for a plan of action at this Project, or possibly widening it further? Is there a wiki-wide standards and policies body for instance?

(*For the record, I'd maintain that Scots clearly is a written language, but without standardised spellings, or indeed pronunciations, and largely neglected in literature of all forms in modern Scotland in favour of the official and higher status tongue (i.e. English). What's more, to say that "the prestige written form of modern Scots is standard Commonwealth English" is to some extent like saying "the prestige written form of medieval Scots was standard medieval Latin". The former is much less utilised or standardised, the latter has the high status, but they're not the same thing.)
Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Another thought - is it worthwhile compiling a list of article names and/or proper names prone to having dubious and spurious Scots spellings added to them, as a firefighting exercise? Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, Latin isn't a product of the Scots-English dialect continuum, so it's not really the same. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the very reason I chose the example: the high status language in present day Scotland is Scottish or British or Commonwealth English, but simply because it is on a language/dialect continuum does not make it "modern Scots" any more than the (clearly more linguistically distinct) high status and vernacular pairing of medieval Latin and Scots.

That said, and more importantly for the issue at hand, conventionally much of modern Scots is similar or identical to Standard English and, as would be expected, particularly so for words or proper nouns originating in Scotland (such as Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh). The tendency of some Scots wiki editors to make a word or spelling choice on the basis, to quote another user, simply "tae gar it luik deifferent frae Inglis" is a cultural cringe that effectively awards a word or spelling to English and falsely banishes it from Scots whenever the more usual or conventional word is the same in Scots as English, even if it is of Scots origin (again such as Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh).

Anyway, any further thoughts on what to do? Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you know any examples where the "Scots" word for a place-name in Scotland should be different from English? I think if the users who are patriotic about Scots could be convinced of your line of argument (which is correct on that point I think), then we wouldn't need to have any Scots spellings in articles at all (though local IPA pronunciation with ogg would definitely be useful). Scots speakers are 100% literate in English, and as there's no standard orthography for the variety it's difficult to see how there could be different spellings. There are some historical spellings that make the names completely different from modern names, such as Ycolmkil (and variants) the older Scots word for Iona, but in these examples I'd guess the modern Scots word has surely become the same (as Iona is surely the modern Scots word). Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

There are certainly a few in Doric - Steenhive, The Broch, Kinker etc. Some are harder to assess. A local conversation would hardly ever refer to Lossiemouth as other than "Lossie", but does that make it a Scots word? Likewise "Peterheed", Aiberdeen and so on. "Furry Boots City" is just a nickname, but it's hard to put language in a box, especially when there is no formal oversight. Ben MacDui 18:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed there certainly are places that have different names in Scots than English. I'm only taking issue with the contrivance of new names or spellings to (spuriously appear to) heighten difference when none exists. Fawkirk. Kilconquhar is pronounced Kilconker in formal/English contexts but otherwise Kin-yucher in Scots; personally I don't know what the conventional spelling for the latter would be. Ainster, although the article has it Enster, which reflects the Scots pronunciation less well. Glesca is legit, but it's arguable if Glasgow is any less Scots. Scots versions may be more problematic orthographically and they may have to be looked at case by case but the problem shouldn't be insurmountable. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Scots language loses GA status

I guess as part of the GA sweeps, an editor has removed good article status from Scots language with just a week's notice, on the grounds of a lack of inline citations. Anyone fancy taking a look? It is a Top importanc article for the Project. FlagSteward (talk) 12:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Scottish battles

A bunch of Scottish battle stub articles have been proposed for deletion via WP:PROD 70.29.212.226 (talk) 04:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and rightly so. They are mainly the creations of Scotland Rules (talk · contribs) who, unfortunately, is mixing up fiction with actual history. Two of the battles that I've reviewed so far only exist in Blind Harry's Wallace, which is long since discredited as an actual historical source by historians (not least because it has been shown to contain several demonstrable falsehoods, as well as it apparently being made up by Harry some 200 years after the fact and not a translation of a contemporary account as claimed). I'm afraid that a good hard look at Special:Contributions/Scotland Rules by everyone is in order. Uncle G (talk) 01:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Help: 19th Century Scottish Clubs

I'm looking for some help regarding creating/editing/disambiguating articles related to 19th Century Scottish Clubs.

I'm currently working on creating articles on Scottish Cup seasons (eg. Scottish Cup 1876–77), and have found that there is very little information on the early participants (which there are many!). Furthermore, (possibly unrelated) clubs have similar names, and I am sure some links direct to these pages rather to the actual club. Moreover, there is little information on the evolution of some of these clubs to a present-day club (for example, Ayr Thistle merged to form Ayr F.C., and merged again to Ayr United F.C.).

I'm looking for help with people with knowledge of this era to help clean up existing articles, create new articles, and disambiguate some of the links.

Does anyone have any idea of good resources for this niche? Do we have enough enthusiasts for a task force? Macarism (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Gordon Brown GAR notification

Gordon Brown has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Treaty of York

Hello All, for the 1237 Treaty of York, I replaced the stub with an article, as the stub incorrectly said that the treaty determined the Anglo-Scottish border, which it did not. I then started to go through the what-links-here list to check what was said about the treaty and was appalled at the number of high-profile, important articles that need to be changed. I'm not comfortable about wading into all of this if so many people are under the impression that the treaty relates to the border. I made the change and I'll help clear up the collateral damage in other articles, but I'd rather this information not come as a surprise to those who defend the articles against spurious information and vandalism. Suggestions more than welcome.

Checking for the source of the original error, it seems to lie in this page of the UK National Archives website, which was cited in 2007 and has propagated into a number of articles in the meantime. The Treaty of York article as it now stands is well-cited, just click on the links to get to the appropriate pages, one of which includes an English translation of the treaty (provided by someone's PhD dissertation).

Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 02:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Treasure Island GAR notice

I have conducted a reassessment of the article as part of the GA sweeps process. The article needs some work to meet WP:GAC so has been delisted. You can find details of issues that need addressing at Talk:Treasure Island/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Template for former Scottish theatres?

After creating a couple of articles on former Scottish theatres I noticed there was no template appropriate for them. On looking at the King's Theatre, Glasgow I see the template for theatres of Scotland which is solely for those still in existence. Does having Category:Former theatres in Scotland obviate the need for a template to fit such articles? Coll Mac (talk) 17:21, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that if there are not likely to be a large number of former theatres, you should consider adding them to the existing template. (People interested in existing theatres are probably interested in former ones too). Something with two sections per Template:Hebrides might work best. A note to Template talk:Scottish Theatres in advance would probably be appreciated by wiki-theatregoers. Ben MacDui 18:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I shall take your advice and post a note there. As a newcomer I will have to ask them how to add them to the template (I hate being a newcomer anywhere, the sooner I'm a veteran the better). :) Coll Mac (talk) 18:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

If you look at Template:Hebrides in edit mode it will give you some clues. I'd copy the existing theatres template into a sandbox and muck about with it there if I were you. Just let me know if you need any help. Ben MacDui 08:39, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll do that, Ben. Thanks. Coll Mac (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

What's new pussycat?

Stung by ferocious criticism at Talk:Fauna of Scotland#Domesticated animals I have defended our collective honour by introducing List of domesticated Scottish breeds. I am intrigued to discover that we have a "national feline emblem" in the shape of the peculiar-looking Scottish Fold cat (pictured) and several of the breeds I had never even heard of before. Anyone with knowledge of the Shetland Goose, Scottish Tan Face sheep etc. (or those who just like pictures of Hielan' coos) welcome. Ben MacDui 19:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, well. You live and learn. It's all new to me too! Thanks for sharing. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:15, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Grumbles about the quality of the picture on the main page at Wikipedia talk:Did you know led to the unearthing that our glorious new national emblem is currently putting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the Tour de France in their place. See latest view hits. Ben MacDui 16:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Scotland location

New map (rejected)

Old map (insisted we continue to use)

A recent attempt was made to switch location maps but was reverted on grounds that there was a "census" a few years back. Times have changed now and the new map is much more clearer to display pin on. The one that is insisted we keep is in my view awful for the purpose. It doesn't even show any lakes or rivers, no division areas, the new svg is of a much higher quality than png anyway but the fact that is shows county divisions whilst the one we have at present does not makes it a much better location map. It also shows lakes and more of the smaller islands than the one we have at present. I suggest we review the situtaion and come to a new consensus. I strongly believe the new svg map looks much better for the purpose to clearly show location. I believe you came to a consensus on the old map when at the time a decent locator map of Scotland didn't exist, so therefore now we do have a high quality one I think it needs readdressing. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I, for one, agree that the new map looks much more useful, although I do like the relief shown by the old one. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 12:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The word you are looking for is "consensus", and it was achieved by excellent teamwork, here:

• Wikipedia_talk:Scottish_Wikipedians'_notice_board/Archive4#Scottish_Infobox_Map_Standardisation

--Mais oui! (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Back in March 2006. 3 and a half years ago. TImes have changed. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Has the human and physical geography of Scotland really changed all that much in 3 years? News to me. --Mais oui! (talk) 13:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Uuuhhhh, I mean the situation has changed because a decent svg map is now available, it wasn't back then. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus can change, I suppose although this is a pretty comprehensive debate and not one to be over-turned lightly.

The existing one only shows Loch Lomond it is true, but the main straths, almost all of which have a water body or two, do show up. (There are only about half a dozen "lakes" in Scotland, most of them very small, btw.) I don't see any rivers on the new one either.

The new one does show the small islands more clearly, and the inclusion of St Kilda is a big plus for me. However it draws unnecessary attention to the land borders, especially in Ireland and I don't think the "county" divisions are all that useful at this scale either.

On balance I prefer the existing one. Ben MacDui 15:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well Scotland isn't independent. The current map makes it look like an island. To me it looks like a case of Scottish nationalism to remove the existence of England underneath, it seems, well odd. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Dear Dr., no doubt you mean well, and the above howlers about lakes and counties are perfectly understandable, but imputing motives to others isn't really very helpful. My comment specifically refers to the land borders in Ireland rather than with England and I wasn't even involved in the lengthy debate of 2006. I am quite open to a sensible discussion, and if you feel there are credible political reasons for a change as well as technical ones, by all means introduce them. However, I could do without the ad hominem remarks. Regards, Ben MacDui 16:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it did occur to me.... as I don't understand the legitimacy of having England as part of the sea!! I'm Welsh by the way and know how some people feel about England LOL. You know that the pin map can cropped to remove more of Ireland though? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I must admit I find the red dot on a dark green map difficult that is my main concern, remember also that 10% of the male population are colour blind so would not be able to distinguish the difference. Is there any particularl reason why the map makes Scotland an island either? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The color issue is reasonable enough and could well do with a fix if the original is retained. As to the second I am not aware of one, although the amount of land involved furth in the original would be quite small. It also seems to me that the slightly larger size of the original is also advantageous. Ben MacDui 16:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

All I know it that most other wikiprojects jump at the chance to have an svg map which displays county boundaries and islands which don't appear on other maps. Every other wikipedia has replaced this map with an svg as they evidently also think it an improvement. I had thought so too, I thought it was a step in thr right direction otherwise Charles Matthews wouldn't have made the chance. I really didn't enviasage that anybody would think the old map of higher quality. I must admit I do like the relief on the green map but for a pin map, well... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This may be a silly question, but... could the two be merged? I.e. can the outline one be given relief? Each one seems to have advantages that the other one doesn't. The color-blindness issue could perhaps be addressed by making the relief (light)gray-scale. Just an idea... -- Fullstop (talk) 17:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a silly question at all, I don't think that would be possible though. If you must keep the old map though I would prefer to see the sea colored in blue, it so at least distinguish England and the sea and perhaps convert to gray scale. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:COLOUR and thing like the standard that seems to have become universal (see Category:Location map by country templates) I think the svg should be the primary use. chandler 18:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

So, um, could someone try to make a composite, such that the advantages of each are taken into consideration? This would be just to get a rough idea.

ps: since it would just be for demonstration purposes, even a png would do for now. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Scotland location map.svg is better because it shows, that Scotland isn't an island. --Obersachse (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I like the way the old map shows topography, and the way the new map gives context and shows internal divisions. A hybrid map that does both would be good. --Carnildo (talk) 21:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice too to make use of the massive expanse of the North Atlantic to the northwest to show Scotland in an international context in a side box - say in Europe? --Jza84 |  Talk  21:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like different projections have been used to create the two maps, so they will not overlap/merge. Locations shown accurately on one will be misplaced on the other (sometimes in the water), unless the software accounts for this difference. Not sure why Dr. Blofeld suggests that it would not be possible to transform the relief map to svg with color blindness problem addressed. How is it possible to be able to create maps with content you favour, but not maps with content you dislike? Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Deacon of Pndapetzim

Just thought that members might like to know that it looks like User:Deacon of Pndapetzim (formerly known as User:Calgacus) is leaving Wikipedia. I'm sure that you will join me in wishing him all the very best. He has made a truly outstanding contribution, on so many levels. He is, I fear, a victim of the (ahem) "populist" tendencies of the average Wikipedia editor. Nuff said. --Mais oui! (talk) 08:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I for one am not giving up on Deacon - he is one of my favourite editors and let's not wave farewell just yet. However, can I say that the straw that broke his particular camel's back was a sustantive discussion at FAC that I would not count as part of the rising tide of crap that I know some editors including Mais oui are concerned about. I hope we can resolve the particular issue at Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick that p*ssed him off, and that he will provide as many valued contributions in future as he has in the past. hamiltonstone (talk) 08:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You concluded that Deacon left because the issue of Donnchadh vs. Duncan p*ssed him off? Maybe so, but only if Deacon agrees with you, and not otherwise.

Deacon can take a public mugging as well as anyone. Perhaps his perspective was affected by the passers-by who expressed no disagreement with the mugger's actions, but simply wondered aloud if the mugger's reasoning might not have some merit. The rational muggee's response might be "Damn, what's the point? I'm out of here."

This was not a discussion. It was a poisoned process whereby a contributor's vitriolic and toxic opinions carried the day by virtue of aggressive persistence, the merits of the argument be damned.

It began with an accusation against Deacon that the article contained "invented modern Gaelic formulation", followed by a "google hits comparison", accompanied by the snide and patronising characterisation of "quaint neo-celtic spelling". Things went downhill from there. Deacon's rational responses were twisted (my characterisation) to make him appear aggressive so that he was forced to begin a response with "Please don't take offence, but your post is riddled with historical misunderstandings."

And from this it is concluded that the merits of the argument really mattered, without mention of the toxicity in the process? Please reconsider. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 17:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I concur with hamiltonstone. The Deacon's absence is a huge loss to WP:Scotland but I too am hopeful that he may take a well-earned rest and then return to enliven us once more. I sincerely believe in the long-term educational value of Wikipedia, but its easy to forget it is also just a hobby. If it's not fun, it's time to take a break. Nonetheless, I completely missed the whole Donnchadh vs. Duncan issue and I will look into it and see if I can assist in any kind of resolution. Ben MacDui 20:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I did have one small argument with Deacon - it was based on a mutual misunderstanding (nothing to do with the FAC article mentioned above), and lasted for three or four talk-page paragraphs each. We reached agreement within that time, and then went forward with no further issues, indeed backing each other up when later presenting the point to others. Sorry. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Redrose64, although I can't imagine you have much to apologise for. I did make a few comments at Talk:Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick which have been met with stony silence - which I take as assent, of course. One of the points I made was that a possible solution involved "Members of WikiProject Medieval Scotland draft[ing] a simple MOS for articles relating to the period in question. They post a link from WP:MOS when it is completed to their satisfaction. If other editors wish to discuss the subject, they do so there" - rather than making the FAC process a more miserable experience than it needs to be.

As I mentioned at the time, I proposed it not in the expectation that it would be undertaken or if undertaken would succeed, although it has, to a degree worked elsewhere. It occurs to me that a relatively small project like WP Medieval Scotland might find this a tiresome task, but there might be some scope for attempting to achieve something similar across WP Scotland. I realise the subject probably don't affect most of us but it might be worth a try. Issues worth a mention might include:

• the use of Gaelic names per the above
• Scottish English expressions
• peerage issues (per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Graham, 3rd Earl of Menteith) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baron of Cartsburn
• using island infoboxes for islands

- I am not aware of much else. Perhaps we could call it the "Calgacus Memorial Manual of Scottish Style" "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Scotland-related)". Comments or expressions of enthusiasm welcome. Ben MacDui 19:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a new example: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related). Ben MacDui 07:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Talk:List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom#Lead image

I'm currently expanding the article on List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom and am pondering what should be used as the lead image(s). It's not the most important issue in developing the article, but I thought that as the list covers the whole of the UK that as many editors as possible should be given a say. I'll leave a note at the England wikiprojects and the Welsh wikipedian's noticeboard. Please leave any comments on the article talk page. Thanks, Nev1 (talk) 19:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Neolithic ‘temple’ revealed at site on Orkney

Please see:

• Talk:Heart_of_Neolithic_Orkney#Neolithic ‘temple’ revealed at site on Orkney

This will almost certainly require a new article, but we could perhaps start by mentioning it at the Heart of Neolithic Orkney article. --Mais oui! (talk) 09:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to mention the 4000 year old royal tomb found in perthshire recently. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ancient-royal-tomb-found-in-scotland-1771875.html. I'm sure as more information comes out it will make a good article. Jack forbes (talk) 22:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No Scotland in 1704

I've been enlightened that Gibraltar was captured by British, yes British, forces in 1704. Discussion unfolds at Talk:Disputed status of Gibraltar regarding this kind of thing. --Jza84 |  Talk  09:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It would have been polite to have notified editors on that page that you've initiated a discussion elsewhere and really an admin should know better than to edit war. The Treaty of Utrecht dates from 1713, which is when Gibraltar became British. Regards, Justin talk 13:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Glasgow

I was wondering if anyone would like to help with WikiProject Glasgow. I'm pretty busy in real life just now and don't have a lot of time for Wikipedia.Andrewmc123 11:39, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Scotland articles missing geographical coordinates

129 articles about geographically locatable subjects in Scotland are missing geographical coordinates. Finding the latitude and longitude of locations, and entering coordinates into articles is straightforwards, and explained at Wikipedia:How to add geocodes to articles. Having coordinates on articles using the {{coord}} template provides a link to the article's subject on a wide range of maps, and that links to the articles are provided in GoogleMaps, MultiMap and other such places which use wikipedia data. A breakdown of articles needing coordinates by region and in some cases local authority area is found at Category talk:Scotland articles missing geocoordinate data. All help in geo-coording them is welcome/urged/implored. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

before UK in 1707 which King? Scotland or England?

Please see discussion here and give your opinions. Regards Wikipedia_talk:UK_Wikipedians' notice board#before UK in 1707 which King? Scotland or England? IJA (talk) 22:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that you are wasting your time. JzA84 is correct in that the convention allows for the "most common form of the name used in English". The convention has a logic in that it is hard to see what other criteria should be used. On the other hand, in any given situation where, by and large, Scots make up 10% or so of contributions the net result is not that 10% of arguments are won to their satisfaction, but rather that almost all are lost 90/10. Ben MacDui 21:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Potato - raiding cookbooks for references

Hi all - the Culinary_uses cold do with a stack of references, and some embellishment, from reliable sources, so I'd appreciated it if folks raided their cookbooks for references - I am seeing whether we can get potato to GA...all help much appreciated :) - e.g. the Potato scone. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Peerage problem

Those interested in the Scottish peerage should be aware of an ongoing dispute I came across at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Graham, 3rd Earl of Menteith (2nd nomination) et seq.

See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Drawn Some and Richard Arthur Norton III. Ben MacDui 19:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Tagging and new taskforces for bios/football?

In the "Assessments" thread above (Feb-June 2009) I said I'd do something about the large number of Scotland-related articles that were not yet tagged with the Project's banner. Well I've had a chance to start on that mission, by collecting a list of >4100 categories that are somehow relevant. Even then I know I haven't got all of them, but I feel I'm well into the area of diminishing returns once the likes of Category:Scottish sausages and Category:Vanuatuan people of Scottish descent have made it into the list! I'd guess I've got 80-90% of the candidates, anyhow. I've done a first pass classifying them into islands, transport, bios etc and most importantly into "core" categories where it's safe to assume that every article is relevant to the Project and "fringe" categories where either only a fraction of entries are relevant to Scotland (the Presbyterian and Jacobite cats have a fair few Irish entries for instance) or the relevance is pretty tangential - Tony Blair is a member of both Category:People from Edinburgh and Category:Old Fettesians and has been tagged with the Project banner, but to be honest I don't think this Project has much to contribute to his article. But it's probably worth going through the fringe categories manually at some point, although I suspect that any articles that are truly relevant will also be tagged with "core" categories. The ultimate aim will be to point one of the tagging bots to a list of the core categories for ongoing automated tagging of any new additions to the categories - but those articles will then need assessing, my bot runs on a one-off basis but (with some considerable manual assistance) does the assessment as well.
So I'm now in a position to offer up some very crude stats on the scale of the task - don't take these as gospel. At present we have 5476 articles of which about 10% are bios. There are about 10,000 bios in "core" categories and another 10,000 bios or so in "fringe" categories (of which maybe 20-30% are relevant?). There are about 11,000 non-biographical articles in "core" categories of which about 8000 are not tagged at present (and mebbe 3000 in "fringe" categories, so <1000 are probably relevant, not really material in this context...). There's also nearly 5000 football biographies and 1500 non-bios connected with Scottish clubs - but how far do you go with those, even Henrik Larsson might be considered tangential to the main Scotland project, although he's got a better claim here than Blair. Where do people see the boundaries to the project? You can see different approaches just in the daughter projects, Castles set their definitions pretty tight whereas Islands take on anything that's vaguely relevant. In a similar vein, should there be separate Scottish taskforces of the biography and football projects? Where do people see the Project, as 25,000 articles of which >50% are biographies and (an overlapping) 25% are football related? Or half that size and primarily focussing on history and geography, with bios and football under the Project's umbrella but tagged separately? I know that the whole Project tagging thing is not an end in itself, it's just a way to help identify the articles most in need of work - but in a way it defines what the Project is about and I'm not going to do it without listening to people's views. In the meantime I can get on with some of the "uncontroversial" things like villages and some stuff for some of the daughter projects. FlagSteward (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think one of the reasons "Castles set their definitions pretty tight whereas Islands take on anything that's vaguely relevant" is that there are over 7,000 castles but only about 2-300 notable islands, so the latter project includes island related material in the 2,000 or so articles listed (much of which was never tagged for WP:SCO in the first place). My sense of the above is that there is no point in tagging articles with the SCO banner if they clearly fall under the scope of one of the sub-projects unless they are of high or top importance. However if there is no such option they should get the tag. Thus, if there is enthusiasm for e.g. a Scottish football task force most of 'em should get that tag (and why wouldn't there be if there are so many articles of this nature?). If not they are SCO. As far as the general purpose, I suspect that no-one pays much attention to the SCO updates (perhaps because there is so much "popular culture" clutter?) and tags and smaller sub-projects and task forces may be more effective anyway, but that's just a guess. Ben MacDui 12:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Culture de l'Écosse

The article on the Culture of Scotland in the francophone Wikipedia was recently labelled a featured article (article de qualité). If anyone reads French and cares to check it out:

• fr:Culture de l'Écosse

Most of the sources used to write the article appear to be in English, so it might be a candidate for translation, at least some portions of it could. -- Mathieugp (talk) 03:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Scottish and Roman law

The following text was added to Archive V relating to a discussion in February of this year. Ben MacDui 18:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello. The following should help you. It comes from "The Scottish Legal System" by White and Willock and is standard reading for first year Scottish law students. The three main "channels" (as White and Willock describe them) that introduced Roman law to Scotland were: the Canon law of the Catholic Church, the Regiam Majestatem, and the overseas studies by Scots law students in Civil law states. Canon law helped to fill the gaps and holes present in Scottish law at the time, as it was a "complete and self-sufficient legal apparatus". The Regiam Majestatem, compiled of mostly English law, was supplemented by Continental writers on Roman law. In the early Middle Ages Scottish students and professors travelled to Bologna and Pisa to study. In the 14th and 15th centuries Paris and Orleans. After the Reformation, Utrecht and Leiden in the Protestant Netherlands. However, White and Willock do note that "(the) influence of Roman law on Scots law has been very limited and spasmodic in comparison with that of English law." Hence, why Scotland is a mixed-legal system and not a civilian legal system. Hope that helps. Connolly15 (talk) 22:28, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I should add there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the brief Roman presence in Scotland had any lasting impact on the legal system. Roman law made its way much later, and only influenced Scotland because of the civilian legal systems' continued study of Roman Law and Corpus Juris Civilis. Connolly15 (talk) 22:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Dundee United F.C.

Dundee United F.C. has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

Anyone got any comment/objection etc on adding the Project to the bot generating lists of popular pages ([1]) ? I don't know what time zone it's in, might squeeze it in to start generating data for October if I'm quick. Le Deluge (talk) 22:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 08:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Not only do we have no objections: we would be delighted if you added our WikiProject to the bot!  :) --Mais oui! (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

CFD: Scots to Scottish people

I put up a notice at WP:SCOWNB, but very few people seem to Watch that page nowadays. It would be nice if at least one or two Scots contributed to such a basic topic: what should Wikipedia call us?

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_September_28#Scots_to_Scottish_people

--Mais oui! (talk) 07:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - October 2009 update - Scottish lives: Scotland and overseas

We have a wealth of biog info available here:

• "October’s update adds more than 40 men and women remembered for their contribution to Scottish history or to Scotland’s influence overseas."

See also:

• http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/shelves/scotland/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8295298.stm
• http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/scots-biographies-added-to-oxford-dictionary-1.924884
• http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/091008.html
• http://www.nls.uk/collections/digital/resources/odnb.html

Hours and hours of endless wiki fun... --Mais oui! (talk) 10:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Old Pictures - an idea

Glencoe road in 1931

Duncanogi (talk · contribs) has just posted File:Lawrence and Doris Ogilvie on old Glencoe road 1931.jpg, which is displayed adjacent, to Glen Coe. The image has the description "Photo taken by my now-deceased parents, scanned in by the contributor." This idea may have been used any number of times in the past, but I don't recall seeing such a description before. Sadly, my parents passed away long before the invention of photography, but younger editors may have an interesting store of archive material. Ben MacDui 13:54, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Peer review - Court of Session (Scotland)

This is a key topic for our WikiProject, absolutely essential to understanding Scottish civil society and our post-medieval history. The quality of our Scots law articles is generally abysmal, with very few articles being above Stub or Start class (no offence intended to the precious few Users who have contributed thus far to what is a massive topic area). I personally find our neglect of civil Scotland to be a tremendous shame: Wikipedia is the poorer for it.

Please help if you can:

• Wikipedia:Peer review/Court of Session (Scotland)/archive1

Thanks in advance. --Mais oui! (talk) 05:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Encouraging progress has been made so far. IMHO a GA review here was too early, but nevertheless it is underway. Contributions from Scots lawyers would be especially welcome:

Talk:Court of Session

--Mais oui! (talk) 09:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Queen's Speech and coming White Paper on Scottish devolution

We should keep our eye on articles associated with Scottish politics, as they will need updated in the coming weeks:

• Holyrood to gain power to set Scots rate of income tax
• Queen’s Speech will promise new tax-raising powers for Holyrood

--Mais oui! (talk) 09:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment - Dundee United F.C.

Please note that the GA status of Dundee United F.C. is currently under reassessment. See top of the Talk page for links. --Mais oui! (talk) 17:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Mary Marquis

I've put BBC Scotland's Mary Marquis up for consideration for DYK, but it could probably use additional eyes and additional copy-editing if it's going to be linked off the front page. Jheald (talk) 22:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Universities COTM Nomination

Hello WikiProject Scotland. I just wanted to let you all know that a university handled by your WikiProject, University of Glasgow, has been nominated for next month's WikiProject Universities Collaboration of the Month. If you'd like to take advantage of this opportunity, be sure to vote for the university. While you're there, consider helping improve one of our current Collaborations of the Month.

Happy editing! -Mabeenot (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

New Scottish Gaelic Template created

A new Scottish Gaelic Template has been created for use within articles. Template:Lang-scoga eg. (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Cholla). Newm30 (talk) 02:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)