Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 8

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A Wikiversity project needs some help

Over on Wikiversity, there is a plan to generate some audio content for Burns Night.

Ideally, this needs some Scottish Wikipedians to assist in getting the content written and recorded. Ideally, an Ayr dialect could be used to record Burns poetry itself.

If there's interest, I'll provide a link to the Wikiversity page. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 22:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Paulineward - an employee of John Smith House?

I have just discovered an account which has been puffing up Scottish Labour politicians, and removing referenced material which shows said politicians in a poor light. I have left a warning at User talk:Paulineward, but would appreciate if other experienced Users went through the mass of edits on eg. Wendy Alexander, which nearly all lack an Edit summary. A worrying amount of ip and other redlinked-user activity on Labour MSPs bio articles.

Thanks in advance. --Mais oui! (talk) 07:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A suspicious surfeit of Scottish names in this set suggests notification may spark someone's interest ...

Category:Poetasters is proposed for deletion!
Object or support -- voice your view 'ere completion!
Shall Wikipedia ignore the profound connections among all
The glorious rhymsters like William McGonagall,
McIntyre, Moore, McKittrick Ros,
Or J. Gordon Coogler (some might think it a loss),
But others [to comply with WP:CANVASS provisions],
Might deem this deletion a darn good decision.
Decide for yourself, and (here [1]) make your views known,
On the category for poets for badness renowned!
-- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The Labour Party or Scottish Labour Party

The issue of how to deal with UK political parties in Wales and Scotland in intros and infoboxes has been raised centrally at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#The Labour Party or Welsh Labour /Scottish Labour Party. Your participation in the discussion would be welcome. Daicaregos (talk) 18:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Listing all of the unreferenced living people for your project and Bruce McFee

Bruce McFee, a Scottish politician, is an unreferenced living person (BLP), so it will probably be deleted if it is not referenced. I have no expertise in this subject. Could someone in this project please reference it?

List of all articles which need cleanup for your project

Cleanup listings is a list of articles which need cleanup for each wikiproject on your page. A bot collects all relevant tagged unreferenced living people, plus other lists onto one page. This bot is updated regularly monthly.

Adding this listing is very easy to add to a project: simply add a template to the main page of the project.

The 616 projects which already have this cleanup listing and use this bot are here an example is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Cleanup listing.

Okip (formerly Ikip) 18:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Rhynie move

An editor has recently moved Rhynie to Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, creating a disambiguation page at Rhynie. This has left a lot of articles linking to the disambiguation page that should be linking to the Rhynie article. I've updated Template:Marr, Aberdeenshire places, which is the source of many of these mis-links, but What links here seems to take a while to catch up with transclusions, so I can't yet tell how many more need to be updated. I've also fixed the redirect that was left at the talk page of the new disambiguation page. --Deskford (talk) 10:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Not a criticism of you, but in future you should just get these sorts of moves undone when you come across them. There is no reason at all to have a disambiguation page for two entries. Wikipedia:Disambiguation states (emphasis added): "If there are three or more topics associated with the same term, then a disambiguation page should normally be created for that term ...". Makes extra work for nothing really. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment and advice, which I will bear in mind in future. I must admit my first reaction was to think the disambiguation unnecessary, but then for some reason I decided to go along with it. I would be happy to see it all reverted if you think that would be appropriate. --Deskford (talk) 20:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

UK formation date

I would like some input at List of sovereign states by formation date where there is a disagreement over the UK formation date. It appears there are a couple of editors who believe the date should be 1689 and not 1707. Thanks. Jack forbes (talk) 13:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Steven Purcell

Steven Purcell - a glasgow council leader who just resigned. Various rumours about drugs, and he's gay. Real recipe for dunderheid vandals and BLP problems. I'd appreciate some clued-up people watchlist this. Thanks.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, will do. The man's incompetent but undeserving of vandalism. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Scottish English

FYI, {{Scottish English}} has been nomiated for deletion. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 05:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The vote was to keep. Just as an aside. Shouldn't all Scottish English words which have been removed, such as 'whilst', be reinstated where they have been removed? Jack forbes (talk) 11:05, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

If the article has the {{Scottish English}}, yes, since replacing them would violate WP:ENGVAR . If it doesn't, then was the article originally written in Scottish English, and has no claim that another dialect is more appropriate? If so, then yes, since that would violate WP:ENGVAR - original dialect the article is written in should be kept unless a specific dialect is closely connected to the subject, in which case that dialect should be used. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 11:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 8/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

If you do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.

Thank you.

Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Archive 8/Unreferenced BLPs has been created. This list, which is updated by User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects daily, will allow your wikiproject to quickly identify unreferenced living person articles.

There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit User talk:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Okip 23:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Second War of Scottish Independence

Hi. I'm very sorry to say that Second War of Scottish Independence, a "high" class importance article for WikiProject Scotland, is in peril for copyright concerns. If nobody else does anything, I will replace it with something myself rather than see it gone altogether, but I'm very much hoping that somebody with background in these issues can rewrite the content in the temporary space now linked from the article's front. This is a very unfortunate situation where the author of the books placed the content himself in good faith, but his publisher has not relinquished rights. We have no choice but to remove or completely rewrite any content he has found to have duplicated from his own works, since they hold copyright. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Balmoral bonnet vs. Kilmarnock bonnet

We received an email (OTRS 2010032010020282) questioning whether the bonnet shown on Balmoral bonnet is a Balmoral bonnet or a Kilmarnock bonnet. The sender of the email is of the opinion that the Balmoral bonnet did not have a visor. They cited two books to which I don't have access:

• The Complete Book of Tartan by I. Zaczek & C. Phillips, page 93
• So Your Going to Wear the Kilt, by J.C. Thompson, page 03

I suspect someone here may have one or both of these books (or access to them). Can someone verify this information and correct/clarify the Balmoral bonnet article accordingly. If the image is actually a Kilmarnock bonnet, we may need to have the image moved on Commons. Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Meah, the article seems to check out [2] [3] [4]. The chap citing books could be correct, but the difference may be minor. I suggest you tell him t comment on the talk page of the article and let it lie there.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing articles - fine old Scottish hotels

I have been absolutely astounded to discover that Wikipedia lacks articles on the Peebles Hydro, Turnberry Hotel and the Caledonian Hotel. How many other fine hotels are missing? I have created a couple of redirects, but really, we have so many wonderful sources, that we ought to begin some articles. --Mais oui! (talk) 05:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Photograph is not of McCaskill?

General Tom Thumb at right

An odd little discussion at Talk:Angus MacAskill, which I moved on to File talk:MacAskill with Tom Thumb.jpg that someone may be able to resolve. Is it a photo of the bold Angus or of the Belgian giant J. Bihin? 10:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

List of gangs in Glasgow

This article was created back in November 2009 and since then it's become a magnet for vandalism and unsourced additions by IP editors. It has been reverted a couple of times to previous versions, but can someone from this project who is familiar with this topic take a look at the article? Thanks, PDCook (talk) 22:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I just want to draw attention to this issue again. The article continues to be edited by IP editors making unsourced changes. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 00:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Quite right. Ideally it would either be prodded, or there would be in-line citations for the gangs mentioned by sources and anything else removed. The latter would require some initial work, and fairly constant vigilance or semi-protection. Ben MacDui 07:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Jim Murphy

We seem to have an anonymous editor who wants to share their memories of Jim Murphy with the world. Unfortunately, this isn't really in line with our WP:BLP policy, among others. I'll not be around much this week, so if anyone would care to watchlist this article that would be great. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Links betwen Scotland and Flanders

Hi I am interested in the Links between Scotland and Flanders . Scotland - lion rampant Flanders - Lion Rampant

In particular the links with Berwick as the "New Alexandria" , in terms of Importnat trading links with Mainland Europe ie Flanders , superior technology , in weaving , which led to Scotland as the Main Wool Exporter in Europe , contributing to the Weath of the Abbeys of Melrose , Red Hall etc in Berwick , and the Links with Robert deBruce( deBruges) , to see the Dynastic struggle in a European Context as the Flemish Law of Succession ie of the Flemish Royal line , from the time atleat of King David I who married Queen Mahilda of Flanders .

Template:Location map Scotland Edinburgh

Hi. I made a new map for Edinburgh to put landmarks on with a pin. See Balmoral Hotel for how it works. If anybody wants me to make similar maps of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee or wherever let me know. I am happy to also make them in two different scales, one further out capturing the suburns and one capturing the main urban core. If people could add these to infoboxes for Edinburgh landmarks this would be great. If the infoboxes for some reason don't accept pushpin let me know as I'm hopgin soon enough to introduce them to all building/landmark infoboxes. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 20:52, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice one! It would be good to have one of these for Aberdeen, and I like the idea of suburban and central areas at different scales. Maybe one to cover the whole of Aberdeenshire as well. One of these days I may have a go at tidying up some of the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire articles, many of which are in a bit of a mess. --Deskford (talk) 21:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. What I mean is see Template:Location map United Kingdom Greater Liverpool, Template:Location map United Kingdom Liverpool and Template:Location map United Kingdom Liverpool Central for what I mean. I don't plan on creating three for every city, it was just a trial and error... I can make a Greater Glasgow/Aberdeen and a central Glasgow/Aberdeen maps. I can also make a more central Edinburgh map if you want it. I'll do that tomorrow for you. If anybody specifially wants an even more detailed map of a suburn or district of these cities so you can make out roads let me know. You'll have to ask me on my talk page though!! Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 21:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Great stuff. I'd suggest that the priorities would be in order :

• • Central Edinburgh
  • Greater/midsize Glasgow
  • Greater Edinburgh (ie what you've already done)
  • Central Glasgow

and then worry about eg midsize Aberdeen. A general map of the Stirling/Perth area might be useful too, especially for the medieval project as there were so many military campaigns etc in that neck of the woods. Being an old city, Edinburgh really crams in a lot within walking distance of the centre, whereas Glasgow largely postdates the railways so developed in a more spread out fashion - and its articles tend to be about bigger things like shipbuilders, whereas Edinburgh has a lot of articles on statues and the like. It's really obvious where the interesting bits of Edinburgh are if you look at Google Maps with the wiki layer turned on, they're crammed into a box between the Meadows-Queen St Gardens and Holyrood-Lothian Rd. The UK articles are pretty well geotagged these days and Google seems to have caught up with them at long last, so it should be a fairly reliable guide. FlagSteward (talk) 17:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll create them this evening. Will do Stirling/Perth as well. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Aargh I made all the maps you requested and one of Sterling and one of Dundee but they didn't come out right. I tried uploading a few and they came out as like 97px. The only successful two I had were Template:Location map Scotland Edinburgh Central (see Balmoral Hotel now) and Template:Location map Scotland Glasgow. I'll try making the others again later, I think I must have exceeded the map limit... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Right. If I upload them one at a time it seems to work. I've now made Template:Location map Scotland Glasgow Central. See Glasgow International Hilton Hotel for it in use. If you like I can make an even more central map of literally the city centre. If so I can move the current Glasgow map to Greater Glasgow and the current Central map to simply Glasgow. Up to you folks. Now I'll try Aberdeen..

Here you go Template:Location map Scotland Aberdeen see Central Library, Aberdeen. A lot of work needs doing with adding infoboxes to Aberdeen structure articles. If you want I can make a central Aberdeen one too. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I've tried this out on Aberdeen Arts Centre and it looks good. I'll start adding it to other articles, but it will be a slow process as I am busy on other projects at the moment. A more detailed version for the city centre would be useful. Many thanks! --Deskford (talk) 12:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

In that case heres another present Template:Location map Scotland Aberdeen Central. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

If you want any maps of Scottish islands like the one for Beaumaris Castle too let me know. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Aberdeen
City
Aberdeen
Coordinates: 57°9′N 2°6′W
Country	Scotland

I've created Template:Location map Scotland Aberdeenshire. See it in use on the right and in the article Crathes Castle. I know it includes some territory of neighbouring counties but it is supposed to just be a segment of Scotland. If you like I'd be happy to create some maps like this for each area of Scotland, I'm doing the same with Wales see Template:Location map Wales Pembrokeshire and I'd be happy to create the map with a window locator in the corner so you know where in Scotland it is like the Wales ones. However, a consensus will be needed. Personally I think such a map shown on the right (with a county locator of Scotland added in the corner) is a better scale than the current one being used for all Scottish settlements. If you disagree please let me know. What 'm trying to say is that the current map being used to locate places like Aberdeen is twice the height than it needs to be. It doesn't really need to include Shetland. Regional maps can be made a segments of Scotland window added in the corner like the one on the right. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

This is all wonderful stuff. However, I am also a fan of things Shetlandic and I dislike these boxes - just out of curiosity are you aware of other national maps that don't include the entire country in the correct place? Denmark & Norway must have problems with Greenland and Svalbard, but they are much more distant. Ben MacDui 19:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Ben MacDui on this one! Putting Shetland in a box gives people a false impression of the overall shape of Scotland. It has to be said that the Shetlanders themselves often commit a similar injustice when they put Fair Isle and Foula in boxes in the margin of maps of Shetland. --Deskford (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd support cropping out the islands. It's nothing to do with "justice" and everything to do with effective communication, which should be a priority in everything we do on Wikipedia. It's just a lot easier to see where something is on a bigger scale map, and cropping out the Northern Isles (and to a lesser extent the Hebrides) just allows the map to be bigger and clearer. There's also a secondary benefit in that more of the infobox appears above the pagefold. If you want other examples, US articles like Seattle crop out Alaska, which is probably closer than Shetland in percentage terms, never mind Hawaii and the other Pacific territories. On the flip side, why should Scottish maps exclude the rest of the United Kingdom? Melrose has far more in common with Berwick than it ever will with Stornoway, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, it's all the same country.... I won't open that can of worms. :-)) I note that some English articles go the other way, they use a box to zoom in - eg Portsmouth - which probably works best for things like unitary authorities that are small areas but not discrete "points".

Great stuff Blofeld by the way. That Aberdeenshire map works well - perhaps you could do similar big "slices" - northern Highlands, southern Highlands (both overlapping at Inverness), Central Belt and Borders?FlagSteward (talk) 13:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Well I also am a fan of the Shetland and islands, I love rural places but I just think the current map being used although it hasuseful relief is not economical in terms of space. You can crop a bit of Scotland which inlucees the county and feature landmarks of it and have a map of Scotland in the corner. It isn't "dissing" Shetland or the rest of the country so to speak but it is just presented to the reader with a better focus in my view. I would be happy to create more maps, although for Highland such is the scale I can't fit the entirely of the big region in in one map and if I do it the next scale smaller it is a little too small. The best thing would be to create a Highland North and a Highland south map with overlapping territory. If you have a window map in the corner readers can see what part of the country you are showing anyway... Would you also like me to create a location map Shetland Isles? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

What do people think of the relief map on the right? You folks like relief maps don't you?... I could make relief maps of areas of Scotland? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Relief maps are great for some things - in the Highlands they really help tell the story of military campaigns/castles for instance, whereas in the Central Belt road maps are more useful. Just one thing though - a red pointer won't be much use on the mountainous bits, and red pointers on green lowlands is not very helpful for most colour-blind people. Perhaps you could desaturate the colours on the map a bit and then use a black pointer (like eg Dalmore House and Estate, although the map is still a bit too saturated in my eyes) - or a saltire would give good contrast!!! FlagSteward (talk) 13:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I would actually recolour them blank white/cream if I could but I don't know how to do it. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:47, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Tagging and organising

I've now got a bit of time to work on my promise from last June. I've got about 6500 non-bio articles awaiting tagging for WP Scotland, although I haven't gone through them to just check their suitability manually yet. There's also a couple of thousand more for the daughter projects. It occurs to me that before doubling the size of the Project, it might be a good idea to clean up what is already there. My thoughts were something along that suggested by Ben previously, to not tag things with the main project "if they clearly fall under the scope of one of the sub-projects unless they are of high or top importance" and I'm unenthusiastic about doing things like albums which have an active Project of their own and as Ben says, discourage people here from more specifically Scottish articles.
I think part of the problem is that the importance tags are all over the place, so don't really do their job of funnelling people towards the articles that need work - for instance at one stage there was a whole load of fairly minor post-1707 laws tagged with both England and Scotland and a whole load of other Projects, at either High or even Top priority. Some of the stats I gather for my bot could help sort those out a bit, if people thought that was worth doing. I could also knock articles down into the daughter projects if people thought that was a good idea. Just thinking out loud, would things like the Edinburgh and Glasgow projects fit better as taskforces of the main Scotland WP banner rather than as separate Projects, to emphasise the unity of WP Scotland? I'm not fussed either way, but I know some people can have strong views on that kind of thing and it can be easier to sort it out before I get tagging. It seems the worklist is growing, but I'll get on with the backlog of assessments first before I add more articles.FlagSteward (talk) 19:07, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, great stuff and thank you - and I have a question. I saw your change to Talk:History of Christianity in Scotland - diff with the comment "Barely 100 page view a month doesn't justify high". Now I don't doubt that few people do read the article, but the topic strikes me as being genuinely important. If for example, Celtic FC sign a striker from Barcelona next week (in their dreams) this would no doubt generate a large number of hits but this cannot be the only criterion. I thought I'd bring it here rather than just grumble on behalf of a millennium of Christian activity on that page. Ben MacDui 19:36, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand I see you have just made Skye and Irn-Bru "High" based on page hits - what's not to like! Ben MacDui 19:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

:-) I hated myself for doing that to HCS, but you have to remember that the importance tag is not so much about the "importance" of a subject, but the priority of working on that article. I'd emphasise that I don't assess on a simplistic view of page views, that leads you to a strange world where Gerard Butler is more important than the whole of Scotland, whilst David Tennant, Ewan McGregor and Susan Boyle are all more important to Scotland's history than William Wallace! So there's a lot of thought and umming and ahhing involved and I probably reassess about a third of articles that "should" be reassigned on the basis of a simple hitcount. I do discount heavily for celebrity - film, music and football - and I emphasise filling in the gaps between other Projects, so I don't think we should be so worried about eg dog articles which are also "disproportionately" popular. The numbers differ for each Project, but you do find subjective assessments following page views surprisingly closely in the main part - for Scotland the Lows are roughly <300/month, and the Highs above 2500-3000/month. Those boundaries aren't fixed, I'll stretch one category for things that are subjectively "important" or are core articles at the top of a hierarchy (eg Architecture of Scotland still makes it to High despite only 412 views/month), but HCS was just a stretch too far. I was going to post about it anyway because I suspect that lack of page views reflects underlying problems as much as lack of interest, I'll post separately on that. Conversely it does impose a bit of objectivity on something that is vulnerable to people's pet biases. For instance, I can't believe that Caithness, Ayrshire and Skye were all Mids when someone had put High on every little skirmish in Bruce's campaign against Valence. The fact remains that if an editor works on eg HCS and Covenanter, their efforts will be seen by just one person at HCS for every 100 that reads the Covenanter article. You obviously don't want to ignore HCS totally but logic dictates that the Covenanter article is more of a priority to work on.FlagSteward (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Listed buildings in Scotland

There is currently a list of Grade I listed buildings for each English county, but currently no lists of the equivalent Category A buildings in Scotland. To fill this gap, I have begun gathering information, and have set up a 'template' article, covering the Clackmannanshire area (mainly because it is a small and manageable list!). This draws on existing featured lists such as Grade I listed buildings in Manchester and Grade I listed buildings in Taunton Deane. Since this would be the first of potentially 32 lists, I'd like to get it right from the start. The draft page is at User:Jonathan Oldenbuck/LB in Clacks, I'd welcome any comment or suggestions for improvement. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Draft page now moved to mainspace at List of Category A listed buildings in Clackmannanshire. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 08:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Rewriting the history of Christianity

I'd intended to post about this before Ben mentioned it above. Something's not quite right in the Religion in Scotland hierarchy. Most religions have separate articles like Buddhism in Scotland, apart from Christianity in Scotland which just redirects to the main RiS article. Which is fair enough, but it mebbe breaks the hierarchy a bit and I guess one option could be to turn the redirect into a full-blown article, perhaps largely incorporating History of Christianity in Scotland. As it is we have two largely overlapping articles - HCS and Christianity in Medieval Scotland, neither of which get read much (~120 views/month and ~500views/month). For such important topics this suggests that something's not working rather than a genuine lack of interest in something with such a rich history. Maybe we just need to WP:Build the web a bit - HCS wasn't even linked in the history section of RiS before I put in a {{main}} link, but I wonder if we need to do something more fundamental about the way these articles are organised?FlagSteward (talk) 14:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Black Watches, Scottish national identity

Two other articles that I've encountered in my travels. I know it's been proposed before, but Black Watch and Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) need to be either merged or reorganised so that one contains just a summary of the other in a proper parent/daughter hierarchy. At the moment you've got two articles that pretty much duplicate each other, which is the worst of both worlds.

Scottish national identity is a right dog's dinner, apart from needing a major copy-edit it is aiming completely at the wrong target - it's more like an account of the Central Belt's attitudes to England since the Union than what the title implies. With a big chunk of History of Scottish devolution. If anyone fancies making it reflect attitudes from Lerwick to Ayr, and to acknowledge that Scotland existed before 1707.... There's also a specific issue relating to the Sunday Herald archive if anyone has easy access, I've mentioned it on the Talk page.

Councils vs Places

UK Local Authorities are inherently notable. Yet many council names are currently redirects to articles about places; which are not the same thing at all. I feel we should do the same for all authorities which don't at the moment have their own articles. For example, I recently split Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council out from Metropolitan Borough of Walsall. I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#Councils vs Places; what are your thoughts? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Piobaireachd aka Pibroch

A minor controversy has broken out at Pibroch where one user and a small number of apparently single or at least little used anons etc. seem keen to remove most references to "Pibroch" and replace them with "Piobaireachd" with our without accents. The talk page consensus (such as it is with so few contributors) suggests little support for the latter version, although editors should form their own opinion. Either way, a few extra watchers would not go amiss for the time being. Ben MacDui 17:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Falls of Cruachan derailment

The Falls of Cruachan derailment article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 06:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Persistent IP Vandal

Could some admin *please* do something about User:193.63.72.130? I know it's a shared IP but I'm being led a merry chase around Wikipedia and they're vandalising as fast as I can revert and I'm getting tired of it. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Now blocked until Friday evening. Ben MacDui 17:46, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Whew, time to catch my breath ;) Cheers! Akerbeltz (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Museum prizes

I note that "The Signpost is delighted to report the announcement of the British Museum's Featured Article Prize: five prizes of £100 (≈$140/€120) at their shop/bookshop for new Featured Articles on topics related to the British Museum." Lewis chessmen anyone? The "controversy" section would need especial care of course. Ben MacDui 17:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Mane

Tiree contains the following: "Writing in 1549, Donald Munro, High Dean of the Isles wrote of "Thiridh" that it was: "ane mane laich fertile fruitful cuntrie". I have tried to provide a translation into modern English in a footnote but what, in this context, does "mane" mean - "mainly"? Ben MacDui 17:34, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

At the Dictionary of the Scots Language (sorry, can't seem to link to individual words) it includes the above quote under main's definition as, "DOST 1. 6. b: Low-lying and fertile". It notes cf. Main-land. Mutt Lunker (talk) 18:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks that's very helpful. Although I am not in a position to question this authority, if this is true "mane laich fertile" would mean "Low-lying and fertile and low-lying and fertile". I suppose Munro was emphasising the excellence of Tiree's land. Ben MacDui 08:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Aye, there's nothing like a good dose of tautology to drive a point home. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Map

There is current disagreement on the map used in the Scottish place infobox template. I should preface this request for comment with the statement that while the old map that I prefer was created by me I am in no way attached to it (alternatives and multiple choices are more than welcome to be put forward), but rather I am a firm believer in the principles of consensus building and content decisions being made by editors, not being enforced by "everything must be the same" crowd without discussion or consensus building. Consequently I am seeking feedback on the infobox map from others, because I feel that the "standardisation" methodology essentially short-circuits the very philosophy and wiki principles of WP. SFC9394 (talk) 22:08, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Standartisation is only one point. The other pluses I've described at the template discussion page. --Obersachse (talk) 12:42, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought that this was sorted, but apparently not and the discussion has gone stale. Further input needed - please see the above link. Ben MacDui 18:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Obersachse has a long standing obession to revert every relief map even though the consensus with WP:Scotland is to have a relief map. If he perissts either report him to an adminstrator or keep reverting him. He thinks he can overpower the consensus of entire wikiprojects. Well the consensus with Wp:Scotland is to use a relief map, right? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

It would appear so. Let's hope this now dealt with. Ben MacDui 17:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles for the smaller militant Scottish nationalist groups?

I've been putting together articles on various of the smaller militant/terrorist groups for ethnic and religous minorities, and ran across a few names of Scottish nationalist groups that don't yet have an article, mentioned in this book: Law, power, and justice in England and Wales By Ian K. McKenzie. I find bits and pieces of mention of the SRA various places online, but nothing reputably citeable. Are the Scottish Republican Army, the Tartan Army (distinct from the football hooligan club?) or the Army of the Provisional Government of Scotland worth covering as individual organisations? MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I suspect they are such marginal groups that it would be difficult to find reliably sourced material to cover. --Deskford (talk) 16:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

That Tartan Army was pretty obscure and entirely unconnected to the supporters of Scotland's national football team. And, though I'm sure there was no ill intent, please don't characterise the latter as a hooligan club. Try Britain's Secret War - Tartan Terrosrism and the Anglo-American State by Andrew Murray Scott and Iain Macleay, published by Mainstream Publishing in 1990, ISBN 1 85158 306 8. Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Translation help: Scottish Gaelic

Hello, as part of the reviewing trial, I just accepted an edit] on good faith. Could someone please take a look, and undo it if it's incorrect? Thanks, –Schmloof (talk · contribs) 21:30, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Done, they were both wrong. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Non-villages in Aberdeenshire

Fellow Scotland editors, could I please draw your attention to recent discussions at Talk:Cairnorrie about some articles on Aberdeenshire places far too small to call villages, and invite further comment? --Deskford (talk) 22:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

FREEMAN ON THE LAND

i am currently researching the free man on the land concept, the use of the notice of understanding and intent and claim of rihgt and of the notary public amoungst a host of other topics. the only thing is it all seems to be either England, Canada or the U.S. it applies to, ive heard talk of as long as you are in a commonwealth country it applies. in these days of the growing power of the corporations and the erosion of our civil liberties and sovrienty, this looks like a good way to insure our freedoms and our inalienable birth rights. it would be most appreciated if anyone can let me know if they know anything about this subject and how it applies in Scotland.

sites i have visited: TPUC.ORG WORLD FREEMAN ON THE LAND SOCIETY THINKFREE.CA SPIRITUALECONOMICSNOW.NET —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.102.8 (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

REMOVAL OF PREVIOUS POST

i put a post on here the other day entitled police---dna, i now see this post has been removed, i want to ask the cretaors of this site if they are for the enslavment of the scotish people or maybe they are advocates of the rape of young downsyndrome children, i would also like to ask why the lord advocate of scotland Elish Angiolini or grampian police have not invetigated the matter of hollie greig and brought it into the public arena. i would also like to ask why the lord advocate is useing law firm Levy & Mcrae to threaten those who are trying to bring this matter to the attention of the public. why was Robert Green the man who is fighting for justice for hollie arrested instead of helped by grampian police? is it because there is involvment of this hienous crime from the bottom up, and further? I hope at least some people that concider themselves to be part of the human race see this post before it is removed. it is only a matter of time before this matter is outed. this subject makes me sick to my stomache as i hope it does any one who has the chance to read it before being erased. i am only a normal member of the Scotish public that came across this subject by chance and could hardly believe what i was reading. if you would like more on this subject please please please visit http://www.davidicke.com/articles/child-abuse-mainmenu-74/30693-scottish-paedophile-ring-exposed or just google her name and please let as many other people as you can know. thank u for you're time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.28.103 (talk) 16:32, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if the removal of your earlier edit has caused you offence. This was because it did not appear to have pertinence to this talk page which "is for discussing the core work of the WikiProject, ie. our drive to improve the quality of our key Scotland-related articles, focussing on Wikipedia 1.0 and beyond" (see the top of the page). Can you clarify how your posts relate to the above please, i.e. the improvement of Scotland-related articles on Wikipedia? Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

APOLOGY ACCEPTED

On looking thruogh this site i thought that any topic that related to scotland was relevant (my apologies if this is not the case). I thought the toics that i brought were relevant to the people of scotland, again my apologies if this is not the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.52.100 (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Listed buildings in the Borders

Category:Listed buildings in the Borders, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.

Possible Creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife

Hi! I have proposed the creation of WikiProject Tayside and Fife to improve the quality of all of the articles which fall into the scope of the project. I would hope that members of this WikiProject would like to indicate their interest in the project. If you would like to join please add your name on WikiProject Council/Proposals/Tayside and Fife. If the project gets a reasonable amount of interest I will create a draft of the WikiProject (after consultation with editors who are interested) in my userspace and then will create the WikiProject. Thank you. Andrewmc123 14:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Just so people know, Andrewmc123 has withdrawn this proposal after it was pointed out that it was the third Scotland-related WikiProject he had either created or proposed, but he'd never actually participated in this place. He's agreed that he needs to get a bit more experience before trying to start yet more Projects, it's not as though WP Scotland is hurting through overuse even if there may be an argument for a Scottish daughter of WP:WikiProject UK geography at some point in the future. Let's just see how we go for now.

I'd suggest that at the moment, we don't need to get too systematic about the geography articles, we just need to spend time getting a relatively small number up to a reasonable standard, ie WP:GA. I suggested to Andrewmc123, and I invite others thinking of a "regional" subproject, that he concentrate first on getting his home-town article up to GA, then some other local article, perhaps on history, to GA, then the Angus region and then perhaps go for a WP:Good topic of "Towns in Angus". After that you can start worrying about covering Tayside in some more systematic fashion, but it's very easy to identify just the main towns, and it's still a lot of work! At least the relatively new idea of a GT gives you something to aim for, although I'm not sure we really want the narrow overview article a GT requires, the main region article is more appropriate. I see that User:Kilnburn is doing something akin to a GT in Fife, but with the added target of an FA on Kirkcaldy, and it seems Deskford may be doing something a bit similar up in Aberdeen? Anyone else?

If people report back here about what they're doing, requesting peer reviews and the like before heading to GA, hopefully we can get this place buzzing a bit and achieve the aims of potential subprojects without all the bureaucracy they entail. I'd ask people to keep a particular eye on User:Andrewmc123 - he's enthusiastic, but just needs a bit of guidance from time to time. Monifieth is already looking pretty good - getting close to the stage where a pre-GA peer review would be useful, the WP Physics cheatsheet can be good for suggestions as long as you don't take it too literally.

One last thing, Andrewmc123 has moved WP River City to WP:WikiProject Scottish Television.Le Deluge (talk) 13:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Some good suggestions there. I wasn't seriously suggesting starting a project for Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire — I don't think there are enough of us for it to be viable and I only have time to tinker around the edges of the huge amount of work that needs to be done. Your idea of concentrating on the main towns makes sense. I think we often get sidetracked by the minor articles and certainly in Aberdeenshire many of the main town articles are in a very poor state. --Deskford (talk) 14:02, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Glasgow

And in other wikiproject news, Wikipedia:WikiProject Glasgow has been deleted under speedy deletion criterion G7: One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page. I assume interest in the project never took off? Anyway, I nominated the project template for deletion also, see discussion. Although, there are a dozen or so project categories also.... sigh. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 20:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting... I'll hang fire before suggesting a WikiProject Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire then! --Deskford (talk) 20:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I did not know there was a WP Glasgow let alone that it had been deleated. There was a proposal for a Greater Glasgow WP back in 2008 - [5] but I did not support it as Greater Glasgow seem to be a bit vauge: was it Strathclyde Region under a new name or just Glasgow with a few bits tacked on? Pyrotec (talk) 21:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes: as others see us

I took a peek at the Pending changes trial. Anyone wanting to watch articles currently so protected that are relevant to this project may have to stick to:

• Susan Boyle
• Red hair

and arguably:

• A Hogwart's student

The full list is at Category:Wikipedia pending changes protected pages. Ben MacDui 17:10, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of fictional Scots

List of fictional Scots, has been listed for deletion Please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional Scots. Thanks, Colonel Warden (talk) 05:50, 10 July 2010 (UTC)