Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scottish Islands/Assessment

Quality assessment

I have tagged a number of the larger and more populated islands, and given them an importance rating, but have not given a quality rating. You might want to rate the top importance ones. --MacRusgail 17:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through a few more, generally according with the WPScotland ratings of certain articles, but changing the importance level. --MacRusgail 20:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You certainly get this week's prize for generating entries on my watchlist. I await the bot's next update at WP:IS/A with great interest!. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

An extraordinary set of results from the bot! 371 articles listed with 249 assessed in part or in whole. High fives all round. Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The eagle-eyed will have noticed briefly there was a Comments section on the template. After the bot ran this should have resulted in these comments showing up at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Scottish Islands articles by quality. However it simply blanked the list on this page so I removed the feature from the template again. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This now seems to work, although the comments are not showing up at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Scottish Islands articles by quality, which is frustrating. Over 550 articles now on the list!! Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

High

So, the top 20 biggest get "top" importance, maybe no. 21-50 should get "high" and 50-100 "mid". I'm trying to square these ratings between population and size. --MacRusgail 02:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Some surprising results with combining the two lists. I've also upgraded Iona to top. If anywhere can claim to be the spiritual "capital" of Scotland, it can... --MacRusgail 07:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Copied from main project talk page for convenience

'Quality' has some fairly standard definitions and hopefully won't be a problem.

'Importance' - I think we need to bear in mind that we are a project within a project, and from the Wikipedia 1.0 assessment point of view, there may not be many genuinely 'Top' Importance Scottish island articles. Something like this might work:

Top - Say the 20 largest Islands up to and including Barra, plus smaller islands of import e.g. Iona, St Kilda

High - Islands larger than 2,000 ha and/or with a population greater than 150 plus smaller islands of interest to a non-Scottish audience e.g. Gigha

Mid - All other islands larger than 40 ha, and/or with a resident population plus other genuinely notable islands e.g. Dubh Artach

Low - All other islands, including those about which it might prove difficult to write an article of GA quality without access to specialist libraries. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Islands can provide an importance benchmark for non-island articles, which are harder to assess. I suggest that settlements, attractions, historic events etc should not be higher than the island on which they are found. Services and people (clergy and poets seem to feature often) may not relate to one location, but I think few will rate High - it is importance to the project, not to Wiki as a whole. I think the bishops should be Mid, not High. Am I being too harsh (or underestimating the impact of the church in the history of the islands)? Finavon 21:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I have also been rating islands according to their importance to the surrounding ones. Hence Barra and Unst have high importance merely on the basis that they dominate a particular group or subgroup of islands. There are certain islands which are fairly large, but not of that great interest, e.g. Baleshare (although that's got a population which hikes it up), because they are flat and featureless, and/or don't have much interesting history. --MacRusgail 18:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is difficult and clearly we want to avoid wasting one another's time by swapping assessments. I agree that we should use Top and High sparingly. Not sure about the bishops - historically they are probably High, but today may be Mid to Low. I think its is probably more important those of us involved agree than that the category be exactly right. I could certainly go with Mid. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If we are talking pre-Reformation bishops and abbots, I would say "high", because they had great political power in those days. However, I agree - and for non-sectarian reasons - that RC and Episc. bishops are not as important now for the islands. The population is divided on religion now, and the political power has dried up. --MacRusgail 18:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I also note with interest that at this stage approximately 4% of our articles in the Top/High range are GA or better, and 12% are B or better. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to stop tagging articles for a few days to allow catch up. But I will tag and assess new articles that I write. Is there any way of calculating which articles are Top/High importance but are stubs too - there's at least 17. --MacRusgail 18:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

A visit to WP:IS/A may provide the answer! Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You can see the assessments for all pages at Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Scottish_Islands_articles_by_quality, but its only updated every three days (done today). Finavon 18:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hills

There are a few ungraded hills. Suggested importance:

Top: The Cuillins, Sgurr Alasdair (highest peak on islands) and others of special significance e.g. Inaccessible Pinnacle.

High: Highest peak on main five island groups (inc. Firth of Clyde), Marilyns that are the highest points on 'Top' islands. Others of interest e.g. The Storr

Mid: Other Munros, other Marilyns that are the highest points on islands.

Low: Other hills and peaks. Ben MacDui (Talk) 13:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Lighthouses & Airports

Suggested importance: Lighthouses; Mid except high profile ones e.g. Bass Rock, Skerryvore which might be high.

Airports; Low.

Can't think of a really good logic for this as airports are probably more important to many islanders than lighthouses are. Airports are however rather dull perhaps. Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Except the airport on Barra. Lurker (said · done) 14:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and indeed Westray/ Papa Westray. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Airports are dull, but they do excite some people. LOL! The airport on Barra is fun. I would consider the main airport in various groups of importance, so the main one in Orkney, Shetland (Sumburgh?) and OHs (Stornoway). RAF bases, much harder to quantify. --MacRusgail 19:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Schools, Colleges and Museums; Newspapers & Magazines

I've listed schools as low, UHI colleges as mid. This raises the question - should UHI itself be both a project topic and if so high. I think my answer is 'yes' to both.

Museums I've listed as low.

The main newspaper for each archipelago could be mid - maybe high for WHFP. Others, inc. magazines low. Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

High - WHFP, Stornoway Gazette, Shetland Times. There's a newsheet that goes around Arran which also has the highest population penetration of any newspaper in the UK - that is a bonus to it, in itself. UHI - definitely a project topic, in general, I would put it at top, since it represents three island groups but non-island colleges obviously don't count. Schools - there are a handful which I would consider significant. Nicholson Institute is one of these. Sgoil Lionacleit also doubles up as a community centre with various facilities.

Museums - well, it depends which. The main Shetland museum is important, and there are some highly important archaeological sites. There are also some galleries which are the main ones in their island/group - e.g. An Lanntair, and the Aros Centre on Skye. --MacRusgail 19:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Settlements

Without a list of same, this might be tricky. I'd say Stornoway, Kirkwall, Lerwick, high. (Oban also per UHI above?)

Other important settlements on 'Top' islands would be mid - e.g. Tobermory, Castlebay.

The rest low. Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Would tend to agree. But, there are some such as Whitehall, Scalloway etc which are of historical merit. --MacRusgail 19:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

True enough. I added Scalloway as 'mid'. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Biography

I added Sorley Maclean as 'High'. I'd suggest others of national significance e.g. Edwin Muir (done) in this bracket.

Those in the highest rank for their archipelago e.g. Vagaland mid.

Others low. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Protocol

Just to be clear, I'd like to suggest that if we are the main author of an article we can rank it's quality if it is:

• A stub
• Start Class
• It's been promoted to GA or FA

Otherwise we would normally request an assessment.

I'm saying this because

(a) I notice the Shetland list is unassessed and I don't think I should do it, (although maybe we all feel the same as we all contributed).

(b) I like keeping up to date with new articles, but its a minor chore to keep adding 'class=stub|importance=low' and I'd like to encourage a little boldness in this sphere. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Historical figures

This is tricky. There is no question that Haakon IV for example, has significance for the history and development of the islands that are now 'Scottish'. He was an important ruler of almost all of them at one time. However, I don't think we need pester either Queen Victoria or her successors, or recent Prime Ministers of First Ministers with WPSI banners even though they have a similar claim. However historical figures who had a particular and direct relevance should be included. I am disinclined to give 'Top' status to all but the most crucial articles (and we have 100 with Top Billing at present) so I will suggest something along these lines: 'Top': Figures whose lives and times had a lasting impact on island life. Haakon IV above, The Bonnie Prince, Somerled. 'High': Royal/Ducal figures who had a significant impact that went beyond their own lifetime. 'Mid': Important royals, clan chiefs, dukes of the day etc. 'Low'; The rest. I'm not much of an historian.... Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Clans

I'd say generally 'Mid' if identified save for perhaps two or three crucial clans like MacDonald, McLeod and Campbell, who would be 'Top'. They have their own project. Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Re-assessments

I notice that MacRusgail and I have different criteria for importance. I am not complaining as in general I'm much more concerned about quality, and importance can be pretty subjective. Nonetheless some understanding of one another's thinking might be useful. Here's a couple of examples, which I offer in a light-hearted spirit:

I ranked Angus Peter somebody or other as Low as I'd never heard of the bloke and it was an orphaned article. MacR believes he is "is one of the most important living Scottish novelists", and gave him a Top (in flagarant disregard of 'Biography' above!!). Might he be 'High'?

Ditto I made Fingal's Cave Mid and this was changed to Top. I'd suggest that as Staffa is Top the melodious cave could be High.

Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Angus Peter Campbell's book, An Oidhche mus do Sheòl sinn may just be the greatest Scottish novel of this century so far. Unfortunately it's not been translated, and he's no intention of having it translated... I think he is to Scottish Gaelic prose what Sorley MacLean was to its poetry. I would also rate Vagaland as very high, particularly as he is considered the national poet of Shetland. I'd suggest Fingal's Cave be top because of Mendelssohn. --MacRusgail 16:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

1,000 and more

There are now over 1,000 articles assessed. The remainder are, I suspect, almost all either low/mid and start/stub. A few e.g. British Isles, Samuel Johnson are of higher class, but of either marginal importance to the project or perhaps even outside of its scope. I am not minded to spend a lot of time putting 'stub/low' on them all. Much easier to add them at the time of the banner creation really, and classifying them doesn't necessarily achieve a lot anyway.

So, we have at present 60 odd B or above (more than I'd have guessed) and about 250 Top/High articles, 91 of which are stubs.

Quite a lot of the articles are not on the WP:SCO assessment scheme. I see that Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_geography has finally created an assessment system now too.

Good work all round folks. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 10:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Needed class

How is this used? Tag on talk page? --MacRusgail (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Does this help you? Finavon (talk) 23:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, not really, I'm afraid. How can you tag an article which doesn't exist?! --MacRusgail (talk) 11:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I thought you meant there was a requirement to use the class paramenter! According to [1] "Needed" is not a class to be placed on articles. It was a flag used in an earlier summary. You could put suggestions for articles in the "to-do" list. Finavon (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

North Berwick Harbour

Scot Transport has given it a "B" - but is this too generous? writes MacRusgail

I don't think so, - perhaps marginal , but it's not a bad article for a small harbour. However, whilst it serves the Bass Rock etc. I am not convinced that small mainland harbours fall under our scope. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 18:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced. There are boats that go to Stornoway from Ullapool, Kintryre to Gigha, Scrabster to Stromness etc. etc. I don't think we should put a tag on Aberdeen because it has a ferry to Shetland. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 20:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, the other point was that it was going to incorporate Fidra at one point. I thought other opinions were needed on this. We'll have to think this one out. IMHO, Oban yes, Aberdeen no. Ullapool yes, Largs no. Scrabster yes, Kyle of Lochalsh no... --MacRusgail (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Comments (at last)

Due to the incompetence of the designer, the 'Comments' section of the 'by quality' logs has been blank from inception until the last update (today). Thanks to WOD this is now in place - a very useful addition. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 13:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this is best used. Many of the present comments probably should be on the Talk page, although it is presumably easier to leave a quick comment while assessing. For now I have struck through implemented suggestions. I suggest moving them to the Talk page (with or without the strike), leaving only comments that directly affect the assessment. Finavon (talk) 19:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The advantage is of course mainly that you can see all the comments at a glance, and interesting ones tend to draw you in. I saw a comment about Aud the Deep-minded that wasn't really about assessment per se, more relevance, but it grabbed my attention. However, I agree that by and large those left should focus on assessment and suggested improvements rather than more general issues. I'd just remove anything implemented with a comment to that effect in the edit summary. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 22:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Waulking Song

I disagree with the removal of the banner on this one. The waulking song is an integral part of Outer Hebridean music. --MacRusgail (talk) 20:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a strong view about this and if you think it merits inclusion that's fine. The article is clearly much wider in scope that the islands, and it's my belief that somewhere there is a line to be drawn between Gaelic-speaking culture and WPSI - or perhaps you take the view that given that almost all Gaelic speakers are now island residents that the first is largely a subset of the second? Either way it would be good to be clear. Hope you had a good break, and all the best for 2008. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 21:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree with inclusion in project; assessment of current article start/mid. There is little doubt that weaving and related activities are significant to the islands. I agree we need to be aware of the limits of island culture. Finavon (talk) 22:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it was once on the mainland, as the Gaidhlig language still is, but a long time ago, so it can be said to be more of Outer Hebridean Gaelic culture (especially Lewis and Harris), rather than Scottish Gaelic culture in general. Likewise certain Presbyterian sects are far more prevalent on the islands, than elsewhere, and have their base there so to speak. --MacRusgail (talk) 12:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Whisky

I've rounded up a bunch of unassessed Scotch whisky articles which seem to be relevant to the project, including malts from Arran, Skye, Orkney, Jura, Islay and Mull. I'm unsure how "important" they would be. --MacRusgail (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Scope or See also

There are some anomalies between the main project page and WP:IS/A because the latter has picked up a few articles 'within the scope' that we have inherited e.g. Dal Riata. I was planning to add them to the front page (possibly with an 'I' for inherited appended) and then I came across another small conundrum. Geology of Scotland is a GA, but it seems to me that rather than being 'within the scope' of WPSI it is really more of a 'See also' on the front page. Clearly there is a WPSI relevance - it mentions Skye, Shetland and St Kilda - but you could argue that about virtually any article whose scope is Scotland or UK-wide e.g. Geography of the UK, Fauna of Scotland etc. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 19:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Such articles are difficult, especially as many of the islands have been created by faults that run through the mainland. I'd go more for Dal Riata though, because a huge chunk of its area consisted of islands. I'd also say, that in general, the geology is more relevant than the fauna, although is Northern Gannet relevant for example?

Shetland, and St Kilda are remote enough to have their own flora and fauna articles. --MacRusgail (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I think what I am saying is that my rule of thumb would be that because Dal Riata is 50% or more islands it is within the scope, but Geology of Scotland and Fauna of Scotland only mention Scottish islands and are 80% plus focused elsewhere so they aren't. Gannet is an excellent borderline example. 50% of the world's population breeds on Scottish islands, so I could go either way. Wild Cat wouldn't be as Scotland only forms a small part of its range. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 09:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

With gannets though, it would have to be the Northern Gannet article, rather than the Gannet one, as that's the relevant (sub-?)species.--MacRusgail (talk) 19:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Does this count? Torridonian? --MacRusgail (talk) 01:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say 'yes' as a substantial proportion is island related. I've put a banner on it. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 08:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Lists

New category for list other than FLs. Some still unassessed. See also Category:List-Class Scottish Islands articles. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 15:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

WP 1.0 'C' class

This has now arrived and is installed in the system. The project page would ideally now have description of C class - if a helpful bot does not produce one soon I'll go looking. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 11:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Nidaros

I think the Archdiocese of Nidaros is completely relevant to WPSI as it covered the Northern Isles, plus one or two others in its time.--MacRusgail (talk) 11:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought he was a Cypriot bloke with a beard, but perhaps this is something else. Ben MacDui 16:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Do editors' priorities match readers' priorities?

I've mentioned it over on the main Talk page as it's of general interest, but I thought it was worth leaving a pointer here to my list of readership stats over at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Scottish_Islands/Stats side-by-side with their assessments for Importance. Might give a bit of food for thought on assessments. I don't intend to follow this up further - my main target for this was the Clans project but I thought it might be useful to WPSI too. To be honest, it's a bit easier to apply it on a focussed project like that one - we haven't had the discussion yet, but it's looking like the basic structure will be along the lines of Top >4000 hits/month, High>1500, Mid>500, Low <500. And then articles get tweaked up or down one rating - up one for "general" or "concept" articles, down one for articles another WikiProject can do a lot of the work, and clan articles are never less than Mid. Something like that, anyhow. Translating to this project, you might want to tweak the numbers a bit, and raise all articles about specific islands up one level, or say that they should be a minimum of Mid. But that's only a suggestion - I've just generated the data, it's not my place to say how it should be used. Le Deluge (talk) 12:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagging

As I've mentioned over on the main Scotland page I've been scanning categories for articles not tagged with Project banners. I've got about 400 articles that could be tagged for WPSI, I was just wondering how far I should go. I get the sense that this project is pretty wideranging so members of something like Category:Bishops of Orkney or Category:Bishops of Sodor and Man would be suitable for tagging, but I thought I'd just check before doing it. FlagSteward (talk) 18:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes- definitely Bishes of Orkland. Theoretically there might be a few Sodor Bishops who were beyond the pale so to speak, but unless they were "Man only" they should be included. for sure. We have been edging towards 2,000 evaluated articles so this could break the sound barrier! We seem to have a paucity of footballers by comparison.... Ben MacDui 19:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm still looking for that medieval island clan chief who created a transport route just so he could go to away matches! OK, I'll get on with it, I thought I was safe but just wanted to check. Looking at the Sodorites a lot of them seem to be modern ones, and it's hard to argue any kind of Scottish connection after 1828 so that cat'll go on the "fringe" list.FlagSteward (talk) 10:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)