Talk:Moot hill

A fact from Moot hill appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 October 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that moot hills in Scotland were mostly artificial mounds built as traditional meeting places for de facto lairdly courts and courts of law?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/October.

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Moot hills in Scotland or Moot hills in Great Britain?

Due recent edits, the article now begins "Moot hills in Scotland". Why is this? There are moot hills elsewhere in Great Britain. Surely the intro should be generic and the the material that is specific to Scotland should be in the Scotland section? (Recognising of course that the concept became far more developed and lasted longer in Scotland). --John Maynard Friedman 12:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And the first subsection then begins, "In Scotland, they were known as mote hills." Thus the article now contradicts itself. Is it safe to excise "in Scotland" from the first sentence of the article, or is there a deeper problem with the definition or etymology? 71.204.204.249 12:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[EDIT]] After reading further, it seems clear that "moot" is Old English, "mote" is Scots Gaelic derived from OE, so I am removing the confusing and etymologically incorrect statement from the opening sentence. 71.204.204.249 12:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Approve. See also today's discussion at Talk:Moot hall. I think there is a strong case for the article to have a generic opening then detailed sections on the (richer) Scottish developents and the English developments. --John Maynard Friedman 12:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The desire to tidy the messy world up into neat packages ("moot is English spelling, mote Scottish") should be resisted. Do we have any evidence, other than negative, for this claim? Doops | talk 13:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi guys. Mote is the Scots term & Moot is the generic term used by Scottish Authors, archaeologists, etc. Let me know if I am wrong. Rosser 19:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinates

Hi, I have begun adding Google Earth coordinates for all these, will try to finish before the ennui sets in Cosnahang 12:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Thats great. I was having problems with Flashearth. Rosser 19:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Rosser for the encouragement. I am just doing this in my breaks at work (my home PC is too old for Google Earth! Thanks also for the local Authority bits. Mostly I am takig the National Grid Coordinates (NX000999) and putting them into http://www.nearby.org.uk/coord.cgi to swap them into lat & long. Cosnahang 13:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cosnahang. I tried to add a few co-ordinates. I used the Flashearth co-ordinates - are they just less accurate or am I getting it all wrong? Rosser 10:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have not tried those ones, I just use the Wikipedia template:coord standard Cosnahang 12:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Serfdom"?

This section (and it was presented as a main section, not as a subsection) seems completely irrelevant to a discussion of moot hills, so I am removing it here.

== Miscellany ==

Serfdom was pre-feudal and had nothing to do with the feudal system. Scotland had abandoned serfdom by 1320 and was probably the first country in Europe to do so!^[1]

If it actually serves some purpose in this article, please splice it where it belongs. 71.204.204.249 12:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Just a bit of Scottish pride. Seemed harmless enough.Rosser 19:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ The Scottish Genealogist

Baronies

The section on Baronies seems to go on a bit long, and contains info that would be more relevant to an article on baronial titles or estates. It's not irrelevant here, but I'm not sure that so much info is required for an understanding of moot hills and their purpose.

In particular, the following passage is a verbatim copy-and-paste from the cited source (http://www.scotsgenealogy.com/online/baronage_of_scotland.htm). It's the tenth paragraph down from the top of the page of that article, after the subtitle, "The Barony":

In the early period the word baron might mean the "man" as opposed to the "lord" from whom he held the land. In an even earlier period the term baron simply meant "man" and later acquired the separate sense of "King's man". The term soon came to imply holding in chief of the King - that is immediately of the King. In due course the term baron came to signify one one who held "of the King" with certain rights and duties and at its highest development the word came to mean one who held as tenant in chief of the King's lands erected by Charter "in liberam baroniam" - in free barony. As Sir John Skene in his glossary of Scots legal terms put it in 1597 "In this Realme he is called ane Barrone quha haldis his landes immediatlie in chiefe of the King and hes power of pit and gallows".

I'm fairly sure that a freeform etymology of "baron" like this is actually irrelevant to the article, but I'll leave it to someone else to make the decision to remove or rewrite. 71.204.204.249 12:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[EDIT] The plagiarism goes farther than I thought. This passage, immediately preceeding the passage quoted above, is, with the addition of a single sentence from another source, a verbatim copy-and-paste from http://www.clanmunro.org.uk/information/info9.htm:

A Barony was an area of land, (not necessarily together in one place) granted by the Crown to a Tenant to be held 'in liberam baroniam' which became a unit in administration and law. The holder or Baron had power to hold courts which dealt with civil and criminal cases of less than major importance. Some crimes were reserved for royal courts, namely murder, rape, robbery with violence, fire raising and treason. To come under the jurisdiction of a baronial court, the crime had to have been committed within the barony or concerned its people or property. There was no uniformity of size of baronies.[6][7]

Baron was not a peerage title in Scotland as it was in England, but he or she held their land direct from the King or Queen. After c1700 the emphasis was on administration, a good neighbourhood and economic and other rules for the benefit of those living within the Barony. In 1747 the criminal jurisdiction of a Baron Court was much restricted. In the days before County or District Councils the Barony was largely a self governing community. There was a system of appeals to the Sheriff and the Central Courts.[6]

While neither of these sources carries a copyright notice, they are still the work of others and should not be copied verbatim. I appreciate that both sources are cited extensively, but using the source material word-for-word is still plagiarism. 71.204.204.249 13:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What a lot of cut & paste! Baronies were central to the pit & gallows & thus the moot hills.

I usually enjoy the process of editing by others when one of my articles appears on DYK. Do I get the idea that I should read and then rewrite sections from other sources completely? They are given a reference. No attempt is made to hide their origin. Rosser 20:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Direct quotations always need to be treated as such, i.e. surrounded with quotation marks and introduced with some phrase describing their origin. Logical deductions drawn from outside sources likewise often merit in-text crediting. Citations (footnotes) are great for giving credit for facts or the source of quotations, but they're not a substitute for academically honest writing. Doops | talk 12:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maxcorrigenda

This page has lots of citations; and some of those citations include links to external websites. Following those links, we can immediately see that many phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs of this article are direct plagarism from those websites.

Of course, this leads me to wonder about the books and other non-online sources cited— are there other phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs directly plagarised from them? Quite possibly.

Apart from the copyright / academic honesty concerns raised (which are huge, and obvious), this also greatly takes away from the credibility of the article.

Self-righteous indignation is not a good way to approach editing!Rosser 10:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Taken together with its rapid growth to its present length (practically overnight) and the air of false expertise projected by it (as in the following passage, chosen at random: "It is interesting to note that several moot hills were clearly located at sites that were surrounded by water, such as Mugdock, Mound Wood and Court Hill at the Hill of Beith; others may well have been, such as Hutt Knowe. Such inaccessibility would obviously have required the use of a boat or raised walkway.") I can't feel much confidence in something so obviously semi-digested.

It is not stated as a fact. Have you read the section about Silbury Hill and the 'limnal' comment. Have a look at FlashEarth - a lot is revealed about the position of some moots in relation to water. Rosser 20:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I seriously feel that blanking the page and starting over from a stub might be the only way forward. Doops | talk 13:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well 'Doops' - what actually is the problem? I write an interesting article & you object that it appears practically overnight, etc. It was created in a Sandbox & hatched out overnight. Please, be more constructive, objective and make helpful comments. If you are so upset about possible plagarism, then rewrite the sections. Surely a plagarised section gets spotted by a 'bot' anyway and you are told in no uncertain terms. Rosser 20:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The plagarism is patent and represents a blatant violation of other authors' copyright. I'd love to rewrite the whole article; but I don't have the time right this minute — but it absolutely needs to happen; the article can't stand as it is at present. Doops | talk 22:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Doops

Come now. Academic dishonesty, blatant violation, semi-digested, lack of credibility, etc. Please, calm down and be sensible. I have had a go at alleviating some of your concerns and I will continue to hone the sections into a more digestible meal. Remember, this is not fiction, this is the assembly of facts which the authors got from other authors in most cases. I usually rewrite or cut out what I don't like, but is hard and a little pointless to rewrite every factual statement. Has someone plagarised you in your professional life recently?

Please give me some links to where Wikipedia denigrates such underhand, cheating, low life, half-baked, deleterious, World destroying behaviour as mine appears to be in your eyes. I will then mend my ways and be born again.

By the way - it is not very academic to get so upset. Stick to the principles you rather long windedly expound on your User Page. It makes one doubt the reasons for your complaints. I think he protests too much! Rosser 10:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. I wish that I had ever written anything worth plagarizing.

I actually haven't really been upset or worked-up over this, despite how my comments seem to have seemed to you. Mostly I'm just frustrated with myself, because it's a big problem and I don't really know how to address it— I'm not one of those editors who can just blithely blank the page and tell you to get lost. I do realize that various editors (principally, it seems, you) have put a lot of time and effort into this page and I don't want that to be lost forever; but something has to be done. I should do it myself; but because this is such a big article already it's a big task and I'm not sure I'm up to it right now.

I'm sorry if my comments seemed to call your personal honesty into question— I realize that you had no dishonest intentions. Nonetheless, though, it's just commonplace academic honesty that when you take a phrase, sentence, paragraph, or even just an organizational structure from another author, you need to note that fact explicitly. The wikipedia will lose all credibility if this isn't followed— and besides, we owe it to the original authors.

[I should point out that even if you take a quotation from another author and rewrite it, sentence by sentence, that's still plagarism— anything we write should be fresh, written from scratch. In general, the safest way to do this is to read your source until you've really gotten to know it and internalized what it's saying; then close it and write your text on a blank page. (Of course, even when you're doing this, you still need to give your sources credit, via footnotes, for underlying your work.)]

Anyway, this is just to let you know I have no personal vendetta against you and I wish you good luck. That said, though, I hope you won't be offended when I say that wikipedia articles are generally much stronger when they've seen contributions from a range of authors, so I do hope that some others show up and cooperate. Doops | talk 14:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have to concur with Doops, though, in respect of verbatim quotations from other authors. The fact that it is a quotation must be made clear (using Blockquote or similar) and the author named explicitly in the text (and not just indicated with a footnote reference). --John Maynard Friedman 16:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Comments taken on board chaps. I will continue to upgrade the article with these comments in mind. I have done quite a bit already.Rosser 16:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ayreshire gallery

I understood these galleries to be deprecated in favour of link to Wiki Commons like this:

Certainly the Ayreshire gallery really breaks the flow of the article and even seems to suggest a natural end. I propose that it be removed in favour of a commons link. How about "Moot hills in Ayreshire" (assuming that there is such a category in Commons - if not, make one. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:16, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scotland

The incorporation of all these Scottish assembly mounds into the term "moot hill" is not sound. The first reason is that "Moot Hill" is an English term, and though both the "Scots and the Picts" and the "English" has similar institutions, the term Moot is now used by historians in an ethnic way and implies an English institution. The second is that it doesn't give a role to the Comhdhaill (Couthil, Cuthil, etc), which has quite a lot written about it. Almost all of these hills under the Scotland section aren't diagnostically moot hills and shouldn't be in this article. I'd recommend the Scottish material is moved to something like Assembly mounds in Scotland; the author should do this. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 05:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about Thynghowe

Thynghowe was an important Danelaw meeting place, located in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. It was lost to history until its rediscovery in 2005-6 by local history enthusiasts. 83.233.193.166 (talk) 00:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC) http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Halvdan[reply]

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Etymology

The verb ‘meet’ is derived from the noun ‘moot’, not the other way around, via umlaut of the stem vowel triggered by the verb-forming suffix ‘-ian’. Other examples include ‘bleed’ from ‘blood’, ‘gild’ from ‘gold’, and ‘feed’ from ‘food’. I can revise the entry accordingly if that seems a good idea… 73.174.158.102 (talk) 02:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dagenham and Godalming

I removed the partial list of moot hills from the article Moot hall as these are already covered here, with two exceptions: Dagenham and Godalming Hundred. The Dagenham article does not mention the moot. The section Godalming Hundred § Christian era mentions the moot and the location – but not the nature – of its meeting place. If there is additional information available, these hills could be added to this article. Ibadibam (talk) 17:25, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[Genealogist-1] The Scottish Genealogist

[1]