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Please don't populate this category for the time being; it was created out of process, and is wrongly named. I thought I'd resolved this with the creator, and fixed it, but this has been undone recently. The correct name for the stub category would be Category:Scotland stubs (the one appearing, also incorrectly, on categories for deletion, as mentioned here).

There's also the issue of category "viability"; stub categories are only supposed to be created when there are at least 60, and ideally more, candidate stubs to be sorted into it. (Another reason for the stub-type proposal mechanism, WP:WSS/P.) Though there's probably a reasonable number of unfound Scottish stubs, plus it's certainly useful as a "root" category for the existing stub-cats for Scottish geography, bios, etc. It helps in such cases if there's an associated Wikiproject: which this isn't, but seems a lot like one in scope. It might be worth considering whether a) to "spin off" Wikipedia:Wikiproject Scotland, or b) to explicitly say this is doubling as such. Alai 16:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've only just seen this. Sorry, I will stop putting articles in until Cfd discussion concluded. You will have no problem finding 60 articles for it: I could fill it with 60 valid articles in 2 hours, if I got my head down and ignored other wee edits that needed doing. I honestly think that there are well over a thousand, perhaps thousands, of applicable artcles, and that excludes the bio and geo articles. User:Lochaber, on my Talk page, pointed me in the direction of the relevant (buried) discussion. It was unanimous, but what I do not understand is why nothing has been done to bulk rename the entire lot of "foo-related stubs" categories? It seems very, very odd to just apply the new policy to Scotland, while ignoring the (perhaps more significant) United States, France, China etc re-names.--Mais oui! 23:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
No prob, I think this discussion's become a little fragmented: I feel a little breathless, chasing from one page to another... I don't seriously doubt "viability", it's just a nicety to try to get the count done, or at least roughly estimated, first, to (try to!) stop people from creating horribly undersized "niche" stub categories, which believe me, certainly happens. It wasn't immediately obviously there'd be this many in the parent UK stub category, though I don't doubt there's many more besides those.
The "bulk renaming"'s not been done because of the way categories work. Not only do the category pages themselves need to be "moved" (actually, cut and pasted, then deleted), but every single article needs to be edited, for the recategorisation to take place. So, "bulk" really is the operative word. So it's being done gradually, and opportunistically, especially where it's easy to do so, i.e. on new and small existing categories. So think of it as "early adoption of wave of the future", not as of being given selective, much less especially unfavourable treatment. Alai 23:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Scottish bio stubs

The Category:British people stubs is apparently overloaded. It is also full of Scottish people who can be moved to Category:Scottish people stubs. I have moved a bunch of aristocrats over there, not because I like nobility, but because they have the handy habit of putting the name of their stately home after their own! Please help. --MacRusgail 17:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC

Yeah, makes it a bit easier. The other method of course is to look for all the typically Scottish surnames, but of course that will still miss a lot of people, and plently of other British people have got Scottish surnames, but it will still find an awful lot of them.
I don't know how good an idea this is, but I have been tending to put peers in the relevant Council category: eg Duke of Montrose in Category:Angus, Earl of Orkney in Category:Orkney Islands. I know that you dislike these Council area categories, but they do seem to be well and truly here to stay: none of the political parties seems remotely interested in yet another local govt re-organisation, and especially not the big four, who are the only ones likely to be able to implement it.--Mais oui! 17:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I've commented on this elsewhere, I don't like putting people in modern council areas... except where they seem to correspond with historic ones, e.g. Fife, Orkney. This is partly because they keep on changing them, and the boundaries (Argyll is as much "Highland" as Applecross, but East Caithness isn't), people say that they're from traditional counties (still) rather than these. A few years ago, you wouldn't have heard people say that they were from "Central" or "Grampian" for example (both of them are by the wayside now anyway). --MacRusgail 16:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Articles requiring Scottish input/expansion etc

The Heart of Midlothian

--MacRusgail 16:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested categories and stubs?

These seem a little redundant, no? A request for a stub is surely exactly the same as a request for an article (just more self-consciously modest, as it were). A request for a category is surely either really either a proposal, or a request for wiki-code assistance, both of which might as well be phrased as such, and don't seem to need a separate sub-section, I'd think. Alai 03:52, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Off topic, I suppose, but how would I go about requesting a Welsh biography stub? There's lots of people in the UK bio list who have names using obviously Welsh spellings, and no doubt there's plenty more with less "Welsh looking" names. --MacRusgail 14:30, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
      • How the devil am I supposed to count them all though? I had enough trouble tracking all the Scottish ones down, and am still finding more. They don't seem to be getting into alphabetical order. It seems to be very overcomplicated. --MacRusgail 21:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
        • You don't have to count them all, just have some evidence there's a reasonable number. Given that there's over 2400 people in UK-bio-stub, not even counting existing sub-categories, shouldn't be too hard to argue this via either sampling, or a certain amount of hand-waving. (At least 2 or 3 percent are bound to be Welsh.) Anyway, just something you might want to bear in mind when proposing new stub types: stub sorters don't want the categories getting too large, on the one hand, but equally they don't want them being so small that they languish away unnoticed. Alai 22:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Celtic mythology

Looking through the Celtic mythology page I see lots of howlers, particularly misspellings, by folk not familiar with the Celtic languages. There's a lot of well-meaning disinformation on here, some of it propagated by post-modernist "revivalists".

The Scottish links and articles are particularly poor, and I have called into question some of the articles such as Douglas (mythology). --MacRusgail 17:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Checking Douglas (mythology), I've noticed the tag, but no information as to why it was placed there. If there is a reason for it, I would highly suggest placing it in the talk page, and here as well if you wish, for good measure. Canaen 00:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

categorising Scots as native to their trad. county, region, or council area

let s categorise Scots as native to the local area in which they grew up or spent considerable time residing, which for many was one of the trad. counties. the question of what to do with people who grew up during the region system of local gov t (btween 1973 and 1997) i would answer is to simply ignore this in our catting and cat these individuals under either or both trad. county or council area cats (perhaps just under the latter cat). i recently discovered that perhaps for the sake of simplification Scots who died before 1974 have been catted under council areas and started creating cats for natives of trad. counties till asked to post a message here first. thoughts? -Mayumashu 16:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The trad counties are much better for various reasons, e.g. people identify with them, and are more familiar with them. No one goes about (that I know of) saying that they come from "Grampian", "Central" etc, or if they live in Kinross, they come from Fife. Of course, the three or four small counties might be a problem - Nairnshire, Clackmannanshire, Kinrossshire and Kincardineshire. --MacRusgail 18:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, regions for one thing have gone the way of all flesh, and unitary authorities are rather too recent to be of much use in regard to people's origins. I'd suggest that lieutenancy areas are a reasonable solution, having the faint whiff of tradition about them, but having some current standing, and being less baroque than the actual traditional counties per se. It's also how the location stub categories are being proposed to be dealt with, as I mentioned on the front page, and some congruence would obviously be handy. Alai 22:59, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
the areas encompassed by the two - trad counties and lieutenancy areas - largely overlap, don t they. for me it comes down to which of the two people identify more with, and if this is approximately the same, then i like the idea of User:Alai to use the tidier names of the lieutenancy areas. if however it is felt Scots describe themselves as being of/from trad. counties and not lieutenancy areas, i d support use of trad. counties despite their longer names. (i m not from Scotland btw, i just like catting bio pages by where the person is from) -Mayumashu 14:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
How do Scots describe themselves? If you want N different opinions on that, ask N Scots... and brace yourself for an oversubscription. :) I'd guess that the LAs are the best guess for that purpose. They're actually pretty close to the TCs, the main differences being, the "tidying up" of most of the enclaves and exclaves, and the separation of Glasgow as its own LA. (Ask a Glaswegian where she's from and she will not be likely to say "Lanarkshire".) I'd guess that fewer people would give answers congruent with the UAs or regions, but then again, it all depends on the context of the question... Alai 06:20, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Can I request that we take this topic to Categories for deletion, where we can have an open debate, with the input of other experienced Wikipedians. I am very uncomfortable with Wikipedia using local authority designations that were abolished thirty years ago, and which no political party seems likely to ever want (let alone be in a position to implement) to re-constitute. Lieutenancy areas seem an even more bizarre and obscure way of dividing Scotland, being purely ceremonial in nature: Wikipedia is not a publication that tends to favour ceremonial niceties over day-to-day realities.

Please note that many, many people are categorised to political units that just did not exist when they were born, or lived: Da Vinci was never an Italian citizen, yet you will find him under Cat:Italian people. Same with Beethoven, Shakespeare, Newton, and thousands more. So I see no problem whatsoever with putting "Perthshire" for Robert Cunninghame-Graham's place of birth, BUT Category:Natives of Perth and Kinross at the article's foot.

Unless any one has any strong objections, I will submit all the Category:Scottish people by traditional county categories to Cfd this evening. Please do not create any new stubs along lieutenancy lines until that debate is resolved.

On a Point of Information: "No one goes about (that I know of) saying that they come from "Grampian", "Central" etc, or if they live in Kinross, they come from Fife." No-one is proposing using the now-defunct Regions (Grampian, Central etc); and the old Kinross-shire (deceased 1975 note) is not part of modern Fife, but of modern Perth and Kinross. --Mais oui! 09:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought Central still existed. The "new" regions are even less familiar to me! I'm sure I'm not alone. Many of these new bureaucratic regions (that's what they are!) are not places people identify with, except if they use old names. --MacRusgail 16:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree with Mais Oui, lets use current authority areas, at leasst then we can be precise about things. I think using either TC or Lieut. areas would be confusing as they overlap, but are not the same thing. This also clears up a related point: I have recently started sorting Category:Towns in Scotland by current authority areas (some have already been done), and shall watch the CfD debate to see if this should continue. Supergolden 17:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Precise? That's my "precise" point. Caithnessians are not "Highlanders", and Argyll folk are, but the former's in Highland region, the latter in another, and let's go nowhere near what they did to "Aberdeenshire" again! These regions are confusing to most people. When you say "Highlander" for example, how are people to know whether you mean the real thing, or someone in a government construct? --MacRusgail 18:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

let s start the lieutenancy areas 'native of' category scheme (as it stands the better chance of support than the trad. counties scheme given the later were recently deleted), and let s do it now - i ll do the work. i suggest we keep the council areas cats scheme in place, just depopulate the cats of people who grew up in Scotland prior to 1996 (99.9%). in the next 20/30 years the council area cats will fill up as people slowly come to identify with them. yes, two separate schemes -Mayumashu 05:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Aberdonians, Dundonians

How come Edinburgh gets the rarely used "Edinburgher" category, but Aberdeen and Dundee get "people from X"? Even in Edinburgh, there's debate about the adjective for folk from the city, whereas the other two are settled.

Absolutely, that doesn't make sense to me either. The "Natives of Aberdeen/Dundee" category has a needlessly clunky name and I can only imagine that it was created by someone unfamiliar with the cities. Leithp (talk) 08:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm guilty of poorly naming the two cats and have just put them up for a rename nomiation at the cfd (categories for deletion) page - please go to that page to vote to get the names changed -Mayumashu 05:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
There was a debate about the use of a reasonably obscure word for people from Madrid. It's probably well used in Spanish, but not English... however are people in the USA that familiar with terms like Novocastrian (Geordie) or Glaswegian (Weegie!)? It's not that I'm against the use of these names, I think that we have to be consistent. Edinburger/burgher is not in common use (Personally I've always liked "Edimbourgeois", as it sums up a certain aspect of the city!), but Aberdonian (Dons) and Dundonian are in Scotland. --MacRusgail 13:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC) p.s. Seeing as Leithp is here, is Leither a suitable cat or not? Some notable people have identified themselves as such.
Leither is certainly the commonly used term for people from Leith (although you'll hear some other terms used at Tynecastle). I'm not sure that it would be a very well populated category though, apart from The Proclaimers of course...... Leithp (talk) 13:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Although it's not that long ago that Leith was a town in its own right, so there could well be historical figures who would be Leithers rather than Edinburghers. This isn't something I know that well as, despite the username, I don't have any connection to the place. Leithp (talk) 13:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Irvine Welsh too? I think there's a few others. But you can argue where Leith ends and Edinburgh begins, and some think they're one and the same. Same conurbation anyway. --MacRusgail 14:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
And others listed on the page, but to be honest I think that, given the size of the Edinburgher cat, there isn't any point breaking it down into sub-cats. Leithp (talk) 14:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Irish-Scots and Category:Irish British people

(The following comment is a reproduction of one I left at the discussion at User talk:MacRusgail#Irish Scots.)

We ought to watch this new category (and the British supercat) like hawks. It has the potential to be used as a political football, far more so than most of the other "hyphenated-people" categories. Criteria for inclusion should be rigourously enforced: the article itself must state Irish birth, or some strong connection to Ireland during the person's life (eg an Irish parent). Having an Irish grannie (or even further back) is just not good enough, unless the person themself has made a particular point of identifying as a person of Irish origin, or it has been a notable feature of their life. With other similar cats people have been included who have only weak links with "country of origin" (eg Reese Witherspoon under Category:Scottish-Americans), and I suppose this is OK if a consensus has been reached to accept it by the relevant editors, but I do not think we should give such leeway with these Irish- cats. For example, even if the article is a stub, and by definition incomplete, we should not add these Irish- cats until and unless an editor includes the relevant connection with Ireland in the article itself, by consensus. (I am going to re-produce this comment at Wikipedia:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board.)--Mais oui! 08:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

COPIED FROM User talk:MacRusgail#Irish Scots

I have now moved everyone from the Irish British category to Category:People of Irish descent in Great Britain and Category:Irish people in Great Britain (there are a few anomalies). Maybe it would be good idea to rename the Irish-Scots category to Category:People of Irish descent in Scotland to avoid certain people being upset by labelling issues? Arniep 02:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
No. Please do not! I just have a very strong feeling that your two new cats are going to be very contentious. If you want to rename any more categories you must take them to Cfd first.--Mais oui! 11:06, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

COPY ENDS

New stub category

Scotland has another new stub template and category! For buildings and other human-made structures in Scotland, there is now {{Scotland-struct-stub}}. feeding into Category:Scottish buildings and structures stubs. If you can find a better icon for it, feel free to change it - none of the pictures of places like Edinburgh Castle or Stirling Castle looked good that small, nor those of the Forth Bridge, so at the moment it's got Glasgow's "Armadillo", but that's not that good tiny either... Grutness...wha? 09:07, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Requested biographies

I have ferretted through the list @ Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/biographies and copied a number of the Scottish entries into Scottish requested articles (biographies). Some of these characters look very interesting, and are new on me! --MacRusgail 13:05, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Mmm. I've been dying for someone to write an article on Richard Holloway. Maccoinnich 14:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
An interesting man, but not one I'm a fan of. I don't think I could be a bishop with the lack of belief he had... and then turn round and use a religious position to promote his thoughts on the world. It would have been more "moral" perhaps for him to leave the church and then do what he did. For me, I tend to think he was hypocritical in that regard (and I'm not Christian, let alone Episcopalian). --MacRusgail 17:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Electric Brae

Didn't know where to put this in requested articles, as it is a book (by Andrew Greig - literature) and also the nickname of at least two places with "gravity defying" slopes (geography - folklore). The locations vary depending on who you speak to. They tend to be in the North Lanarkshire-Ayrshire area, on the northern part of the Southern Uplands. But which they are, I don't know.

It is, however well enough known to deserve an article --MacRusgail 18:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know anything more about it than a quick google reveals, but the best known one (only as far as I knew) is certainly in Ayrshire. Oddly enough, the germans have beaten us to it - they already have an article at Electric Brae. Spricht hier jemand Deutsch? Maccoinnich 20:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
If a suitable section or sub-section does not exist yet at Requested articles then just create it. I have put in two new subsections and the book and mountain electric braes, but perhaps we also need a new Folklore/Myth subsection of Culture for Electric Brae (folklore)--Mais oui! 22:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
That'd be going over the top... Electric Brae should be for the hill (not mountain!) and folklore. And if the book is strongly tied to that, for it too; otherwise Electric Brae (book). wangi 22:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Done. Don't know of any others, so someone can find if there are any. Suggest Electric Brae (novel) for the book....dave souza 12:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, Catholics and Glasgow

The page on the architectural firm Gillespie, Kidd & Coia was started, and subsequently mostly edited, by me. An anon user removed the sentence "As a result, the number of Catholics in Glasgow collapsed: from a 69,000 in 1951 to 13,000 in 1971. This was against a rising number of Catholics in the country as a whole, reaching a peak of 15% of the population in the early 1960s", claiming "False figures. Clearly more Catholics in Glasgow in 1971 than 13000". Now, I reverted it, because I took those figures directly from the book referenced in the article. However, after thinking about it, it does seem a little low. Does anyone have any way of checking if those figures are credible? Maccoinnich 16:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've no way of checking, but they seem implausible to me. In fact, I'm sure they are wrong. They should not be in the article, but if they must me should be caveated with 'according to .....' with the source clearly cited. --Doc ask? 16:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
The Third Statistical Account for Glasgow (1966 or so) will have 1961 census data, which should allow sanity-checking of those numbers; I have the Edinburgh volume here, but not the Glasgow one. (46k in Edinburgh, FWIW) Shimgray | talk | 00:40, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Right - it was my fault. I found the original source, and it seems I left out the fairly important caveat of those numbers being in eight city centre parishes. Fixed now. Thanks. Maccoinnich 17:16, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

History of Scotland Template

I've made a History of Scotland Template to provide an easy link from/to significant Scotland pages. It'll probably need some amendment as there is a lot of red (I mostly copied it from the History of France template), but as more pages are added this will fill up. AllanHainey 13:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Good work Allan, but I'd have to take issue with the pre-Roman bit. Romans were not as big an influence on modern-day Scotland as in modern-day England and Wales, and I would certainly say that the Norse invasions are more important, and had longer lasting effects. Also, the period between 400-1000 in Scottish history probably deserves at least one section - the Norse could be one "fixer". --MacRusgail 17:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I was basically amending the French template so there are bits which probably aren't appropriate & links that should be there but aren't. I put in pre-Roman as it's a good dividing line between diferent periods, but as it's all red at the moment feel free to amend it, I don't know a great deal about early Scottish history so I probably can't do much for it. AllanHainey 15:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Creating New Entries/Extensive Modifications

Forgive me if this is not the right place to ask this, but as a newbie with only some editing experience, I have a query. I would like to create an entry for the Brahan Seer, as I notice that he doesn't have one (although he's mentioned in a few others). I gather, from reading various users pages, that there's some sort of procedure I have to go through before I can create such a page? Also, I was hoping to extensively overhaul the entry for the Battle Of Dunnichen, within my sandbox and ask suitable admins/experienced users to check it out. Is there a procedure for doing this sort of thing too? Lianachan 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. Here's a link - just start editing from here Brahan Seer. See this for some tips Wikipedia:Your first article. Don't worry too much about style - other people (such as those here) can give you a hand. The most important thing is good content. I look forward to seeing the article. Maccoinnich 19:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! Just go for it: BE BOLD. If you make some boo-boos (and let's face it, who doesn't?) then I'm sure that other Users will not be backward in coming forward. Don't forget to bung at least one (preferably at least a couple) of appropriate categories at the foot of the article, and personally, I prefer all new articles to carry a stub template until a few other editors have made contributions. So, for a biographical article like the Brahan Seer, I would tend to put this right at the very bottom of your article:

[[Category:Scottish people]]
[[Category:Natives of Highland]]

{{Scotland-bio-stub}}
{{celt-myth-stub}}

(Out of interest, I've never seen that cat before, quite interesting: Category:Celtic mythology stubs.) Anyway, for the bonus point, what "occupation" is a seer? - Category:Scottish people by occupation???--Mais oui! 20:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Project: Scottish Placename Etymology

Just dipping a toe in the water, to see if there'd be much/any interest in updating the entries for Scottish places (and landmarks, etc..) with etymological information.

I've described it very briefly on my talk page. Lianachan 13:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd be very much interested. When adding a few Scottish places to the 'pedia I usually tend to look up a bit of their naming information anyway. As you can see I've listed toponomy as one of my interests, which it is, so... yep, sign me up :) Nach0king 18:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Any "roadmap" for making a start on this? Nach0king 15:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought I'd wait a few weeks, at least until the new year, to see if there was much interest. Lianachan 01:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, cool.Nach0king 11:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you guys want to make it a Wikiproject? It is probably the best format for planning, communication and co-ordination. Obviously we would advertise it here at the notice board upon initiation, and give it a link or two, eg. here and at P:S.--Mais oui! 11:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've got it listed as a proposed project already. Lianachan 13:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but Scottish placenames are notoriously hard to crack, and there's often several explanations. Sometimes as many as five in some cases. A lot of disinformation floating about, e.g. that Edinburgh is Edwin's Burgh, even though it appears to be Brythonic in origin, and predating King Edwin.--MacRusgail 20:49, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Edinburgh, I believe, is Dùn Éideann in Gaelic, which itself is from the Brythonic Din Eidyn ("Eidyn's fort"). By giving true toponymies, where they can be demonstrated, surely we'd be helping dispel the worst that folk etymology can do? Lianachan 07:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
In places where the etymology is unclear, what we could do is just dispel common myths, even if we can't offer a definitive answer ourselves. Sounds good? Nach0king 17:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Irish Catholic Rebels

I invite all Scottish Wikipedians to take a look at this article and then vote for a 'Speedy Delete on the articles entry on the Articles for Deletion. Camillustalk|contribs 01:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Update: Don't worry - it's gone! Camillustalk|contribs 09:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Clans of Scotland WikiProject

If anyone's interested, we have at least 2 or 3 active participants (as far as I can tell) over at the Clans of Scotland WikiProject, and we could sure use more. There's a decent template up, so Clan pages are quite easy to craft. Canaen 11:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

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