Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scottish Islands/Assessment

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Quality assessment

message: 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)
thread_title:  Hills 

message: 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)
replies: text: Except the airport on Barra. Lurker (said · done) 14:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and indeed Westray/ Papa Westray. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

text: 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)
thread_title: Lighthouses & Airports

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Settlements

message: 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)
thread_title: Biography

message: 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)
thread_title: Protocol

message: 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)
thread_title: Historical figures

message: 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)
thread_title: Clans

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Re-assessments 

message: 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 MacDuiTalk/Walk 10:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  1,000 and more 

message: How is this used? Tag on talk page? --MacRusgail (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does this help you? Finavon (talk) 23:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, not really, I'm afraid. How can you tag an article which doesn't exist?! --MacRusgail (talk) 11:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry I thought you meant there was a requirement to use the class paramenter! According to  "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)
thread_title:  Needed class 

message: 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 MacDuiTalk/Walk 18:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  North Berwick Harbour 

message: 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 MacDuiTalk/Walk 13:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Comments (at last) 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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 MacDuiTalk/Walk 21:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Waulking Song 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Whisky 

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

message: 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 MacDuiTalk/Walk 11:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP 1.0 'C' class 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Nidaros 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Do editors' priorities match readers' priorities? 

message: 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  or  would be suitable for tagging, but I thought I'd just check before doing it. FlagSteward (talk) 18:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Tagging