Wikipedia:Featured and good topic candidates/Islands of Scotland/archive1

Islands of Scotland

 * Contributor(s): Ben MacDui
 * For the record, I am aware of the numerous other contributors to some of these articles by editors such as Finavon, MacRusgail, Lurker, Warofdreams and Akerbeltz but as the edit history stats link is down I have been unable to come up with a full list. Ben   Mac  Dui  16:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

This geography topic covers all of the 800 plus islands of Scotland in the featured lists/GAs and provides GA, FA or FL coverage of the geology, history, wildlife etc. of all the important archipelagos. My thanks to the numerous other contributors to these articles and the reviewers who helped iron out their deficiencies. -- Ben  Mac  Dui  19:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Very peculiar page name - no idea what happened there and presume it should be moved to Featured topic candidates/Islands of Scotland/archive1. Happy to do that if someone can confirm this. Ben   Mac  Dui  19:46, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I fixed it, just waiting for the old name to be deleted. It was created by not changing the name in the nomination template. Zginder 2011-05-01T20:14Z (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ben   Mac  Dui  07:05, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Needs a book. Courcelles 20:45, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Created - am I right in thinking the report stats on the talk page are bot generated? Couldn't see any obvious guidance. Ben   Mac  Dui  07:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed, there is a bot who does that and updates it. Support Complete topic. Courcelles 01:24, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. Ben   Mac  Dui  08:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose The topic does not seem to be comprehensive as there are several missing islands. For example, forgive me if I missed it (my geography is pretty bad) but I don't see Eileach an Naoimh in the topic or in any of the sublists. Adabow (talk · contribs) 06:11, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is in the List of Inner Hebrides. Ben   Mac  Dui  07:05, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, so every island in Scotland that has an article is listed either here or in a sublist? Adabow (talk · contribs) 07:40, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That is certainly the intention and there are of course a large number of other islets listed that don't have articles. The exception is Hinba - because we don't know where it is (or rather we don't know it's modern name). Ben   Mac  Dui  07:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Support A complete topic. I wonder whether you should organise the articles and pipe the lists ie *Shetland *List of islands etc Adabow (talk · contribs) 08:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your support. I did a quick re-organisation —sorry to be dense, but I am not sure what you mean about piping the lists. If you can be a bit more specific I'd be happy to have a look at this. Ben   Mac  Dui  17:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I had a go at reorganisation. If anyone does not like this then feel free to revert. Adabow (talk · contribs) 05:14, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Ben   Mac  Dui  08:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - should the topic of the title not be something like "Island groups of Scotland"? The title "Islands of Scotland" could be taken to imply that the topic includes the articles on every Scottish island and, well, it doesn't.......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I had not really considered that as an implication - as mentioned above it does include every island. However, I am not very familiar with FT protocols. I think "Islands of... " would be my first choice as its simpler, it follows the Main template and it would be entirely impractical to create an FT that did include every island, but I could go with "Island groups of..." if that was felt to be more consistent with existing usage. Ben   Mac  Dui  17:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Support - I think it's fine to title it "Islands of", as all individual island articles are covered by a parent article that's in the topic here. -- Pres N  18:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment—Why is Hebrides not included? Also, I would prefer that you have "List of islands" instead of "List of" under the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Ucucha 10:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The latter is fixed. The former is a more complex question. The topic aims to list all the islands of Scotland and to provide an overview for all the main archipelagos. The "Hebrides" is of course a collective name for the Inner and Outer Hebrides and there is an argument for its inclusion. Any overview content would however essentially duplicate that of the other two articles and at present the Hebrides article is heavily slanted towards detailed etymology. Likewise Northern Isles. Moving in the opposite direction there is a case for including the smaller archipelagos contained within the larger such as Small Isles, Garvellachs, the Slate Islands etc. - the possible permutations are large. There is a slightly more detailed analysis of these and some other history-related issues at Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions where I anticipated the question. Lacking familiarity with procedures here I can only fall back on the principal that the topic as defined is complete, and that I can't see any obvious statement in the topic criteria that means that all permutations of the collective entities must be included. Ben   Mac  Dui  17:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the criteria say that (criterion 1e) "For overview topics [of which this is one], every article within the scope of the topic that is not included in the topic should also be within the scope of a non-lead article that is included in the topic." Articles like the Small Isles don't need to be included, because they are already within the scope of a member article of the topic (Inner Hebrides). Also, I don't think the historical topics (like Kingdom of the Isles) that you mention at "Featured topic questions" would fall under the scope of "Islands of Scotland"—rather under "History of Scotland". However, I think the criteria mandate that Hebrides (and Northern Isles, a term I wasn't aware of) should be included, since they are as much part of "Islands of Scotland" as the smaller groups they are subdivided in, and don't fall within the scope of any article that is currently in the topic. It would be a shame if your good work on the islands articles isn't rewarded with a GT, but I think the topics fails the criteria as long as you don't make these two articles into GAs. Ucucha 18:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We would really need a Venn diagram to show the permutations, but (as I understand what you are saying) "North Isles" - although including some Inner and some Outer Hebrides fits within 1e, but "Northern Isles" doesn't because it includes all Orkney and Shetland islands. "Hebrides" as a collective noun isn't within 1e but "islands of the east coast' we can ignore because its an occasional phrase rather than a word. The "Isles" in the Kingdom of the Isles include all the Hebrides and the Islands of the Clyde but we can ignore that because its historical. It's little wonder there are so few geography FTs if this is the form of logic used - the world is not box-shaped! I am sure you can understand it is also frustrating to get an answer of this kind to a question I raised myself on the questions page without any reply and I wonder what other editors think. Ben   Mac  Dui  18:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps my logic is botched (I hope it is, since I don't want to oppose this topic). "North Isles" would fall within the scope of "Hebrides", I think. The Kingdom of the Isles was primarily a political, not geographical entity, and also included the Isle of Man, so I don't think it would fall directly within "Islands of Scotland" in any interpretation. Of course, I also welcome other people's opinions. Ucucha 18:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right - North Isles would fall under Hebrides. The odd thing about this approach is that I can't see any logical objection to a Topic that just had Hebrides and Northern Isles, without any of the crucial detail provided by the Inner/Outer/Orkney/Shetland articles - and the easy way to include Hebrides and Northern Isles is to simply cut and past the existing information into summary style GAs without adding anything new. I notice that I am beginning to come up with all sorts of questions that are in no way relevant to this nomination. I will attempt to tart up these two articles, which are pretty lame, in the meantime instead. Ben   Mac  Dui  18:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hebrides is now a GAN and Northern Isles is nearly there. Can I check that when you say above that "it would be a shame if your good work on the islands articles isn't rewarded with a GT" that this is a typo for "FT"? I am assuming it will still qualify with 8/16 FA & FLs assuming Hebrides and Northern Isles are required and both pass.  Ben   Mac  Dui  11:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC) (I was of course forgetting to mention a different North Isles.)
 * Great, thanks. Yes, FT, not GT; I had forgotten to actually look at the numbers. Ucucha 11:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hebrides is now a GA (with thanks to a patient reviewer) and added to the template above. Northern Isles will be a GAN when I have ce'd the refs. Ben   Mac  Dui  20:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Once Northern Isles is added in, I'll close this with a consensus to promote unless any late objections pop in. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 23:21, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK and thanks - its in the queue. Ben   Mac  Dui  08:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is now completed courtesy of a generous reviewer. Ben   Mac  Dui  15:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Closed with consensus to promote as Featured Topic. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 03:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)