Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:41, 20 July 2004

Template:Featured article is only for Misplaced Pages:Featured articles.

I want to make a History of Britain Series, this is, of course quite impossible between England, Scotland and Ireland and their various pre-1600 histories. So... I was thinking of making a History of England Series ending at the Union of the Crowns, after which History of Britain would come into affect. A history of Scotalnd will also be made. http://en.wikipedia.org/MediaWiki:History_of_England - this is a table I have come up with, not all of the articles linked to are satisfactory. If anyone thinks it's a good idea - I wouldn't mind some help/imput etc. --OldakQuill 19:20, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, fair enough but note that England and Scotland as political entities only exist between about 500 AD and 1700 AD. Before that History of Britain is a more appropriate title since the Angles lived in Europe and the Scots in Ireland. After that History of the United Kingdom would be more appropriate. -- Derek Ross 21:00, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

1320-1560, the lost years

Surely this article should have some discussion of Scottish history between 1320 and 1560? john k 00:22, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indeed :) Derek observed the same thing (User talk:Derek Ross) and says he'll probably fix matters in a few weeks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:28, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually I'm going to make a barebones start on it tonight. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:34, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Phew. Finished -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good job - I've added a few details here and there. It was James II who took on the Douglases, right? john k 05:55, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Black Douglases! Yep. I just didn't want to go into too much detail but feel free. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I just wanted to add something about each of the Kings. Do you think we might want to go into a bit more detail on Mary Queen of Scots/The Reformation? john k 06:41, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mary has such a good article about her already that I would hesitate to add any more about her in this one. The Reformation might be worth a bit more though. I think that we have enough about the important rulers now. Any additions should probably be about cultural or social history. For instance there isn't anything about the Black Death in Scotland, the role of famine, or about the rise and fall of the Scottish Parliament from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. That's probably where we need to concentrate our efforts in the future. But not tonight :-) Bedtime for me. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:54, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah - that's stuff I know less about, so I'd have to take a back seat. Certainly the Reformation could have more, though. john k 07:08, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BTW, how did such an incomplete article come to be featured already? It seems to me that it should still be at "candidate with unresolved objections" until it gets to a near-finished state. john k 07:08, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Don't know the answer to that one. I can only guess that it looked superficially complete to an uncritical reader. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:14, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Trim down?

I rather like this article as it is, but when adding edits get warnings that it's too big and perhaps should be split up. Presumably reducing the number of images would be an option.

With some regret, one candidate for hiving off would be prehistory. Here's an idea of a reduced section as a link. Should this be taken further? (Prehistoric settlement) People lived in Scotland for at least 8500 years before recorded history came to these islands. From hunter-gatherer encampments to megalithic cairns and standing stones to Pictish and Celtic fortifications, this period is covered in Prehistory of Scotland. dave souza 11:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The images don't count toward the size of the article, it's only the wikitext. Don't worry too much about the warning - it's entirely a technical artifact, as some (very old) browsers have problems with large textboxes - but that means _very_ old browsers. I'd say we should ignore the warning for now - if the article gets significantly larger then we should chop it into sub-articles and leave the main "History Of Scotland" a survey article. You and Derek have between you transformed this article recently, and our new-found surfeit of quality text is a good problem to have. Keep up the good work. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:21, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oh, btw, I think we should retain the photo of Stirling Castle at the article's very beginning, or substitute it with some other history-spanning image (Edinburgh Castle would make more sense, but our photo of that isn't so good). The opening section (and its accompanying image) shouldn't be in the main chronological flow of the article as a whole, but instead form a one or two paragraph summary of the whole article. The opening paragraph certainly isn't that yet (I'll move some glacial details down to prehistory), and it's something we need to have - the opening paragraph is generally what Raul uses for the text on the front page, when he features the article there (which he will do, once we give him the nod). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:33, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Right then. I've written a (nasty) summary opening paragraph, but it needs a few sentences covering roman through jacobite times. Man, writing a summary at this altitude is hard, and it's particularly tough to avoid falling into cliche and jingoism - so feel free to wrestle this down into something less sophomoric. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:02, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree about Stirling Castle. It's a nice picture, so I've put it back. And I'm impressed by your summary paragraph. 10,000 years in 250 words. Wow! -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:56, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

I seem to have glossed over 1 1/2 millennia, which isn't good. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice - I like Stirling Castle too, and it apparently was a Gododdin hillfort: I mean to try to find if there's any archaeology on it, and perhaps give it a mention in the text. New starting summary and move of glaciers looking good.

Since there was a lot of detail getting trimmed out, I've started a stub for Prehistory of Scotland which can act as an extension of the shorter item in the main article. Lots still to add. --dave souza 23:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)