Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scottish Castles/Archive 2

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This Wikipedian is a member of the Scottish Castles Project.

I have added a saltire to the Castle project logo to create a Scottish Castles Project logo for use in userboxes. I don't know how to make it more widely available (perhaps a more experienced Wikipedian could help). But those who want to include this userbox can do so by adding {{User:Antisthenes/Userboxes/Scottish Castles}} to their Babel Code. Antisthenes 14:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Added new image to get rid of jaggies. --Bill Reid | Talk 16:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Tower house

I've noticed that the article Tower house is not particularly well organised, far too short, lacks any references to styles such as L-plan, Z-plan etc., and is massively over-hibernicised. Considering that there are more of them in Scotland than anywhere else, an important subject. Also considering that so many are called "castle", and the majority of the older ones had Barmekins so were in effect mini-"castles of enceinte", or like for example Redhouse Tower, in East Lothian were in fact much larger castles originally, but upon their investment were left without any real fortification and have come to be known as simply 'Tower'. Any thoughts? Brendandh 01:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The article on L Plan Castle should be merged into the Tower house article, i think. L-plan is just a type of tower shape. Gules 09:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

agree with Brendandh with respect that the present article on Tower house needs a lot of work and is way too short. this is a huge topic. corespondingly, strongly disagree with Gules. Tower house and L-plan are two separate topics, both of which are large and deserve separate articles. i shall contribute to expansion of both as i have time (i created L-plan). cheers. Anlace 16:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I would guess that the tower house article should cover a use a broad brush with smaller sub-sections covering the various styles and redirects to main articles, such as L-plan, Z-plan, Pele etc. There is obviously overlaps in certain cases, where the original square tower has been modified by adding extensions, such as Elcho Castle, or Hermitage Castle. Although I agree thet there are differences between the styles of building, the term Tower House is a bit of an umbrella and I think should not be confined to buildings such as Peles or later more domestic rather than militaristic structures with a square footprint. But then again that's my POV :) Brendandh 19:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Brendandh i think you have summed it up well. it sounds like the L-Plan article could be referenced as a subarticle of tower house. if we are in agreement we can remove the merger tag and get on with the business of expansion and interconnection. Anlace 19:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Castles

User:Neddyseagoon has set up WikiProject Castles. I would encourage all members to have a look over the project pages there, and maybe sign up. ::Supergolden:: 15:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Nigel Tranter

I have stumbled across your project due to my current project on developing the Nigel Tranter pages. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, let me fill you in: 1. Tranter was an established expert on fortified houses and tower houses. He wrote the well-acclaimed The Fortified House in Scotland series, which described every fortified house (ie tower houses, fortified manors but not fortresses) in Scotland. He drew pictures, gave potted histories and comments on architecture. Following this, he was approached for advice by many people restoring tower houses. 2. He wrote historical novels covering (almost without break) Scotalnd's history from 9th century to 18th century. This involved masses of research into the people, places, politics, architecture, legends, etc of Scotland. Most of the castles you wish to describe have a Tranter link.

I draw this to your attention for a couple of reasons. 1. his works will provide a good research source for you, and help you define what should or should not be included, classifications, histories, notable stories or people. 2. My proposed efforts of improving (bit by bit) the Tranter cross-linking overlaps with your efforts to cross-link your works. ie. I plan to describe Tranter's works, and provide links to the real places and, where appropriate, link them back to the Tranter pages. As we are all lovers of Scottish castles and Scottish castle history, I am sure we can offer each other support. Check out above links, plus; Historical novels of Nigel Tranter, pre 1286, Historical novels of Nigel Tranter, 1286-1603, Historical novels of Nigel Tranter, post 1603 and Nigel Tranter#Non-fiction books. Keep up the good work! Gwinva 21:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

If anyone wants to use this infobox, just paste this into your castle edit page and fill in the blanks. You can see how it looks at Spynie Palace.

{{infobox Scottish castle
|name=
|image=
|location=
|established=
|last_occupied=
|construction=
|built_by=
|present_owner=
|open_to_public=
|entry_fee=
}}

Regards, Bill Reid | Talk 16:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions

FYI, I have proposed for deletion two scottish castle articles, as follows:

• Moreland Castle: This has been a pointless stub since Oct 2005. Cannot find any mention of this castle in standard reference works, eg Coventry's Castles in Scotland. Either non-existent or non-notable.

• Cassels castle: I don't know of any Caughlain in Scotland, at least not near Stranraer. Again no mention of Cassels or Caughlain Castle in Coventry. The picture linked from the original version of the article [1], shows Doune Castle (i think). Possible hoax.

If anyone knows any different, please improve the articles, and remove the "prod" tags, otherwise they will be deleted on 8th May. Thanks, ::Edward Waverley:: 12:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

In regards to the article there is only one Castle on the west coast of Stranraer, I do confess that at present the name of the castle eludes me, but it's on the way to the "corsewall lighthouse" (general info : corsewall lighthouse is a hotel) and it is in fact the ruins of a tower house, and looks very similar to "cardoness castle", as in what is remainig of it, and nothing like the picture posted. (More general info : I actually viewed it on the 20th April 2007) Gfours 16:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Castle or Fort?

Are we alowed to add "forts" as well?

I was looking for Dunskirkloch fort, it is the only castle/fort just west of Stranraer, *not as someone put* "cassels castle". Gfours 15:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

You can add anything to Wikipedia, providing it conforms to the guidelines. As for whether it would be considered part of this project, I would say probably not, if it is a hill fort or similar, and probably yes if it is a fortress like (eg) Fort George. Edward Waverley 12:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggest that if forts come within the project parameters, then the project page should explicitly say so. --Bill Reid | Talk 12:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Standardisation of infoboxes

There are currently three different infoboxes being used on project articles, as follows:

• {{Infobox Scottish castle}}, eg at Duffus Castle

• {{Infobox Military Structure}}, eg at Roslin Castle

• Stand alone (ie non-template-based) infoboxes, eg Ackergill Tower

WikiProject Castles, of which this is a descendent project, recently adopted {{Infobox Military Structure}}, (here), and this infobox has been edited to suit castles. I would point out that this is the only regional castle project, and Scottish castles are not so dramatically distinctive that they require to be treated differently to all others. The military structure template has all the functions of {{infobox Scottish castle}}, except "Open to the public" and "Entry fee". Entry fees change, and Wikipedia is not a directory (see WP:NOT), so I don't mind losing this, but I would like to keep "open to the public".

Given the general Wikipedia trend to standardise infoboxes, I propose that this project adopts {{Infobox Military Structure}}, edited to include an "open to the public" field. Please support or oppose below, with reasons, so we can get consensus and add an infobox to all our articles. Thanks, Edward Waverley 14:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I agree, there should be a standard infobox and having looked at {{Infobox Military Structure}} it does hold all we need, it also uniforms Wikipedia in general (people hate change and differance's <-- personal opinion). And although Wikipedia is not a directory as such but an information source, then it should also included "open to the public". Gfours 14:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support - my infobox was produced because I wasn't paying attention to other developments:-) The bit about entry fee BTW is not the cost its a yes or a no. E.g., Spynie is a pay site where as Duffus is free but both maintained by Historic Scotland. -Bill Reid | Talk 17:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
• I too would Support the adoption of {{Infobox Military Structure}}, but only if edited to include an "open to the public" field. Most castles (and Scottish castles in particular) are tourist attractions or have been converted to other uses, and the infobox should reflect that although their purpose was at one time military (at least in part - they were also residences) that they have a socio-cultural aspect as well. Including whether or not they are open to the public would be a nice adaptation in that regard. It might also be nice to change "Construction materials" to "Construction" since most were stone, but the plans of them are what make them distinct (See L Plan Castle, Peel tower, and Tower house for examples of typically scottish castle types that differ from castle types of other cultures) - LeeNapier 19:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, no objections then? I have further edited the project banner to include a "needs-infobox" field. Typing {{WPSCOTCASTLE|needs-infobox=yes}} on the talk page puts the article into Category:Scottish castle articles needing infoboxes. We can then go through and add them in. Its probably only worth putting this on decent sized articles - I don't see the point of having infoboxes on short stubs.

Leenapier, there is a "type" field, that can be used for L-plan, tower house, or whatever, besides the "construction" field. Thanks, Edward Waverley 12:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, and there is now an "open to the public" field, see Dunstaffnage Castle. Thanks, Edward Waverley 12:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Article talk page template

I have upgraded this projects article template to include a gradings system, it can be seen at Talk:Aberdeen Castle for a working example. Bobbacon 09:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks Bobbacon! I have made some further changes (see above), but this will be useful. Edward Waverley 12:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the assessment criteria, the few article assessments that I've looked at need a fresh eye. Clarification of what is a reference is needed also. A proper in line citation is a reference. A list of books are valuable to assess the citations but should not be the actual reference. What do you think? Rgds, --Bill Reid | Talk 19:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

One thing that is concerning is that with the ephemeral nature of Wikipedia, some historically important castles such as Roxburgh, are being deprioritised through lack of links wheras lesser fortalices by the same token are perhaps receiving more attention than they deserve, e.g. Duns Castle and St Andrews Castle both as priority 6, the former far less important than the latter. Another case in point being Tantallon being a priority 7, and the Castle of Mey being 4. I'm not sure what can be done about this. Is there any way of searching for an unlinked name without going directly to an article?Brendandh 20:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Bill, I agree - I don't think anything without proper inline citations should be considered more than "start" class. Brendan, I too have my doubts about the priority system. It is clearly designed to favour articles which are more "in demand" within Wikipedia, but doesn't take in to account the relative importance (or otherwise) of the subjects. Having said that, there's nothing to stop us working on priority 7 or 8 articles if we think they merit the effort. New links can alwats be created - Googling for "Tantallon Castle" on Wikipedia comes up with 41 hits, which could all presumably be linked. Edward Waverley 08:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Edward, Brendan - I feel that that the priority scoring system isn't really workable and that we should use an importance scale of low, mid, high and top. An importance scale is less objective than the priority scale but it would flag up to potential editors that even a stub or start article carrying an importance rating is worthy of expansion or not. I think we could make a pretty good stab at assessing the relative importance of a castle. --Bill Reid | Talk 10:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Something akin to Medieval Scotland project's template would be a workable thing. Brendandh 14:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm beginning to agree, the priority system isnt refelecting the genuine importance of articles. I would support a move to the importance scale, as used by medieval Scotland and elsewhere. Edward Waverley 08:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Images

One of the notes on the project page is for more images, both interior and exterior views. I have tons of photos for the castles listed here, and I'd love to upload them to the relevant pages, but need a bit of guidance. None of the templates have a 'gallery' associated with them, and just popping them into pages might be too distracting.

Since I'm new, I figured I'd ask for suggestions before I start uploading willy-nilly. Phouka 00:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Phouka, welcome along. We'd love to have some of your images on these articles - there is a whole category of articles without images, which doesn't list all of them yet either. If you have lots to upload, and you intend to use a free license, I would recommend you upload to Commons, which is designed as a repository of free images. These can then be added to Wikipedia articles in the normal way, so you can add a couple of photos to the article, and have a link to the rest at the Commons. Hope this makes sense, but feel free to ask me if you need any help. Thanks, Edward Waverley 14:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a good chance that some of these castles can be found at the geograph project (geograph.org.uk). All the images on this site can be found with an OS Grid Reference and all are Creative Commons licenced, so can be uploaded direct to Wikimedia Commons using Template:Geograph using the format {{geograph|123456|John Smith}} where the digits are the last numbers of the url on the geograph images page. hope this is useful. User:Bobbacon

Castle of Rattray

I have written the article Castle of Rattray from scratch but have been the only contributer and have pieced the history together from a large number of (often contradictory) web resources. Could some other users too take a look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, because I have started to read what I think is there and I may have got some facts muddled. thanks in advance, User:Bobbacon

What's all this then?

There seems to have been another discussion that should of been of interest to those here, but which was not made known by the proposers: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 19#Category:Historic houses in Scotland. I live in a house in Scotland so, I assume do many others here! Brendandh 22:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Nudge

I am assuming that the weather that did not affect the strengths of Scotland, but has perplexed the south of the island may have something to do with the (hopefully temporary) inertia now affecting this project. Isnae ower yet! Brendandh 22:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Inertia there may be, but we've just got our first certified Good Article: Dunstaffnage Castle. Always look on the bright side! Edward Waverley 11:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

True enough and a fine article it is! Brendandh 12:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Article talk page template - revisited

Just wondering, If we adopt the Medieval Scotland Project style of template, does anyone have any ideas as to how we can apply some sort of uniformity of decision making regarding the importance scale? What makes castle A more important than castle B? --Bill Reid | Talk 17:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for taking an age to reply. I have gone through all of the unassessed articles now, and put them in quality classes, but I have left the priority field. The more I think about it, it seems like there's no real way of assessing importance objectively, and do we even need importance to be assessed? My current idea is that we get rid of the importance/priority from the template, and come up with a "hit list" of the ten or so most important castles, which could form a project page, with the aim of getting them all to GA or better as a kind of Collaboration of the week idea. If we agree on those, based on thier fame or historical significance, it gives the projet a bit of focus. Obvious nominees would be Stirling Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Eilean Donan, Dunvegan, etc. Jonathan Oldenbuck 10:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Kilchurn Castle

I've noticed that parts of this article are copied from here. Asti 13:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Asti, I have fixed the most obvious bits. Though the article still needs some proper sources. Jonathan Oldenbuck 12:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

• 26 September 2007 - expires 1 October

Lahey Castle (via WP:PROD)

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Location maps

Dunstaffnage Castle

class=notpageimage|

Location of Dunstaffnage Castle

Ive just realised you can do a Scotland location map for any location, using Lat and Long. Is this a good idea for our articles? Jonathan Oldenbuck 11:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)