Template talk:User Scotland

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[edit] Content Change

Leading on from the discussion below (Template Content), there is a discussion and proposal regarding the changing of content and wording in United Kingdom location/nationality userbox templates located at Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Location/United Kingdom. - Hayter 20:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template Content

This template was originally created to reflect a pride in being Scottish, not living in Scotland. Both the pride, and the distinction are required for it to fulfill this aim. The correct category then, would by Scottish Wikipedians rather than Wikipedians in Scotland as simply being Scottish (and proud of it) does not entail or imply that one lives in Scotland. And it is of course perfectly possible to live in Scotland and not be Scottish - this distinction is one that should not be lost. If MartinRe is correct in his assertion that the template, User Scotland should be used to reflect location rather than nationality then this should perhaps be moved to a different location, but over thirty people have added it to their userpage, presumably in its original form which stated "This user is proud to be Scottish." To simply change the meaning of this template without notification is for lack of a more interesting word, wrong, and to alter the category from Scottish Wikipedians to Wikipedians in Scotland may well be incorrect for a number of the users currently displaying this userbox. If relocation is required and not simply suggested for conformity's sake, then that should be addressed but simply changing the template is not the answer. - Hayter 19:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Several points come to mind.
  • If it was "originally created to reflect a pride in being Scottish, not living in Scotland.", then why was it called "User scotland" and not "user scottish"?
  • User Scotland is location, like User Wales, User Ireland, User France. User Scottish is nationality, like User Welsh, Irish, and User French. Not all people that live in scotland are scottish, so saying that user Scotland = Is Scottish is, "for want of a better word", wrong, which is why I corrected the template.
  • If "user scotland" is decided to be a nationality, not a location, then there could be no objection to moving it out of UK/locations? In which case, what userbox would those people (non-scots) living in Scotland, use?)
  • Relocation is required is user scotland is a life/ancestory, not location. I think it is better to make User Scotland a location, than move scotland to ancestory, as there is already user scottish and user scots, leaving nothing for non-scots living in scotland, MartinRe 23:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
  • If people like any template in its current form, using subst works quite well!
Please consider correcting the template to the location meaning, and allow people living in soctland a userbox too! If not, your call, and I'll move the user Scotland userbox from Userboxes/Location to Userboxes/Life as required. MartinRe 23:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Have moved "user scotland" to life/ancestry to mirror the recent change. MartinRe 01:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
It was called "User Scotland" both because there was no existing template in this space and it seemed the most obvious, and because I was fairly new to making userboxes, as the numerous eidts to the code since creation evidence. :) If it is the matter that "User Country" templates are generally accepted to be a location indicator, then I don't oppose the changing of this one to reflect that. But there must be clarification regarding its content and cohesion with the assigned category. By that I mean,
  • If this template is supposed to reflect location, then it should say "lives in" and the category should be "Wikipedians in Scotland." I don't oppose this.
  • If the text is "comes from" then that indicates nationality, which as you point out, would exclude non-Scots living in Scotland. I "come from" Scotland, but I do not currently live there. If the text is "comes from," then the correct category would be "Scottish Wikipedians." If this is supposed to be a location template, then clearly this is wrong for inclusion, and "lives in" and "Scottish Wikipedians" belong at {{User Scottish}}, provided it gets a makeover, of course.
The question then, as I see it, is if a "pride" userbox is wanted in the style that this one originally was, then where should it go and is there a quick way to inform those people who currently display this template because as rewording makes it inaccurate for me, so it may do for others. Is {{User Scottish pride}} the best answer?
If I've not made it clear, my opposition is not to the idea of having a conforming template in this space, but rather the percieved interchangeability (word?) of "Scottish Wikipedians" and "Wikipedians in Scotland," being popularised at Wikipedia:User categorisation. As this was originally to reflect nationality, the latter of the two would be inappropriate, and only if this template says "lives in" is it appropriate. - Hayter 16:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
No worries. I also think there are sometimes "interchangeability" (cool word :) with nationality, and location. I hadn't thought that "come from Scotland" could imply nationailty, I always read it in the same way as lives in. To me, the question "where do you come from" means where do you live, but once you made the above point, I can totally see how it could be also understood that way. Most of the other location userboxes also say "comes from", which is why I originally went for that choice of words.
I don't know of any quick way of notifying people of changes with templates, bar individual notes on every talk page, which overkill for userboxes!
You don't need to create a new userbox for pride, you can make individual changes to a userbox on your own page by using subst. If you edit your page and insert {{subst:User Scotland}} when the pages is saved it will expand the template in place, allowing you to make changes you like, and if the template gets subsequently changed, it will not affect your version at all. So you could have "come from scotland and is proud of it" one week, and changed it to "is proud of coming from scotland" the next, without creating an individual template for each. (If you'd like any help with this, please let me know, e.g. make a userboc with flag from X userbox, colour of y userbox, words like so, and insert into cat Z)
I apologise if I misunderstood you last night, or if I wasn't clear in my reply (on reading back my words sound very harsh), I have to plead guilty to editing under the influence. *hic*. MartinRe 18:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
PS. Would you mind changing the category back to the location one, as you can see this is listed at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Location/United_Kingdom as location. (I don't want to make the history look like an revert war!) MartinRe 18:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Under the influence eh? Ah, we've all done it. Thanks for the subst tip - I might give it a shot and let you know if I do run into difficulties. - Hayter 16:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm changing the category again to reflect the fact that this userbox template falls under the location category. It denotes that the user comes from Scotland. This could mean any number of things: having been Scottish by birth, having lived for a long time in Scotland, or just living in Scotland (for example, being a student in Scotland). Hayter suggested in his edit that "Setanta, "comes from" does not mean "lives in" - the category you added is incorrect". Yet it can mean "lives in". The category this template is contained in is Userboxes/Location/United Kingdom.

Had I been living, studying or working in Scotland.. especially for a longish period of time, I could easily use the box "comes from Scotland" to denote this. But that wouldn't necessarily mean I am Scottish (although, coincidentally, I do have Scottish ancestry).

There are already userboxes to denote national and ethnic backgrounds. They are contained in the article Userboxes/Life, in the section Ancestry and ethnicity. Examples include: Proud to be British; English ancetry; Irish ancestry; Proud to be Northern Irish; Scottish ancestry; is Scots; and proud to be British-Indian.

Someone that comes from Scotland may not necessarily be Scottish. However, I think all the userboxes should be re-worded "lives in" so as to avoid ambiguity.

I would suggest that anyone that wants to use a box to denote they're Scottish should use one of the two in the Userboxes/Life cat, or create another one. This userbox should be retained for people IN Scotland - people whose location is Scotland, and not necessarily Scottish. Therefore the category that is most appropriate is "Wikipedians in Scotland" and not "Scottish Wikipedians". --Mal 19:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't completely disagree. But if this userbox is to be used for location then "comes from" though often erroneously used in the sense you suggest, is technically, not the best phrase to be used. I live in England, but upon being asked, "where do you come from?" I'll respond with the country of my birth. Only if I'm asked, "where do you live?" will the answer be England. So whilst the correct category for this template is "Wikipedians in Scotland," the text of it should be "lives in" to reflect that. To reinforce the inconsistency a final time, I know numerous people who go to university in Glasgow, but come from Ireland, India, England, the US... For those of them who use Wikipedia, this would be the correct template to use, but the text, as it stands is incorrect. I'm leaving the category as it is, because now that it's been discussed, it's clearly the correct one, but am changing the text to "lives in," the better to reflect that category. - Hayter 16:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not right now, because I'm going to give it further thought, but I might. :S - Hayter 16:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Was just looking at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Location/United_Kingdom and all the country ones at the top. Now of course you'd expect them, given the location nature of the page, to indicate location via "lives is" or "is in" - something along those lines. But they all say "comes from" which as I've said, indicates nationality, which is fine, because they're listed under Citizenship, but then what are they doing on a location page? And checking the "User England" template, the used category is "English Wikipedians." Given the attempt to achieve something of a general MOS regarding these userboxes, I'll be raisng the question at Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Location/United_Kingdom as to the best way to group and word the userboxes, probably with a suggestion along the lines of what Martin outlined in his first post here. - Hayter 17:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree Hayter - there needs to be some kind of logical structure to these things. My proposal is that all the 'Location' boxes reflect just that, and the text should therefore be changed to "lives in". All the categories should also direct to "Wikipedians in <country>". Likewise, all ethnicity (and nationality can be considered ethnicity I should think) userboxes should also reflect this. Therefore we should end up with an overlapping, but not identical, number of categories with "User is <ethnicity/nationality" which all point to "<national/ethnic description> Wikipedians" (eg: "English Wikipedians"). If you agree with this idea, let me know. It might mean some work, but Im prepared to help so that they're sorted out once and for all. --Mal 19:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New userbox

I've created another 2 userboxes so Wikipedians can choose between

Code Result
{{user Proud Scottish}}
This user is proud to be Scottish.
{{user from Scotland}}
This user is from Scotland.
{{user Scotland}}
This user lives in Scotland.

The first two boxes are under Category:Scottish Wikipedians. The bottom box is under Category:Wikipedians in Scotland. Hopefully this should solve the problems. --AntzUK 00:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You forgot, "This user is from Scotland, and also lives there. ...and is proud of it." :) - Hayter 15:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)