Template talk:Infobox Scottish island

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Contents 1 References 2 Location map 3 Boat Image 4 Population and size ranking 5 Insularity

[edit] References

Groupings and population information are available at List of islands of Scotland the latter being based on the 2001 census. Area measurements for the 162 islands of 100 acres or more in size are available in Haswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh. Canongate. I'd be happy to pass the relevant numbers on if needed, although I doubt I am going to get around to listing all 162. I am not aware of any other source for area information for the smaller islands. There is a case for having groupings of the Hebrides other than those that the list provides, which seem inconsistent to me. Following Haswell Smith I suggest:

Lewis and Harris, Uists and Benbecula, Barra, Islay, Mull, Small Isles, Skye, and Inner Hebrides (north), and Atlantic Outliers. The Slate Islands are also contenders if needed.

[edit] Location map

See Commons Category:Location Maps of Scotland.

Moving the dot: to move the black dot just download the Low-res image to your computer and open it with an image editing program. Then you can either "select" the area of the black dot and drag it to the location you want or just erase the dot and place a new one where you need it. Then just save with a suitable name, upload and add it to the location map category. The GIMP is a nice free editor which can do most thinks (windows installer here)) - the additional benefit of using the gimp is that you can download the xcf map map which will open with the dot preselected and ready to move to where you need it. (The above are the intsructions provided to me, which seems to work, but I am by no means skilled in this). Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

There are also separate categories of 'Locator maps of Orkney and Shetland islands' and 'Locator maps of the Outer Hebrides' on Commons which may be suitable. Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boat Image

The image of a longboat is used next to the Saltire to emphasise the difference with Template:Infobox Scotland place. The said image is called Image:McdonaldBoat.jpg. Before ancient foes of Clan Donald complain, I am assured that the proper name for this image is a 'Lymphad' and that its was actually purloined from the Russian wikipedia. The same image appears on Image:Norse-Gael Warrior.PNG and the Sinclair Orkney arms [1] [2] which suggests to me that the lymphad may be appropriate for all our isles whether they have a primarily Celtic or primarily Norse history. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population and size ranking

Although Haswell-Smith's book is undoubtedly the best reference, I don't think that his ranking system is suitable for wikipedia as he uses a definition of island which excludes those linked by bridge to the mainland (ie. Skye), and treats islands linked together by bridges/causeways as one (e.g South Uist, Benbecula, Eriskay etc). Are we going to say that Skye should not be categorised as an island? If not then we should ignore Haswell-Smith's rankings and use those in List_of_islands_of_Scotland#Largest islands in Scotland and List_of_islands_of_Scotland#List of inhabited islands by Population Size.--JBellis 16:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The 'List of inhabited islands by Population Size' is fine, but the list of 'Largest islands in Scotland,' is useless for smaller islands outside the largest ten, which are my main interest. Whilst I agree that Haswell-Smith's notion of what is and is not an island is flawed, the only way to come up with something better would be to add everything that's missing back into his list (or any other similar one, should it exist.) It's not a trivial piece of work and as the transcluded template is not heavily in use at present, I am not going to offer to do it just yet! It seems surprising that after nearly 200 years of Scottish geography H-Smith had, so he claims, to measure them all himself. Ben MacDui (Talk) 23:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

If we agree that Haswell-Smith's definition of an island is not the same as that used in Wikipedia, why do you think that it is valid to use his ranking system without explanation? Should SOuth Uist be 4 (HS) or 10 as in List_of_islands_of_Scotland#Largest islands in Scotland? Without a compatible ranking system surely it would be better to not list a ranking. Other than the obvious Munros ranking, there aren't rankings for all rivers, lochs, forests etc. --JBellis 20:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

We agree that Haswell-Smith's definition of an island is not ideal, but I can't think of any obvious reason not to use it as the best list there is at present. I completely agree that South Uist should be 10. If you want to use it for South Uist, or somewhere else all we need to do is agree that the first 10 should use the existing list, and that smaller islands should come from Haswell-Smith until a better list is drawn up, accepting that the entries using H-Smith will change when this happens. An alternative would be to use the template but ignore the ranking. The template is currently used in 3 places. At my rate of progress it might be a dozen by the end of the year. I don't think there is a major problem in having a few discrepancies in the meantime. If you are planning to use it on lots of islands soon, I would be happy to create a new list.

I'm with Ben here; Haswell-Smith's rankings need to be checked to ensure that they are appropriate for our definition of an island, but provided we check them for obvious differences and accept that we may have to make future alterations in light of better information, we should use them. Warofdreams talk 00:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I have completed an update of Haswell's area rankings using the detailed data he has in the chapters. I have only done this for the first 102 islands in the appendix. Eilean Iubhard descends from 102 in the appendix to 126 (i.e the are a total of 24 additional islands in the first 102 including the Uists, Skye etc.) I used the list of islands by population as a starting point and discovered that Grimsay B and Flodda are not easy to place, although they are probably not large enough to appear in the first 100 anyway.Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insularity

I am considering adding a field for this quality. The ideas is to use it as a measure of the dificulty of travelling there (by land and public transport and without using aviation).

A traveller from mainland Britain can walk onto Skye over the bridge. Its insularity is therefore nil.

To reach Orkney they must take a ferry. Its insularity is therefore single.

To reach Westray they must take another ferry. Its insularity is therefore double.

To reach Eilean Annraidh north of Iona the traveller must take a ferry to Mull, then another to Iona, then row over to the islet. Its insularity is therefore triple.

Comments welcome. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This seems rather like original research to me. Unless you can cite sources that list the insularity of Scottish islands. And it seems rather arbitrary - why exclude aviation? And why exclude bridges but include ferries? And why can't you just row directly from the mainland to Eilean Annraidh?

Though I think it would be useful for island articles to inlcude a 'travel' or 'transport' section which would describe the possible ways of getting there. --Vclaw 13:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You might be able to row to Iona from the mainland, but I couldn't! However I have been looking around for a source for this kind of information without any success. Whilst I actually don't think public aviation routes would make much difference and I do think the concept is potentially useful as a measure of an island's remoteness, in the absence of anything that would satisfy WP:V it will have to bide its time. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)