Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scottish inventions

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. the wub "?!" 22:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scottish inventions

Making a page about a certain country's/people's contribution to humanity (arts/sciences/history) is one thing. That's acceptable and is precedented. However, now we're pushing the boundaries. The transistor, motion picture, Calculus are now asserted as "Scottish inventions." Sure, a Scottish innovator probably was very revolutionary in the creation of motion picture, but because of that motion picture is a SCOTTISH invention? Give me a break. The dozens of other countrymen to contribute wouldn't be pleased. If anything, a lot of reliable information on this page should be kept and moved to Culture of Scotland (and Culture of England) under a Discoveries/Innovations section (much like in Culture of the United Kingdom). But purporting some pretty outrageous claims and somehow attributing an invention to a single nation.. especially when many other men contributed to its creation... is inching upon nationalistic or ethnic pride. Furthermore, we can't say that just because "discoveries" are often miscategorized as "inventions" we should list them as such (note the material on English inventions). Something should also be done about the categories Category:English inventions and Category:Scottish inventions. There are English and Scottish inventors and innovators and undoubtedly a lot of these inventions will be attached to their name. Nonetheless it's a different story to call them [Enter Nationality Here] inventions. We wouldn't do it for any other categorization. The Turing Machine is a Gay Invention?

Included in this nomination is the Scottish counterpart.

Both were created around the same time and have no other counterparts like German inventions. Both were mainly edited by a small handful of editors: ...And Beyond! 16:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep - the proposers' arguments sound more like reasons to rename and re-focus the articles, rather than to delete them. This is a very well covered area: there are absolutely tons of websites and books listing Scottish inventors and inventions. All of the entries ought to be referenced, and I am sure they could be, but it does take a lot of time. I know less about how well English inventors/inventions are dealt with in good sources, but I would be extremely surprised if there was not a wealth of source material. Of course if a claim is false it ought to be qqualified/explained; or removed altogether; but if the false claim is well-sourced then that in itself is a notable phenomenon. --Mais oui! 17:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Feel free to start a German inventions article if you so wish. WP:BOLD. --Mais oui! 17:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • It's not simply that the claims are wrong. It's the attribution that an invention is somehow tied to a nationality or affliation enough to call it a BLANK invention. There's no such thing as "Scottish inventions," "Mormon inventions," or "Gay inventions," and we shouldn't attribute the entire invention to just one association. Especially most of the ones listed on this page - telephone, motion picture, etc.. Furthermore, the argument supports deletion because a separate page is unprecedented and unnecessary as any claims for discovery or innovation by a nation is put in that nation's/people's Culture page or the page for the people themselves Culture of Germany/Culture of the United Kingdom. ...And Beyond! 17:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - these articles need improving not deleting Aquilina 17:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
    • This is by no means a prerequisite for my keep vote - but how about a rename to "History of science in Scotland" or "Landmarks of technology in Scotland" or some such combination? Gives a bit more scope for expansion too, and more accurately reflects the contents. Just a thought... Aquilina 21:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - A list of inventions made by Scottish people. What's wrong with that? If there's something incorrect, edit it. Don't delete the entire article. -- Tivedshambo (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with that....what I mentioned above. A category of Scottish inventors or a section in Scottish culture mentioning some innovators in Scotland is a different story from what this article is doing. We can easily say "one of the inventors of TV technology was Scottish." but this would be completely different from saying or implying "Television is a Scottish invention." Furthermore, we can't pin discoveries as the same as inventions. "Noble gases" is an invention? ...And Beyond! 18:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep The Scots invented and discovered loads of shit. Live with it. --Tess Tickle 18:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Well with neutrality like this, it's no wonder people call wikipedia bias and unreliable. ...And Beyond! 23:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
So I should just shut the fuck up and agree with you? Hogwash and bunkum. The point of this page is so that people can express their viewpoints on wether or not the article should be retained. If you don't like that idea, you're in the wrong place.--Tess Tickle 01:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment - You haven't heard the half of it. Try out:
... or, even better:
As you can see, this topic is pretty much a national hobby. (Mind you, the Basques deserve a wee bit of the credit too!) :) Mais oui! 19:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot of evidence for us inventing soccer (in its present form). As Scottish author Christopher Brookmyer pointed out, English claims to inventing footie rest on their establishment of the FA, meaning the English didn't invent football- they invented football bureaucracy :) Lurker oi! 12:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Changing opinion, see belowKeep. England and Scotland were in the vanguard of the Industrial Revolution and therefore there's some claim to this being a coherent topic and more than just a celebration of national pride. It's different from Gay inventions or African-American inventions (Benjamin Banneker, George Washington Carver, yadda yadda). It would be nice if the article went a little deeper into the reasons why Scotland has this engineering tradition. Besides, the article is worth keeping just because of the restraint shown by the editors in not mentioning Scotty. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. And och my gudeness, doon't that laikness o' Baird luke th' pairfect spittin' image o' th' "dour Scot?" Dpbsmith (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment French wines: legitimate topic. Scottish wines: bogus topic, despite the Cairn o' Mohr Winery. Scottish inventions, legitimate topic. French inventions, bogus topic, despite daguerrotypes and Jacquard looms and fuselages. I don't want to go overboard on national characteristics and/or stereotypes, but historically nations did have national specialties. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
    • There's plenty of inventions by a French national, but French inventions? What is a French invention? Photography purely because of the daguerrotypes? ...And Beyond! 04:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The nominator is right about dubious claims, though. The motion picture? Nonsense. Everyone knows it was invented by Friese-Greene. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep- Surprised this article has been listed- although some "inventions" are dubious, the article should be modified rather than simply deleted. Astrotrain 21:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's not be silly. This most certainly is not any more speedy keep than Gay Inventions. ...And Beyond! 23:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Regardless of whether or not pride in invention is an important element to scottish nationalism, I don't think we really want to get WP into pissing matches over, say what "people" or what "nation" invented what [1]. In addition, a great deal of the current entries are patent (if you'll pardon the pun) nonsense. A scot "invented" cornflour, which had been created and used several thousand years before the scots even had corn (Did they "invent" rice, too)? They "invented" popular use of a decmial separator, traced back to arabic culture and in use since 850? And of all things, they "invented" CALCULUS? Sheesh. Next thing you know, Jesus is Japanese, [2], and we'll have to suffer endless, stupid, nationalism wars on whether a significant person like Copernicus was "Polish", "Austrian", "German", "Prussian", or *whatever* (we do [3]). Somehow, I really don't think Wikipedia is the right place for nationalism rallying. Ronabop 04:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, Ronabop has convinced me. There could be an article about the History of Scottish engineering and invention, but this isn't it, this is yet another almost entirely unsourced list, and the information in it is so dubious that it isn't a usable starting point for a proper article. Due to the Scottish role in the industrial revolution, "Scottish inventions," like "French wines," could be a legitimate topic and not just national boosterism, but this article is just national boosterism. If this article had been entitled List of Scottish inventions I would probably have said it should have been deleted right away. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Mais Oui and rename per this suggestion by Astrotrain. --Cactus.man ✍ 07:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep but this needs to be cleaned up in a big way; I am surprised to learn that bridge design was a Scottish invention. Gee, I knew the Romans must have learned it somewhere. :-) Carlossuarez46 06:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment - read the article. It does not claim that the Scots invented the bridge, simply that some Scotsmen developed or improved some variations of bridge design. Having said that, I agree it is in need of cleaning, and getting rid of some claims, but this is not a reason to delete it. -- Tivedshambo (talk) 11:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep It's interesting, its a worthy topic. Article could do with a cleanup, and more verification, but no reason to delete Lurker oi! 12:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment If you disagree with a claim made in the article, please edit it, rather than saying its wrong but letting it remain. It's our job as editors to ensure that articles are as accurate as possible Lurker oi! 12:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not my "job" to do anything to Wikipedia - I produce and update articles which interest me and I have a knowledge in. I don't have enough knowledge to edit this article, or to check every claim it makes. I only state that some of the claims need to be removed, but I don't have time to investigate which ones. -- Tivedshambo (talk) 13:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, in order to make a start on this, I'm going to mark the items which need source citations... which is to say all of them. I don't intend to do all the work of going back and checking to see which of the linked articles actually contain valid sources, copying those sources into the article, but I'll spot-check a few of them in due course. The work of providing sources of course is the responsibility of the people who want to retain items in the article. NPOV requires that disputed or questionable claims of priority be mentioned. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
One verification for the cynical - see Fundamental theorem of calculus.-- Tivedshambo (talk) 21:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete - horribly broad, both in what counts as 'Scottish' and what counts as an 'invention'. Includes foodstuffs, 'popularising' something, the work of various engineers, discoveries, 'pioneering work', etc. It's pure jingo, in other words. There's a good article or series of articles to be written about this subject. This isn't it.--Nydas 18:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep in fact substantial additions could be made - as well as a few deletions I think I agree with Nydas above, except that I would work with this article. One further point I would like to make is there is a current trend to deny innovation on largely picky grounds - TV is a good example Baird did in fact invent an early TV system which was produced and was used, fair enough it was a development of other work - which this does reduce the significance of his achievement. However by that arguement no-one invented anything.--Eek10bears 19:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - the expansive criteria used to decide whether an invention is 'Scottish' (by a Scot or by non-Scots in Scotland) mean that Baird's television is also an English invention, as are Lister's antiseptics. Either have a list of Scottish inventors or a list of things invented in Scotland - having both in the same article is a recipe for mayhem.--Nydas 07:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong delete as trivial, unverifiable (for many inventions) and an edit war magnet. Who invented things and what nationality (or ethnicity or religion) they should be counted as is very frequently disputed. For example, sometimes multiple people claim that they each invented something. Some inventions are so old or their history is so poorly documented, that it is unclear who invented it, yet some people claim that their ancestor or countryman invented it anyway. Also, many things are invented (especially many of the important modern inventions) as a result of multiple people's work, who may be from different countries, have different ethnicities or religions. Finally, it is unclear what nationality, ethnicity or religion someone should be counted as. For example, a person with a German mother and an Italian father may have been born in France, grew up in England and created his invention in the U.S., which he moved to at 18 years old and stayed the rest of his 90-year life. Which country or countries should he be counted under? As each group (Ukranians, Muslims from India, Chinese Americans, German-Irish, Latter Day Saints) gets its own list, the problem grows exponentially. Creating, maintaining, edit warring, dispute resolution, blockings and bannings resulting from the articles takes time and manpower away from far more important articles. -- Kjkolb 19:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.