Talk:Hill lists in the British Isles

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[edit] Hewittoids in Scotland

While merging Hewitt (hill) I deleted the following paragraph because it is completely unsourced. If a reliable source is found it can of course be reinstated.

a survey has recently been completed which documents all the mountains of 'Hewitt status' in Scotland. The list is a very long one, and comprises the Murdos, the Corbett Tops and the Graham Tops (see above). In total, there are 2112 such tops, one of which lies on the Scottish border and is therefore also a Hewitt.

-- Blisco 20:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to add sources for these in the next day or two. As I recall, I got the figure by adding together the numbers of Murdos, Corbetts Tops, and Grahams Tops from the three appropriate TACit printed booklets of lists. -- ras52 14:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I think that would count at original research under the heading "new analysis or synthesis of published data". If TACit published a list of Hewitts in Scotland then we could of course mention it, but we should only mention lists that have recognised sources, not make up our own. -- Blisco 16:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Adding three numbers together seems a rather overzealous definition of original reseach, and is no different from adding the numbers of English, Welsh and Irish Hewitts to get the total of 525. TACit don't call the Scotish 30m prominences Hewitts, but in all other respects they are treated that way -- unlike Munro Tops, Graham and Corbett Tops have an exact 30m prominence cut off, so together the Murdos, Corbett Tops and Graham Tops together form the Scottish equivalent of the Hewitts. For example, in The Angry Corrie, #61, when advertising the then newly published list of Graham Tops, it says "thus the listing of the 2638 British Isles 2000ft hills with 30m drop is complete". From memory, the introduction to TACit's printed list of Graham Tops contains something similar.
Reading the current description of Hewitts, there is no discussion as to why the Hewitts include England, Wales and the whole of Ireland, but exclude Scotland. To someone not familiar with the reason, this must seem a bizarre decision, and we should at least aim to explain it by saying (as the old article did), "Scotland is not included because it has so many mountains". In my opinion, the paragraph you removed simply quantifies this, as well as pointing readers to where they can find the equivalent information for Scotland (viz., the lists of Murdos, Corbett Tops and Graham Tops, which I agree need proper citations).
-- ras52 10:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
No further comments, so I've put some similar text back. It's now properly sourced, which was the original reason why it was deleted, and the citations should make it clear that it's not original research. (The figure of 2638 is given explicitly on the first proper page of the book of Graham Tops, so that cannot be "new analysis or synthesis of published data".)
I've also changed the comment re Scotland from "Scotland is excluded from the list of Hewitts because its mountains are extensively covered by other lists" to "Scotland is excluded from the list of Hewitts as it would add a vast number of relatively minor Scottish hills to the list". Although there's no doubt truth in both statements, I think the latter is more relevant as back in 1997 when the list of Hewitts was published, a list of 2000ft/30m hills in Scotland did not exist.
-- ras52 09:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The reason Scotland was excluded was that (a) there is a long tradition of listing English and Welsh 2000ft hills dating back to the 1930s, but no comparable tradition in Scotland (the Grahams are much more recent), and (b) because of the number of hills, it took Dawson and co-workers a long time to research them. Hewitts by definition exclude Scotland; they would otherwise be Hewsitts! I have clarified this in the text.Galltywenallt (talk) 08:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Birketts

I've removed mention of the Birketts because I'm not convinced such a list "exists"; at the very least they're non-notable. As far as I can tell, the only mention of such a list is in Bill Birkett's book itself, and at stridingedge.net; all the other lists, by contrast, merit multiple web mentions. It's worth bearing in mind that virtually every guide book to the Lake District has included some kind of list of the fells, if only a short one, but (I hope) no-one would dream of listing the Baddeleys or the Wordsworths on Wikipedia. I've raised this point on Talk:List of Birketts, where any discussion on this matter should probably take place. -- Blisco 22:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Listed for deletion if anyone's interested. --Blisco 10:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to lists from infoboxes etc

At the moment infoboxes link to Corbett (hill), Nuttall (hill) and so on, which all redirect here. Perhaps it would be better for them to link directly to the relevant lists, such as List of Nuttalls in Wales? We already do that in part, with "county top" linking to List of English counties by highest point for instance. It would involve a fair amount of work to change all the existing links, but I dare say it could be semi-automated with AWB. --Blisco 10:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English Marilyns & Black Mountain

I've removed the comments about Black Mountain, as although it sits on the English/Welsh border it's only counted in Wales. I've amended England's Marilyn count appropriately. Unfortunately when I was writing my edit comments I hit return with a spare finger and nothing I'd written made any sense. Hopefully this does. Miss Saff 22:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it is counted in both countries in both The Relative Hills of Britain [1] and The Hewitts and Marilyns of England [2] (or at least the online versions). To quote from the notes to The Hewitts and Marilyns of Wales:[3]
Black Mountain: A unique fivefold summit: Welsh Hewitt, Welsh Marilyn, English Hewitt, English Marilyn, and the County Top of Hereford and Worcester. It is also the highest point of the Offa's Dyke Path. The summit is extremely flat and the highest point difficult to pinpoint. A traverse is recommended.
(I agree with the latter point incidentally - I managed to walk over the summit in complete oblivion, even though I was looking out for it!) --Blisco 17:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
As of May 2007, Black Mountain is counted as being in Wales only for the purposes of lists and databases, as such evidence as exists points that way. This change was made by Alan Dawson and reported in Marhofn.79.66.76.32 (talk) 08:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article name: "... in the British Isles" is enough

This article was recently moved to Hill lists in the British Isles and Ireland. I have moved it back. British Isles includes both Great Britain and Ireland, two main islands, as well as assorted smaller islands. There is no need for this title to include "and Ireland", as Ireland is included within "British Isles". PamD (talk) 20:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest "Hill lists in Britain and Ireland" per my comments here. —ras52 (talk) 23:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)