Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clans of Scotland

I'm putting this here so I can watch this page.

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I think its needed. WIkipedia should contain more information than any enecylopedia has ever had. The image is abit to large maybe scalling it down to 250px wide. - fonzy

I'm thinking for the standard size maybe 320 X 320 pixels at this same scale. This one could afford to be scaled down and still be okay, but some of the others have a whole lot of really tiny stripes, in both directions, and I'm afraid those details would get lost if I scaled them down much more, and some of them have a much larger "repeat" than this one, but I think using a square for them would work -- that is, using what is the full width of the book image for the height, too. A 320 square fits on my screen nicely, but I don't know what settings other people are using. -- isis 10:59 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

I'm sure that this will be popular but bear in mind that it will be a never-ending task. Remember that most tartans are the work of marketing people working for Scottish woollen mills. They started work after Sir Walter Scott invented the modern concept of tartan in the early 19th century and they're still at it. New tartans come out every month. -- Derek Ross 11:22 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point -- are you saying that's a good thing or a bad thing? There are new plaids all the time, surely, but if we're talking about clans' tartans, there can't be a new one until there's a new clan, so they can't be proliferating all that fast, I think. (Or are you suggesting expanding the list of tartans to the non-clan ones, too?) But even if they are multiplying like rabbits: (1) that's the best reason I've heard yet for doing it here, because a book of the clan tartans can't be updated without printing a new edition, but the 'pedia can be up-to-date all the time; (2) that will give contributors new material (pun intended) forever, so it's like job security; and (3) just because somebody starts a new article or list doesn't make them responsible for keeping it current, so it's not going to be my problem, if problem it is. But now that you mention it, and I see you're in Scotland, while I'm a whole ocean away, and you already know more about the practical stuff about tartans than I do, I think you should volunteer to oversee this project to make sure it's done right. Would you? -- isis 12:48 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

Going by the Wikiproject title I thought that you meant tartans. I'm not really saying that that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just trying to say that it's an absolutely enormous task and I don't think that we could keep up. However if you really mean a Wikiproject on Clans and their tartans, then that's much more doable. However 99% of clans didn't have a specific tartan before the 19th century. Now it's got to the stage where each has several. I can choose to wear Ancient Dress Ross, Ancient Hunting Ross, Modern Dress Ross, Modern Hunting Ross and no doubt others which I'm not aware of. None of these existed more than two hundred years ago no matter how Ancient they claim to be. The big thing in mediaeval Scotland was Coats of Arms and Crests not tartans. The Lord Lyon's court is the oldest heraldic court in the world still in operation. Check out http://www.heraldry-scotland.co.uk/Lyoncourt.htm if you're interested.

Anyway, if we were to do articles on individual clans which mention the tartans that would be good but I think that we just need a general article on tartan[?] itself. I'll happily comment on and discuss a Clan WikiProject with you. -- Derek Ross 18:33 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

There are at least mourning tartans, chiefs' tartans, and district tartans, in addition to those you mentioned. The book I have says "ancient" just means it's a lighter shade and that the clan tartans going back to the 1600s were simple two- or three-color checks but distinctive as to district.

Yes, what I have in mind for this project (subject to what I hear from everybody else) is what I said on the subject page: A list of the clans on a page that discusses the concept and has links to all the separate clan articles. Each article would include the history of the clan, its mottoes and war cries and theme songs and crest badge and whatever else we know about it, plus images of however many of its tartans we have and a list of the surnames it comprises. Then there would be one page on tartan(s) -- for which there's already a link on the kilt page -- and then we could list and link the pages with the images of tartans to that one however we decided to (or not). If we wanted to expand to non-clan tartans, that page would give us the jumping-off place to separate pages titled with the names of the tartans themselves or to pages for the mills that designed them or whatever.

This project is part of my campaign to make every 'pedia article multi-media, so I'd love to be able to get sound clips of the various clans' fight songs and such. So let's keep the name for the project page (unless you want to change it, because I don't know how to do a page move yet, and I'm not sure when I delete one I'm doing it right) but with the understanding it's really a project on clans, and when we start setting up the pages, they'll say "clans" instead of "tartans". But I want to work on images, not text (and maybe not anything if enough other folks are willing to do it). And welcome aboard. -- isis 19:12 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

That sounds good to me, Isis. -- Derek Ross 22:09 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

Is scanning in Tartan photos from a book allowed by copyright? -- 137.111.13.32[?]

Yes. -- isis 01:23 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

Could you try to make a mock artcile? - fonzy

Yes, having waited a decent length of time for input from the nay-sayers I know will crawl out of the woodwork as soon as we post it, I'll put something together, but I may not get it done until after the 4th, because I have an appellate brief due then that I haven't started yet. I thought I'd do Clan Ross for the prototype, since Derek probably knows the most about it and so can better tell if we're dealing with all foreseeable issues. -- isis 20:35 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

Not to be a nay-sayer or anything, but isn't the association of tartans with clans a fairly recent notion? (see http://www.fabrics.net/tartan.asp). Not that they aren't interesting in themselves, but it would be wrong to perpetrate the idea of a clan's 'ancient tartan' if in fact it dates from the 1800s... -- Someone else 21:27 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

"Ancient" doesn't mean "old" in this context, it means "faded" in the sense of a lighter shade -- it's a term of art. We all know the modern tartans don't go back very far, but all the other indicia of clan identity do, which is one of the reasons we're doing clans now, not tartans. Would you like to help, please? -- isis 21:33 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

If I see anything I can add, I certainly will, though the likelihood is I'll be of little use. I just beg you to make clear that 'ancient' means 'faded' each time you use it, because otherwise the non-cognoscenti (like me) will be misled, since it's not the usual meaning of the word. -- Someone else 21:39 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

About Images: If we follow a format similar to that of WikiProject Countries we will have a thumbnail picture (or slightly larger than that) and a larger version of the picture. The main article will have the smaller picture on the screen and then a link to a larger picture, such as a link to a "Fullsize Picture." This solves the problem of having too large pictures on the main article (for people with slow internet connections and so forth) but allows you to have a larger image that people can see the important details if they desire. Clearly JPEG images should be used to lower file sizes. -- Ram-Man

This is my (poor?) attempt at summarizing some of the requirements for these articles:

• General Requirements
  • A list of clans on a single page which introduces and discusses the concepts.
  • There would be one page on tartan(s) listing and linking the pages with the images of tartans to that one however we decided to (or not).
• Specific Information
  • Clan History
  • Crest Badge
  • Coat of Arms
  • Tartans
    • Use pictures no larger than 320x320 pixels (smaller?) using the .jpg format.
  • Area of Scotland (with a map?)
  • Mottoes
  • War Cries
  • Pipe Music (Clan Songs)
  • List of surnames it comprises (what is the upper limit to the number of them for a single clan?)

The book I have lists about 600 surnames for about 125 clans, but some surnames appear in more than one clan. Rough estimate: Most clans will have about half a dozen, some have a dozen or more, so I think the upper limit would be around two dozen. For the maps, I was thinking of one standard outline map of Scotland (or maybe even just the Highlands) and coloring in the part(s) where that clan is. There's some work to be done on the crests, because the ones in the book are b&w line drawings with a heraldic description that doesn't always mention any colors; the text says they're used on stamped metal badges, so we need to decide whether to do them as line drawings, silver-gray, or multi-colored (when we know what the colors are).

Most of the clans have at least two tartans, although the book pictures only one for each of them. I don't want to futz around with thumbnails and larger pictures for the tartans -- I think it will be more efficient to use one size, the smallest that allows the thinnest stripes in the pattern to show clearly (probably 250x250 pixels) but show as many as we know and have images of. I don't yet have any pictures of anything except the tartans (and the drawings of the crests), but we should allow room for images of famous people and/or events in the clan's history. Most of the clans have "plant badges" (like heath, holly, myrtle, hazel -- for Clan Ross it's juniper), and I have some b&w line drawings in a Dover clip-art book or two of public-domain plants, but not nearly all of the ones needed for all the clans; I'd like to have space for the ones we do know and can find images of, but that's on my wish list, and if the consensus is it's too much trouble, I'm willing to do without images.

Will any of you be able to buy or borrow copies of the book I have (or any other that has the same info) so I don't have to provide the text for whoever's going to write it up for each article? For any of you who don't know it yet, ISBNs link automatically, so if you just click on them, they take you to on-line dealers to buy them from: ISBN 0-00-411117-6 is a small hardback, and ISBN 0-00-636416-0 is a "Fontana" (whatever that may be), but in different editions it may have different ISBNs; mine is the 1984 reprint. I'm hoping to do no more than scan stuff in, whether tartans, crests, and/or text for someone else to rewrite into the article.

Not all clans have all items, but the categories are:

• name in English
• name in Gaelic
• origin of name
• crest badge
• motto
• plant badge
• war cry
• pipe music
• dress tartan
• hunting tartan
• clan history -- about three paragraphs for most, fitting on one page

I don't know anything about putting music clips in except that one can do bagpipes with midi. Where we would get the scores I have no idea, but then I haven't looked for any yet. So what else does anyone need to know from me at this stage? -- isis 03:29 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

I've posted a sample page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Clans of Scotland/Sample page/Clan Ross for us to start working out the format, and there's some info about it on its talk page. -- isis 13:55 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)