Talk:Balta

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

This article was a copy from Wikipedia, so I've rewritten a bit of it, and deleted the rest until we can find something sensible to say about the Island from a reliable source.
This sort of copying from other sites, just to create a page, is absolutely stupid, as it was obvious that it was written by somebody who hardly knew where Shetland is.
It still contained reference links, but with no references, and didn't contain links to obvious Shetlopedia pages.
Sadly this is not the only example of this. Other islands in this category are just as bad, if not worse.
In light of recent criticism from Wikipedia, I intend to go through these islands, delete any non-Shetlopedia text, and replace it, where possible, with something which is not just an obvious 'copy and paste, to add a page'.
Robbie 12:37, 19 September 2007 (MDT)

Point, Robbie. Two questions:

• Do you have an overwiew which islands/pages are affected - we might devide that job
• What do you think about adding that map thingies as for the waters ... bigger island in full color small island, islets &c marked with a dot and the name. Could do it next week. Islandhopper 15:54, 19 September 2007 (MDT)

Thanks, Islandhopper.
A little help would be much appreciated. These are a few of the worst I have identified so far;

• Fair Isle
• Foula - first 2 paragraphs, direct copy
• Gruney - Direct copy, January, by James
• Hascosay - What we have is 2 lines, Direct copy January, by James
• Hildasay - Direct copy, January, by James
• Lamba - Direct copy, January, by James
• Linga near Yell - What we have is direct copy of part of Wikipedia, January, by James
• Mousa - First part copied.
• Muckle Flugga - Copied...

I've got to go to work now, but I think from that little alphabetical list you can see the problem.... I'll check the others later, but I have Norkie night class tonight so may be tomorrow before I get a chance again.
Wiki have copied a few of ours as well, but that doesn't matter, it was only small stuff, I'll maybe reword ours sometime in those cases, just to be different.
And Yes, location maps would be a great idea,,, excellent idea.. :-))))
Robbie 21:33, 19 September 2007 (MDT)

OK then, try to find whatever you can get. I will start with those pages from L (incl.) to Z on Monday when I'm back from our editors meeting (Friday to Sunday) and will then add the map thingies, too. Islandhopper 02:07, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

Further list of ones needing rewriting:

• Noss - Wikipedia copy, been from the start
• Out Stack - Direct copy, January
• Oxna - Direct Copy, January, except last sentence, which is ok
• Papa - Direct copy, January
• Papa Little - Direct copy, January, except for external link
• Samphrey - Another January cock-up, better to rewrite.
• Unst - Was a copy from the start, but some now copied both ways, better rewrite.
• Uyea - Another January copy
• Whalsay - Copy from the start, needs rewrite, some bits ok
• Yell - Copy from start, opening line still direct copy, need rewrite.

Islandhopper,
That seems to be the worst ones.
I'll deal with A to K, and also go over some of the others which I just want to reword a little because Wiki have copied from us, and it would be fine if we looked different.
I think we should consider expanding the Islands section as a matter of course, sometime in the near future. Especially with your map idea it would look good, and unlike the inshore waters, there are only about 100 ;-)
I suggest our opening line on islands should be a bit like the Inshore Waters, with the Map Reference in brackets after the name on the first line, then location description, then any other info, and put your map on the right, as with inshore waters.
How does that sound?? If that's ok, I'll use that formula for the ones I do.
Just for amusement,, while digging on Wiki, to see what we had copied, I notice that the nice chaps there have copied Horse Holm from us,,, so it's officially a Holm now,,, :-))))) Cheers,
Robbie 08:48, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

Islandhopper,
On second thoughts,,,, (braincell worked twice in one day.... ;-)
I'll deal with the ones in that first list,, up to Muckle Flugga,,, if you can deal with the ones from Noss to Yell..
I have some particular bits I want to do with Mousa and Muckle Flugga. Plus it splits it a bit more evenly ;-)
Then I'll try to add some new ones while you make maps.
Does that sound ok to you, Master of Maps??? :-)
I'll deal with that first lot at the weekend during breaks from my Language homework.
Robbie 13:44, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

Agreed, sounds good. When adding the grid ref just type it AB123654. It makes copy and paste easier to get a map. I will ask one of my folks to help me writing a template thingy so that we later would only have to add {{ }} around the grid ref, to get an autogenerated link to OS Get a Map ... ;-) Islandhopper 14:44, 20 September 2007 (MDT)

OK, no problems.. and I like that get a map thingy as well ;-)
Robbie 15:10, 20 September 2007 (MDT)