Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Oxford/hillforts

Lists

Personally I find the chunky tables generated by ListeriaBot really unwieldy. They make the page look more like a data dump than a list, and add a lot of extra kilobytes which will eventually make long lists like these unusable. MOS:LIST also discourages them.

A while ago I experimented with getting a simple bulleted list out of ListeriaBot, which can be done quite easily through a template, e.g.:

Update the list now |SPARQL |Find images

This list is automatically generated from data in Wikidata and is periodically updated by Listeriabot.
Edits made within the list area will be removed on the next update!

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End of auto-generated list.

Should we use this technique here? – Joe (talk) 11:49, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm very open to persuasion about the form the list articles should take. I personally like tables with lots of data, but I take your point about avoiding bloat. Having Wikipedia articles that are hundreds of kilobytes is to be avoided. Maybe a bullet-point list with references is all that's needed, and I'm glad you've done some of the work to enable this. A substitution in a text editor can turn this into more conventional wiki markup. Thanks for this example! MartinPoulter (talk) 13:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Sure. I think a prose format that incorporates the most important bits of data from Wikidata/the Atlas can give us the best of both worlds, e.g.:

• Bury Camp (51.46431°N 2.26317°W / 51.46431; -2.26317), partial contour fort

We should also be able to use a template to turn the URLs you get from Wikidata into nicely-formatted references. – Joe (talk) 13:48, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

References

Infobox and other questions

Reading about this interesting project has prompted me to go back to List of hill forts and ancient settlements in Somerset and looking at trying to update this and all of the entries has triggered a few questions:

1. Many of the specific articles use Template:Infobox Historic Site if you add the | hillfort = parameter to this it gives the error message "Warning: Page using Template:Infobox historic site with unknown parameter "hillfort" (this message is shown only in preview)." Is this project saying you have to use Template:Infobox ancient site or could | hillfort = be added to Infobox Historic Site (by someone who understands template syntax - which I don't)? Is there any automated way (AWB or similar) which could convert all the infoboxes to Infobox ancient site easily?
2. The list uses standard wikitable syntax (as does User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts). Could/should it use Template:English Heritage listed building row or similar & could the hillfort = parameter be added to that? This automatically links to wikidata & images on commons (as long as the LB number is added to a commons cat page). If changes could be made this may encourage people to take photos - particularly if the sites (generally ancient monuments) are included in Wiki Loves Monuments which will be taking place again this year.
3. Should only those sites designated as "confirmed" be included? There are several sites which may have been hillforts but could have been animal enclosures etc and it would require a lot of onsite archaeology to confirm.
4. If an image is included on the Atlas what is its copyright status - ie can it be copied to commons & used in wp articles?
5. What level of specificity should be used for lat & long - most of the sites are quite large & the detail at User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts seems over precise (it has also been added to Category:Pages with malformed coordinate tags).

Sorry for so many questions - and I'm sure there may be more as I try to incorporate the atlas data with existing wp articles & lists - and I have never understood the syntax for wikidata so I will not be manually editing that, but it does seem to update automatically when I add data to wp articles & lists.— Rod ^talk 10:07, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

The infoboxes around historic/archaeological sites are a bit of a mess. Personally I'd use {{Infobox ancient site}} because it's the most general of the bunch (despite the name), whilst {{Infobox historic site}} focuses on statutory protection. It might be possible to embed {{Infobox historic site}} in {{Infobox ancient site}} if there are parameters missing from the latter. Or if you prefer to keep the historic site infobox you could add the Atlas of Hillforts number as a "designation"?

I'm not sure about the pros and cons of {{English Heritage listed building row}} but I don't imagine hillforts are listed buildings, and the columns don't look all that relevant.

The definition of a hillfort is notoriously fuzzy. I'd say the publication of the atlas gives us an authoritative definition we can use, but as far as I can tell they haven't published their criteria.

You're right about the coordinates. Five places on a decimal lat/long gives you about a metre precision, so definitely anything beyond that is superfluous. – Joe (talk) 10:39, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks - according to Historic England most of the hillforts are ancient monuments rather than listed buildings, although a few are (surprisingly) both. If you look at the 7 sub lists of Scheduled monuments in Somerset eg Scheduled monuments in West Somerset lots of hillforts are included in lists using {{English Heritage listed building row}} & I was persuaded of the advantages (links to commons & wikidata, use during Wiki Loves Monuments - to make image uploading easier etc) some years ago. It has a link to the NHLE entry which just requires the number to create an automatic link & if we accept the Atlas as authoritative then someone could work the same magic to the number in the atlas. I presume people know that the contributions of Mikhailfranco~commonswiki to commons were too upload loads of plans of hillforts (from 1911 publication therefore claimed public domain), but I'm not aware of a suitable category on commons for images/plans of hillforts - similar to Category:Hill forts in England on wp.— Rod ^talk 16:36, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Thinking a bit more about this I suspect it comes down to which is more authoritative the Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland or National Heritage List for England (and similar for Wales, Scotland, NI etc). If it is the Atlas then {{Infobox ancient site}} would be most appropriate (with lists in standard wikitable syntax), If it is NHLE from Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) with its status as an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), then {{Infobox historic site}} (with lists using {{English Heritage listed building row}}) is probably more appropriate.— Rod ^talk 17:03, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

...does it? My only real qualm with {{English Heritage listed building row}} (apart from it being a table, see above) is that it includes a "completed" column which makes no sense for a prehistoric settlement. Similarly, {{Infobox historic site}} seems geared towards historic standing remains and doesn't have a lot of the fields you'd want to fill in for an archaeological site, e.g. date of discovery, excavators, etc. All the Wikidata integration stuff and magic links is great. Whatever we land on it would be good to do as much as that as possible. – Joe (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I think my point was that I wouldn't remove an existing {{Infobox historic site}} with a link to a statutory designation to replace it with {{Infobox ancient site}} with a link to a non-statutory listing (however nice the map interface). I believe the "completed" column and other non-relevant fields can be hidden. What would be nice would be able to have an appropriate infobox which has all the fields you mention (date of discovery, excavators, etc) and still emphasises the NHLE ancient monument designator. I have asked User:Pigsonthewing for any comment as knowing more about wikidata, templates etc than I ever will.— Rod ^talk 18:03, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

You can link to the NHLE record via {{Infobox ancient site}} (as of yesterday). – Joe (talk) 18:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

To cut the Gordian knot. I've proposed merging the two infoboxes; you can comment on that proposal here. Regarding your point #2, yes, a template should be used, for ease of use, and machine readability. Let me know if you need help making one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:11, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

@Rodw: Sorry for missing this discussion at the time. Good point about over-precise long/lat. It could be that the data were entered a different way and the many decimal places are the results of a conversion. Welsh entries in the Atlas don't seem to have the problem. I'll put in a bot request. On table formatting, I'm persuaded by Joe that lists of hillforts in Scotland, in Ireland etc. should use list rather than table syntax, but obviously the Somerset list is best as a table, so I won't be using {{English Heritage listed building row}} on the articles I create and I've no opinion on what should happen with that template. On articles I create I'll include all the relevant entries in the Atlas, but it's a community editorial decision whether to only include confirmed sites, so if you want the Somerset list to only include confirmed sites, that's fine. The aerial photography images in the Atlas map are copyrighted; the atlas is encouraging contributors to upload their photos of the hillforts themselves to Commons. If there's an image you want, I could request it for Commons. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:23, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

User:MartinPoulter/Hillforts in Wales is looking great. I see we'll have a lot of red links to turn blue! Were you planning to have lists for England, Scotland, Wales, NI and Ireland? Or subdivide the longer ones into counties? – Joe (talk) 09:52, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Now that I've taken on board your suggestions, it's looking a lot better. :) I'll use a text editor to convert the atlas numbers to full citations, and to remove links from the type descriptions. I'm planning to create lists for Ireland (new), for Wales, for Scotland, NI and the Isle of Man. I'll combine the auto-generated lists with content in existing lists so as not to be destructive. For England, I'm not yet sure. A complete list with thousands of entries is unfeasible, but proceeding on a county-by-county basis means that some lists will have very few. Regions (for England outside the South West) might be a compromise. Or I might do a couple of counties where there isn't an existing article, modelling them on the exemplary Somerset list. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:54, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. {{Cite Atlas of Hillforts}} is also an option for the citations.

According to this England actually has less entries than Scotland – 1224, which seems just about feasible for a single list? – Joe (talk) 11:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah, you're right. I was just reading the Guardian article again. The size of the Scotland list could well be a problem, but England less so. England could be a general list with sub-pages for Somerset, Northumberland, Wiltshire, Cornwall and the other more densely packed counties. Maybe working from counties/lieutenancy areas is a better approach for Scotland too.MartinPoulter (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

External link sections

Linking to the Atlas from external links sections sounds like a sensible thing to do. Should this be done using {{Cite Atlas of Hillforts}}? Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:15, 10 August 2017 (UTC)