Talk:Prehistoric Scotland

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Scotland High‑importance

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Archaeology Mid‑importance

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A summary of this article appears in Scotland.

Rising seas 'clue' in sunken world off Orkney[edit]

"A unique discovery of submerged man-made structures on the seabed off Orkney could help find solutions to rising sea levels, experts have said.", BBC News Scotland online

--Mais oui! (talk) 05:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Added archive https://archive.is/20131011233242/http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/076/Ant0760023.htm to http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/076/Ant0760023.htm
Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110724172318/http://www.historyscotland.com/features/firstsettlers.html to http://www.historyscotland.com/features/firstsettlers.html

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Article issues[edit]

The majority of this 2004 article is unsourced and tagged since 2009. There is no way to verify the unsourced content without some general idea where to start. The article has enjoyed 148 editors and has 54 watchers showing 1,697 pageviews (30 days). I have not looked at the "External links" to see if some of them might have been used. Maybe some of these editors can find some time to either add references or at least join the discussion here. (Note sent to creator) -- Otr500 (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of refs relevant to this article in the timeline. I'm afraid I don't have time to do much more than make this suggestion at present. Ben Mac Dui 18:18, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's an attempt at an overview which is probably now rather dated, and I don't have the resources to rewrite it. The timeline of prehistoric Scotland seems to cover the topic more concisely, suggest merging anything of use into that article, and make this a redirect with the option of a new start when editors want to tackle it afresh. . . dave souza, talk 22:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had a quick read through and it's not so much that the article is inaccurate but rather that, being of a certain vintage, it doesn't conform to our current obsession with detailed verifications. It wouldn't be too difficult to 'reverse engineer' this from the timeline although (a) I haven't had much time of late to keep that up-to-date with new discoveries, and (b) this is not at the top of my ist of priorites at present. It's been sitting here for the past 15 years - let's give it another 2-3 months and see what happens. Ben Mac Dui 14:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Ben MacDui and dave souza. I don't think "current obsession with detailed verifications" would be as accurate as a move to being more proactive in returning to the 2003 suggestion that "The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete, accurate encyclopedia." That goal might have been considered somewhat dubious in the beginning. The evolution of our policies and guidelines, as well as some broadly accepted essays, have long provided that verifiability is essential to a goal mentioned in the first paragraph of What Wikipedia is not, an online community committed to building a high-quality encyclopedia. It seems as though accuracy was not included in the evolution of the verifiability policy, it is included in the fundamental principles of Wikipedia: All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy with citations based on reliable sources... (WP:5P2).

Of course, it would be a phenomenal goal if all content was backed by reliable sources. Since that is not likely to happen I only concern myself with tagged content or content I read and feel should be sourced. This has not changed since I began editing.

Anyway, this article would actually, or at the very least should be, considered the parent article. I would surmise that there are a multitude of sources to acknowledge notability, so would hardly think it would not survive a AFD. The suggestion of a rewrite is valid. Another issue would be that a merge suggestion, of a largely unsourced article, to Timeline of prehistoric Scotland a "featured list" article, would be unacceptable Sourcing requirements certainly become more stringent with article promotions.

I will look at the list article and see if some shared content may have been sourced there. I am not in any hurry, especially to possibly remove unsourced material, I am just bringing attention to sourcing issues. I too have other irons in the fire and some health issues with an upcoming operation in a few days. Thanks for the interaction and suggestions. -- Otr500 (talk) 22:19, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]