Talk:Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick

Copyediting questions

• This doesn't make much sense to me: "This includes Donnchadh's attachment to the Cistercian nunnery of North Berwick, founded by Donnchadh II of Fife's father Donnchadh II of Fife ...". Donnchadh II of Fife's father was Donnchadh II of Fife? --Malleus Fatuorum 18:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Haha. Donnchadh II's father was Donnchadh I. Thanks for the going-over you're giving this btw! :) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• Here's another bit I don't quite get, from Activities in and around Carrick: "In 1285 it was able to persuade the earl of the time to force its tenants in Carrick to use the lex Anglicana (the 'English law')." I don't follow what the "it" is that's being referred to, as the subject of the previous sentence is "Melrose's super-grange". --Malleus Fatuorum 20:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps showing my ignorance here, but the first two paragraphs of the Donnchadh's Anglo-Normans section begin "Evidence of religious patronage reveals evidence of two Anglo-Normans ..." and "The other known Anglo-French ..." respectively. Is Anglo-French really synonymous with Anglo-Norman for this period? --Malleus Fatuorum 20:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• The third paragraph of Irish involvement starts: "Subsequently, Matilda was imprisoned by the king, dying through starvation.". We can deduce that Matilda is likely to be William de Briouze's wife mentioned in the quotation above, but we ought not to be left to work it out. Presumably as well it was Matilda who was dying of starvation, not the king? --Malleus Fatuorum 22:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, Anglo-French is another way of saying Anglo-Norman, but more generic. I think I've sorted your points out. Tell me if I haven't, or if you see any other issues. :) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I expect you're right. I just wasn't certain when historians consider that what we now call France (as opposed to Western Francia) came into existence. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

My bits...

Quick notes

• Need a cite for the "the most important sources" bits in the first sentence of the first paragraph of Sources.
• Roger of Hoveden or Roger of Hovesden? You use both.
• "Roger of Hoveden is particularly important in relation to what is now south-western Scotland, the land of the Gall-Gaidhil." seems overly complicated to me. Perhaps "Roger of Hoveden is particularly important when he relates information from the land of the Gall-Gaidhil, what is now south-western Scotland."?
• "... thus comes from one of the latter's own representative in the matter." wouldn't "...thus comes from an eyewitness." be more concise and clearer?
• Need a concise explanation of the Matyrology of Óengus and why it's important for the background.
• "Roger of Hoveden, an English priest who visited Galloway as an emissary of the king and later wrote about the visit as a historian, reported that..." you've already introduced Roger in the sources section, can probably cut this back a bit
• In 1176 Gille-Brighde came to an agreement with William and Lochlann or with Henry II? The context is unclear in the article.
• Need a direct citation on "and the other Galwegians who had wasted his land and slain his vassals" in Disputed inheritance.
• As a side note, I've finally gotten my hands on Hugh du Puiset's biography, and he's on my list to upgrade when I find the time.
• "... return to Carlise with Lochlann in their train." will probably be opaque to some of the FAC folks. Might reword.
• "... held for several decades before he lost this territory to his rival Hugh de Lacy after his capture in 1203." I assume the one captured was John, not Hugh? Context here is slightly unclear on which one it might have been.
• Should "Martyrology of Glasgow" be italicised?

I see Malleus is doing his usual excellent copyediting job. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Deacon will soon get fed-up with my meddling and general nit-picking. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum 22:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Deacon can be just as nitpicky so he doesn't have a lot of room to talk... Ealdgyth - Talk 02:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Cheers for this Ealdgyth. I've responded to as many points as I could by edits to the article, all but one of the others I was beaten to by the industrious Hammer of Fools. Re: Matyrology of Óengus ... you mean in the intro, or where it's mentioned?

Biography of Hugh de Puiset?

@ Malleus, you're nowhere near fedding me up. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

On the Martyrology, anyplace it's mentioned, if it's a proper title of a work (I'm not so conversant with Scots sources, so not sure if it's like Hemming's Cartulary where it's a title or if it's like Christ Church's Cartulary, where it's not. On Hugh, yeah, Scammell did a biography of Hugh back in the 1950s, it's pretty much the standard (like Freeman's bio of Rufus was for 100 years until Barlow did his). At least if someone else has done a more recent one, I've yet to run across a mention of it. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

First time I'd ever heard of it was researching this. I looked at it, it is a list of deaths in the Glasgow Registrum. I figured it, being a martyrology, was probably called Martyrology of Glasgow, and g-booked that and indeed that's what it was called. :) Might as well italicise it, as you said. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Should the terms for "G. W. S. Barrow": "Historians Geoffrey Barrow and ...", "Scottish medievalist Professor Geoffrey Barrow", "historian of Anglo-Norman Scotland Geoffrey Barrow", and "leading Scottish medievalist Professor Geoffrey Barrow" be made to look more like the same person?--Celtus (talk) 08:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Cheers. Have standardised. :) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

Just a heads up, the infobox is much much too large if you're pushing this for GAC. On a smaller screen it takes up too much room. Is it even the best image for the infobox? Canterbury Tail talk 13:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Will be by-passing GAN for this straight to FAN. I've forced the image through at 250px. Does this work? Do you have another suggestion for infobox image? The seal impression is the only image relating to him. Actually, it was discovering the seal that led to this article getting so much work ... you know, I wanted to give an article to go with the image. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature in the article, including the title

I was the GA reviewer of this excellent piece of work. The article was not promoted at FAC owing, it appears (the closer gave no commentary) on the basis of a disagreement about nomenclature. This appears to be the only substantive issue with the article, and I tihnk it would be extremely disappointing were it to be prevented from reaching FAC on this basis. I hope a discussion can occur here about how to resolve this matter. I want to immediately raise the possibility that we might be able to agree that the article proceed at FAC in a form that one or more editors don't agree with, without that editor making an objection at FAC that might prevent promotion, but only if involved editors agree here first.

Note - my assumptions above turned out to be wrong: see User_talk:SandyGeorgia#Explanation_requested. I will contact Tony1 to help try and clear that roadblock. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Relevant policy

• Policy: Wikipedia:Naming conventions

This states in part:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:

The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

However, as the subject of this article is not popularly known in English, the application of this principle is not necessarily clear - this was indeed part of the debate at FAC.

• Guideline: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

This states in part:

Use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in verifiable reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)...
The references for the article should themselves be reliable sources; if one name is clearly most commonly used in the English-language references for the article, we should probably use it...
The native spelling of a name should generally be included in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the anglicization isn't identical; redirects from non-English names are encouraged. Where there is an English exonym for the subject, it should be mentioned, even if it is not the most common name in English language usage...

Sometimes, English usage is divided. For example, US newspapers generally referred to the Olympics in Torino, following official handouts. However, newspapers in other parts of the English speaking world still use Turin. Use what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. Whichever is chosen, one should place a redirect at the other title and mention both forms in the lead.

Google hits are an unreliable test, but can suggest that no single term is predominant in English. If several competing versions of a name have roughly equal numbers (say 1803 for one variant and 1030 for another), there may well be divided usage. When in doubt, search results should also be evaluated with more weighting given to verifiable reliable sources than to less reliable sources (such as comments in forums, mailing lists and the like). Do consult reliable works of general reference in English...
When there is evenly divided usage and other guidelines do not apply, leave the article name at the latest stable version...

"Modified letters"
Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does. Wikipedia has no rule that titles must be written in certain characters, or that certain characters may not be used. Versions of a name which differ only in the use or non-use of modified letters should be treated like any other versions: Follow the general usage in English verifiable reliable sources in each case, whatever characters may or may not be used in them.

English usage is often best determined by consulting works of general reference which deal with the subject and seeing what they use. Search engines are always problematic, unless their verdict is overwhelming; modified letters have the additional difficulties that some search engines will not distinguish between the original and modified forms, and others fail to recognize the modified letter because of optical character recognition errors. If there is a consensus on spelling in the sources used for the article, this will normally represent a consensus of English usage.

One recurrent issue has been the treatment of ae and oe and their variants. By and large, Wikipedia uses œ and æ to represent the Anglo-Saxon ligature. For Latin or Greek-derived words, use e or ae/oe, depending on modern usage and the national variety of English used in the article. German proper names should be treated with care, and attention to English practice. Not all German proper names use umlauts (for example, Emmy Noether is correct in both languages); English resolves umlauts where German need not: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is standard English usage, although both forms have been found in German.

Beware of over-dramatising these issues: as an example Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) may be mentioned, which, as a side-effect, regulated use of diacritics regarding Ireland-related articles – peacefully – before, during and after an extensive dispute on the question of diacritics in 2005, e.g. Inishmore, not Inis Mór; Tomás Cardinal Ó Fiaich, not Tomas Cardinal O'Fiaich (see the mentioned MoS page for details).

Other policy mentioned in discussion

Use other languages sparingly. This appears to me to be of marginal relivance. its key point is "It is fine to include foreign terms as extra information, but avoid writing articles that can only be understood if the reader understands the foreign terms." We are not discussing terminology here, but names, and I think WP guidance specific to names should prevail.

Participants in the relevant discussion during FAC

• Deacon of Pndapetzim (the nominator)
• Xandar (the initial objector)
• Parrot of Doom (very briefly)
• Hamiltonstone
• siarach
• Srnec (very briefly)
• Septentrionalis

Initial comments

The debate at FAC revolved around whether the article itself should be named Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick or Duncan, Earl of Carrick, and whether this and other names used in the article (such as Gille-Brighde) are in the most appropriate form.

I hope you don’t mind my butting in as a non-combatant in the previous debate. Having read through the FAC it seems to me that the issues it presents are more to do with the nature of the FAC process itself than the specific merits or demerits of the article.

a) It’s pretty ridiculous that what is in essence a stylistic or naming issue should be the main subject of an FAC.

b) Whilst writing style is an important factor in an FAC and rightly receives attention (e.g. comments by Tony), it is remarkable that an FAC should close with next to no comment about the factual accuracy or otherwise of the information presented (which is after all the main purpose of an encyclopaedia article). I don’t wish to denigrate the intentions of the reviewers, who presumably gave of their time in a genuine attempt to improve Wikipedia, but to my mind the overall process is, well, a shade dysfunctional.

Here is a suggested solution. I propose it not in the expectation that it will be undertaken or if undertaken will succeed, but because it has, to a degree worked elsewhere.

Members of WikiProject Medieval Scotland draft a simple MOS for articles relating to the period in question. They post a link from WP:MOS when it is completed to their satisfaction. If other editors wish to discuss the subject, they do so there. Nobody fails FACs about avians because the names of bird species are capitalised (although lots of people don’t like it), as MOS allows for it. Of course one of the advantages that those with a serious interest in birds have, is that they are numerous. It is unlikely that anyone without such an interest is going to be able to bully them into changing their style. Members of smaller projects are more vulnerable to demands for change from those without a genuine knowledge of the subject, but that is Wikipedia for you, and I know of no solution to this. Ben MacDui 08:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess that just about sums it up then and those involved have simply moved on to more important matters. Nothing more to do here folks - unless of course.... Ben MacDui 19:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi MacDui. Sometimes an impasse is best resolved when taking a little break, but perhaps we've waited long enough for this issue to subside. I'm afraid that no MOS will be forthcoming anytime soon, prolly as that would absorb a lot of precious time and energy (and might occasion further eruptions of the kind of disheartening 'discussions' we've come to love here) and as not every editor might be confident that MOSs are as beneficial in practice as they say on the tin. Particularly not when an editor is involved who has been trying to shove his own agenda down the main naming guidelines (as he/she has been doing lately, again). But maybe that's just my pessimistic feeling. I'm not sure whether the nomination would be ruined by the same controversial editor a second time, but more important perhaps is the question whether the main contributors would still like to see the article achieve FA-status? Putting up with *** (insert *** of your choice) once an article has come to wider attention can be a burden which not everyone might be prepared to take on, especially now that one of the main contributors has pretty much given up on Wikipedia, at least for now. Again, I may be reading too much into the silence around here, so please prove me wrong if I am. Cavila (talk) 08:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

G'day both of you. I have to take some responsibility here for how this is currently playing out, in that I set up the text here on the understanding that the nomenclature issue was the deal-breaker. However, an interchange on SandyGeorgia's talk page here suggests this was not in fact the case. Sandy appears to have seen prose issues as a more significant factor, and that the nomenclature issue would not necessarily hold up FA promotion - but that it may have discouraged other editors from getting involved. So. I intended to ask Tony1 if he would break his usual principle of not going for a full copyedit, and give Donnchadh a thorough going-over. However, when I visited his talk page it said he was away for a week, and his page is archived by bot weekly, so I left things alone for a while. I will now drop in to Tony and see how things go. I am interested in Dui's MOS idea, but am unfamiliar with how these things play out, and can see some cause for pessimism in Cavila's remarks. We'll get this article up and running one way or another. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 11:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear that! In haste, Cavila (talk) 09:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC).

Notes on nomenclature in sources

Sources that refer to the subject: As "Duncan":

• The Anglo-Norman era in Scottish history By G. W. S. Barrow, Clarendon Press, 1980
• Robert Bruce and the community of the realm of Scotland 4th edition, By G. W. S. Barrow, Edinburgh University Press, 2005 (first edition 1965)
• Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community By G. W. S. Barrow, Alexander Grant, Keith John Stringer, Edinburgh University Press, 1993.
• Medieval Scotland By Andrew D. M. Barrell, Cambirdge University Press, 2000.
• Melrose Abbey By Richard Fawcett, Richard D. Oram, Historic Scotland, Tempus, 2004 (though Donnchad used in index)

As Donnchad:

• Native lordship in medieval Scotland: the earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox, c.1140-1365 By Cynthia J. Neville, Four Courts Press, 2005
• The Campbells, 1250-1513 By Stephen I. Boardman, John Donald, 2006
• Viking empires By Angelo Forte, Richard D. Oram, Frederik Pedersen, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Manx kingship in its Irish Sea setting, 1187-1229: King Rǫgnvaldr and the Crovan dynasty By R. Andrew McDonald, Four Courts Press, 2007

Guideline used by the Scottish Historical Review journal

Medieval Personal Names

The general principle in dealing with individuals who are, in the terms of your article, identifiably Celtic, is to avoid Anglicised forms and to treat names within the historiographical tradition of the country concerned. For Irish/Gaelic, names should be given in the forms appropriate to the date of the person in question.

Previous discussion about the general issue

• See Talk:Kenneth MacAlpin

Never mind the quality, feel the width ...

This is so disappointing. A quality article consigned to nothingdom for the sake of a few Gaelic names that most people coming to WP would have regarded as athenticity. Not promoting this article has deprived many people from ever reading this well researched work and so depriving them of a bit of understanding of a fascinating period in Scottish medieval history. When dogma comes before value, then this project is well and truly doomed! --Bill Reid | (talk) 09:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It's happened before. Roman Catholic Church was held up for months while the debate raged about whether that or Catholic Church was its official name, even went to mediation. Some people don't even look for the wood after they see a little twig. --Malleus Fatuorum 12:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This is an absolutely fascinating article. The depth and detail of the research involved is quite stunning - even down to digging out material from the Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society. It reads more like an academic essay than an entry in an encylopaedia.Alistairliv (talk) 16:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature: Gille Brigte of Galloway?

The article current refers to Donnchadh's father as "Gille-Brighde of Galloway". However, the Wikipedia article is actually Gille Brigte of Galloway, a redirect partly actually made by User:Deacon of Pndapetzim, who created this article. I propose to alter all occurences of "Gille-Brighde" to "Gille Brigte" unless anyone has objections. hamiltonstone (talk) 10:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Kennedy descendants

I remain to be convinced that the Kennedy descent is proven so I would like this claim to be removed from the opening paragraph. As far as I am aware we know only that John Kennedy of Dunure had a wife called Mary. The rest (eg charters in the Ailsa Muniments) is circumstantial. Any comments anyone. Iain Kennedy (kennedy@one-name.org). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.224.203 (talk) 13:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The key issue is what is stated in reliable sources, rather than whether it is "proven". Circumstantial evidence is acceptable. However, in this case, I cannot see a sentence in the body text of the article indicating that this particular line of descent is by blood relationship to the Earl who is the subject of this article, so I have removed the text from the lead. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a probability that the Kennedy of Dunure's wife Mary was a Carrick, but even ignoring that the Kennedies are descendants through Mary Stewart, mother of Gilbert III. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

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WP:URFA/2020 notes

There is a citation needed tag, and I suggest the caption on the main image might be overly long. Marking "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020, and unwatching. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)