Talk:Shetland

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• Shetland (boxed) with surrounding lands.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:31, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Questions and comments

I read the article with interest. I made a variety of fixes and improvements both in terms of text and layout. I have a variety of questions and comments.

1. "Shetland has a national scenic area which, unusually, includes a number of discrete locations".

What does "discrete" mean? I suppose it's "different".

2. "Shetland is extremely rich in physical remains of the prehistoric eras and there are over 5,000 archaeological sites all told".

What does "all told" mean? I suppose it's "in total".

3. The text says "Norwegian king Harald Hårfagre ("Harald Fair Hair")".

Should it be Fair Hair or Fairhair? I have never seen the first version.

4. "The population stood at 17,814 in 1961."

The information is useful and relevant but it should not be where it is. It's not related. It should rather be part of a demographics section (which does not exist).

5. The caption "More than half of the Shetland catch by weight and value is mackerel" is redundant with the text.

6. "This business has grown substantially with 109 cruise ships already booked in for 2019, representing over 107,000 passenger visits."

This is likely old information.

7. "The tourism industry required short term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions"."

The sentence is hanging.

8. The quarries section has no introduction. It should.

9. The map in the government section does not have a caption. It should (I could not figure out how to add one).

10. "Anderson High School and Brae High School."

Do they really need to be listed?

11. "In 2022, as part of the Levelling Up White Paper, an "Island Forum" was proposed, which would allow local policymakers and residents in Shetland to work alongside their counterparts in Orkney, the Western Isles, Anglesey and the Isle of Wight on common issues, such as broadband connectivity, and provide a platform for them to communicate directly with the government on the challenges island communities face in terms of levelling up."

What does "levelling up" mean? I assume it's "even up" or something similar.

12. "After several unsuccessful attempts, including a plebiscite in 1985, the Lord Lyon King of Arms approved it as the official flag of Shetland in 2005."

I think it would be proper to briefly expand on the "unsuccessful attempts". To a typical reader, including myself, the context is not quite self-explanatory.

13. "The Shetland Black is a variety of blue potato with a dark skin and indigo-coloured flesh markings."

Should the link behind "blue potato" point to the Shetland Black potato?

14. "It became extinct sometime between the middle of the nineteenth century and the 1930s."

Unusual statement. If the date range is ~1850-1930s, about 80 years, shouldn't the extinction be placed in the 1930s?

ICE77 (talk) 06:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Insi Catt

Is there any online info about the name Insi Catt, referred to in Etymology? 24.108.18.81 (talk) 15:11, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Recent edit

@Sigehelmus: Your edit has a number of features:

• You have added "[known]" into the text of a direct quote but the quotation does not hint at this caveat. It's true that there may have been some Gaelic spoken in Shetland in the past we don't know about but I don't think this is the best way to explain this.
• You added "the popular and traditional claim' to the sentence about hjalt+land. Is this sourced?
• You added "Andrew Jennings has suggested a link with the Caledones." and "(also coinciding with Jennings' hypothesis for the early sound shift necessary for descent from *kalid- to *halit-, from Caledones)." I think you are saying this is sourced because you also added a link to Wiktionary.
• I am not at all sure that Wiktionary is considered a WP:RS, but even if it is, this is not a satisfactory method of citation - expecially in what is still a GA. Furthermore, although offhand it's hard to be sure I supect this is a fringe theory and more credible as a footnote. There are possible links with the Picts but I am not aware of any clear link between the Caledones and Shetland having been established. (I may be wrong about this - I am not as up-to-speed about Shetlandic prehistory as I'd like to be.) Ben MacDui 13:22, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for the thread and please excuse my shy delay. :( To just get it out of the way, I'll delve deeper into finding more sources for these claims. You raise a good point and I was just trying to tidy things consistently. To clarify, as of the past decade it seems that such theories about ancient origin aren't as fringe as they once were considered (although for many there's a bias that prefer the more "interesting" tale). In this case, I think that the traditional story of hilt-land just seems a bit too much like folk etymology. It feels kind of "just-so." By the way, Online Etymology Dictionary unusually doesn't give an origin beyond the Norse name, and I don't have access to the real deal Oxford dictionary. I'll report back some time soon though with more. For now I believe it's worth mentioning the alternative theory and leaving room for possibilities, but reword if you must. ~Sıgehelmus♗_(Tøk) 02:01, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Relation to slang for feces

if you replace the E in Shetland with an I, you can see how it can be vandalized. If it isn't already protected, PROTECT IT. 50.201.78.227 (talk) 15:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

See WP:CRYSTALBALL and related policies, also WP:SEMI. Protection in cases like this is generally done post hoc when, God forbid, users actually attempt to vandalize. ~Sıgehelmus♗_(Tøk) 16:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)