Talk:History of the kilt

Division of the kilt articles group

Is there a particular reason this information does not belong in kilt? James A. Flippin 16:54, 19 June 2007 (CDT)

The question regarding the division of information on a given subject into separate articles is not one which can be decided a priori on purely theoretic grounds. And while there is no doubt that kilt and history of the kilt are both concerned with the same general subject, so to are Scotland and history of Scotland. In both cases, the two articles could be combined into a single article, or they could be treated separately.

Length is one consideration, especially in the case of the Scotland articles. The plan of the work related to kilts is for there to be four basic articles: kilt, kilt variants, kilt accessories, and history of the kilt. Combined, they could easily equal or exceed 10000 words. And there is really no good reason, if one is to combine kilt with the history article, to stop there and not continue with the other two.

But the four articles seem to treat of four distinct topics within the same overall theme, and that is strong justification for the proposed division. At Highland games events, questions about the kilt can and do fall rather neatly into these four main categories, that is; 1) what is a kilt? 2) where did it originate? 3) what is worn with it? and 4) what about these other garments? are they kilts? and how do they differ from the Scottish kilt?

So the two main reasons are, on the one hand, the question of length, and, on the other, the fact that questions concerning the kilt can be rather neatly categorized into one of the above four topic areas.

James F. Perry 10:05, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

I'm not convinced, especially since this article is currently fairly short and, especially if the excessive sectioning were removed, would fit quite nicely in kilt, which is not very long at all. I can see that kilt accessories is large enough that it should really be removed to its own article. But, since you're clearly still working on the set of articles, I'll wait and see what everything looks like at the end. James A. Flippin 10:48, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

I have to agree with Mr. J. Flippin about this article. I think it's a logical fallicy to say that "A because of a means X because of x". In the case of kilt, it really makes no sense to seperate the history of it from the item itself, as one of the reasons why someone might research the kilt is to find out it's origins. --Robert W King 10:52, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

I would estimate that this article, in its current state,is about 20 - 25% complete. I did not mean to imply that because Scotland and history of Scotland are two separate articles, then the analogues of kilt must be treated similarly, only that there is no logical reason why they ought to be treated together. It is not a matter of logic, but of what would be most useful to the users of the material. James F. Perry 12:25, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Let's assume for argument's sake that I have no idea what a kilt is. If I load up citizendium, and look up kilt, I would expect to not only find out what a kilt is, but why people wear them. Why people wear kilts is directly related to the history of the kilt as the meaning of it comes from its background, hence the reason for it. Because this is a very specific item from a specific cultural herritage(including the background/history), they should be mutually inclusive. --Robert W King 12:34, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Before responding, let me ask what you would do with the kilt accessories article and the kilt variants article (in progress)? By your reasoning above, they too should be folded into the kilt article. James F. Perry 12:51, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Before I respond, answer these for me-

• Are kilt accessories a requirement? That is, can you wear a kilt without wearing accesorizing it?
• Why would a kilt variant be worn over a regular kilt?

If the answer to the first question is no, then kilt accessories should get its own article. After all, if we were talking about Christian Dior dresses or Calvin Klein jeans as an article, we wouldn't be discussing the types of earrings or shirts you should be wearing with them in the same article (because that is based upon the style preference of the individual). If the answer is Yes, and accessorizing the kilt has a particular meaning associated with each accessory (in terms of cultural herritage, background, etc) then it should absolutely be merged into the kilt article.

If kilt variants are significant enough to make a cognitive distinction in choosing to prefer to wear one, then kilt variants should get their own article. However if it's a matter of personal preference, but still represent the same ideology that kilts do, then it should be rolled into kilt.--Robert W King 12:59, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Concerning kilt accessories: the principal reason people wear the kilt is to create an association with the entire panoply of Scottish Highland culture (as it is represented today) and this of course involves the whole range of Highland attire. So, I presume that, on this basis, you would fold kilt accessories into the main kilt article. The kilt variants are cognitatively different, so they would get their own article.

That leaves us with a proposed article consolidation consisting of sections on the kilt, on kilt accessories, and on the history of the kilt. Total length about 7500 words (projected)

The principal problem I have with this proposal is that you are trying to decide the question (combined, or separate articles) based on "logical" considerations of relatedness of the topics. My view is that web usability concerns should be paramount. In this connection, the sheer length of the proposed combined article argues against it.

Many site developers try to restrict information presentation to 3 screen fulls, with "previous / next" navigation buttons at the bottom of each section. There are good reasons, based on web usability studies, for this. Even the 2500 words of the separate articles is just a bit lengthy by this standard.

Most people will not read a 7500 word article. They may read the material if it is broken up and presented in more bite sized chunks. And I hope that we are not just producing an Encyclopedia which is accurate and trustworthy, but one which people will actually read and use.

But I see an even deeper problem; a failure to fully comprehend or take advantage of the full power of hypertext. On the server, if I understand things correctly, everything is one big huge file. When a user clicks on a link to kilt, they are presented with just a part of that big file, the part we choose to present them with. As for the other, related, chunks of information, they are only a mouse click away. In fact, they are no further away for being in "separate" articles than they would be if they were in the "same" article. That is how hypertext works.

In fact, if the "see also" section were moved to the top (just below the intro paragraphs, though not presented as a separate section), they would actually be closer, since you could just click the link and wouldn't have to scroll down to the "contents" and click.

This concept of putting the articles together is a confusion of print and web media. Some time back, someone went around re-naming articles ("Trial of Joan of Arc" became "Joan of Arc, Trial", and presumably "History of the kilt" would become "Kilt, history of"). This is based on the same misconception.

You do not "put the articles together" when you combine them in one article any more than you put them "together" by renaming them, since, in fact, they are not really "separate" before that.

James F. Perry 12:24, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

That really is a good point. From my point of view, I don't see any harm in including it all in one article--for example, look at Life. It's pretty lengthy and it's definately approved. I believe DNA is of the same calibre. The whole usability issue I believe would have to be covered by some kind of consensus or editorial decision. Until then, my recommendation is to combine them all into Kilt, and use ==Headers== to seperate the sections, with ===Subheaders=== to subdivide if necessary. --Robert W King 12:26, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Origins of modern kilt material

The material just added by myself under the rubric "origins of the modern kilt" was written by myself and previously posted to Wikipedia in the article "Thomas Rawlinson". As I am the sole author, it is copyrighted by myself and hence no WP credit is required. Some redundancy has been introduced which will be cleaned up later. James F. Perry 12:45, 20 June 2007 (CDT)