Talk:List of scheduled monuments in Monmouthshire

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Sorting[edit]

List of sort keys for use with data-sort-value of Period column. Using double letters to allow for further sub-division. Periods correspond to those used by Coflein and/or GGAT.

aa==Unknown
bb==Prehistoric
cc==Paleolithic
dd==Mesolithic
ee==Neolithic
ff==Bronze Age
gg==Iron Age
hh==Roman
ii==Early Medieval
jj==Medieval
kk==Post Medieval
ll==16th Century
mm==17th Century
nn==18th Century
oo==19th Century
pp==Modern
qq==20th Century
rr==21st Century
ss==Multi-period

Robevans123 (talk) 14:33, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting Site Records?[edit]

There are a small number of sites listed here that list two monmunents in one Cadw record. For example, there are some medieval chapels inside Iron Age hillforts or enclosures. Is it useful to split these into two rows (with an explanatory note and links between the two rows)? Would be helpful to a reader who's interested in a particular period or site type. Robevans123 (talk) 11:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Cadw Records?[edit]

After scouring the GGAT records for a particular community there do sometimes seem to be SMs that are not on the Cadw spreadsheet (for example there is a churhyard cross that seems to be in the Sudbrook Camp/Chapel area). Will send off an enquiry to Cadw when I've check all the GGAT communities. In the meantime, is it worth adding some new rows (with explanatory note) where necessary? Robevans123 (talk) 11:29, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Sudbrook wikipedia page says the cross is now inside the ruined chapel, as the churchyard fell into the sea. I would guess therefore that the cross 'site' was de-scheduled when the land went, but as the feature is still around, GGAT or whoever would still describe it as scheduled. The discrepancies tend to be that scheduling is primarily about designating a patch of ground (Although frustratingly Cadw don't actually tell people the boundaries), and everything within that patch is 'scheduled', even if some features are mentioned as the reason for scheduling. The Archaeology trusts and RCAHMW on the other hand want a record for every element and feature, even when they are on the same patch of ground. So 'Sudbrook Camp and Chapel' schedules the land area that these occupy (including the present location of the cross). GAT will have three different entries - and perhaps more besides, all of which say they are a scheduled monument. I think that is why none of them want to cross-reference to each others record numbers, as it could create an ambiguity for them. For these lists, that does not need to be such a worry. The primary purpose of the refs is to show the sources of the information. Linking those three sources is a substantial secondary benefit, but should not take precedence. There could be separate wikipedia articles, all referenced from the entry, or an article with a wider remit with sections on each feature, but the list should retain some integrity as cadw's entries, as that is what it is a list of. (A section on de-scheduled sites would be fantastic, if it could be sourced). RobinLeicester (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - it certainly doesn't make sense to have every GGAT record (that's marked as an SM) listed - there are 50+ for the Craig Settlement and many for Caerwent Roman City.

I was thinking more about the sites where there are two very distinct types of monmument from different periods (eg St Michael's Chapel [Early medieval] and Skirrid Fawr defended enclosure/hillfort [iron age]). If someone is interested in hillforts or the iron age, they might sort the list on Site Type or Period but would not see the hillfort... I can't think of anything clever to do with sort keys etc that would get round this.

There are certainly some GGAT records (01884g, Camp Hill in Llanarth, with no obvious reason why it should have been de-scheduled) that are listed as SMs, but are not not the SAM spreadsheet (and are not co-incident with another site). I'm still checking - but there only seems to be a handful of discrepancies or sites with no obvious Cofelin/GGAT record. I'll send the list of to Cadw, Coflein, GGAT, and Monmouthshire CC's Conservation Officer to see if they can shed any light.

It would be nice to prise the scheduled area boundaries out of Cadw - maybe a FoI request?

Definitely be good to have more wikipedia pages linking off this page. I've got plans for "Hill's Tramroad" and "The Angiddy Valley" as a start.

Really good point about sites with more than one identity. Having two entries on the list, with a prominent 'See also on the same site...' notice would be one solution. I worry a bit about inflating the site count - but we do that by including border-sites on both lists already. Being able to sort by type and pick up all of one thing is a major potential use. I would say give it a go (but keep the ref Cadw name identical for the duplicates) and see how it seems. Needs a bit of care not to start introducing sub-sites that Cadw doesn't refer to in the name. Others could just be mentioned in the details section. Also, I would not split the many industrial sites that combine two industrial features, without very good reason.
The liberating point about a fuller article on a place is that everything notable, scheduled, listed, or just interesting, can all be properly woven together. I shall look forward to the ones you mention. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Showing listed building status?[edit]

Is it useful to state that a site is also a listed building? I've added this to the Details for some castles, but it seems a bit like overkill for what is a brief description. Maybe footnotes?

Robevans123 (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the value if a 'listed list' is also available. It is very tempting to try and include all sorts of extras, but the most useful thing is actually a proper article on the site. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting and Reordering the List?[edit]

After adding Details for a number of sites on the list, the resulting layout looks rather messy when even just a couple of sentences in the Details coulumn are squashed into a narrow space. I've tried out a different layout with a wider column for Details. Its available at Test Layout in my sandbox. Making the Details column wider will considerably shorten the overall length of the page which is quite important on a list with ~200 sites.

I've also tried out some other things as well as making the Details column wider:

  • First column is now the name of the site, and sites are listed alphabetically. I think this is the preferred method of organisation for lists for Wikipedia, unless there are good reasons to do otherwise.
  • Second column is "Details" and third column is "Image". Details seem more important to me than the Image - also, it should always be possible to write the details, maybe not so easy to always find an image.
  • Fourth and Fifth columns - Site Type and Period (both classifications of the data) are now next to each other.
  • Sixth column - combines Community and Location columns. Partly expediency to provide more width for details, but both items are related to finding out where the site is. Still not entirely sure about Community - certainly very useful when editing the page and finding coflein/GGAT references. Would maybe prefer something like "200m north-west of settlement_name, community_name" but this would have implications on the width of the column...
  • (Radically?) removed Cadw SAM number column, but it is shown in the references (now attached to the site name in column one).
  • Removed Historic county column. This did seem to me to be the least useful of the current columns (although the Coflein/GGAT records include this information). Certainly for a principal area like Monmouthshire where just a few sites are from only one other historic county it could maybe be indicated by a footnote. Can see that it would be useful for an unitary authority such Powys which includes a number of historic counties.
  • For properties under the care of Cadw I've moved the icon into Details (and changed it to link to the Cadw visitor information for the site).

Comments are more than welcome (especially from RobinLeicester!). I've no plans to immediately make any changes to the structure, and would welcome any ideas/thoughts/criticisms. Also, changes are still needed to quite a few site names to make alphabetic sorting worthwhile (Medieval Moated Site 400m N of Undy Church is not the best name...). Also probably worth developing a script to handle any column changes. Robevans123 (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Table widths are very dependant on screen widths. On my laptop, your test layout is producing narrower details columns than on the actual page. I don't know if a better automatic optimisation might be implemented one day, but even when you specify a particular width at present, that is still only taken as one of the factors, and can make things worse. A few other observations about the layout I settled on:
  • Having the image first, and ensuring they don't excede 80px gives a neat left hand border, even if not all photos are present.
  • As you suggest, the names are so unfixed on a lot of lists, that it to make that the default order would mean lots of relocating items, which is tedious for editors, and confusing for readers. They can be sorted by name in one click.
  • The current order - Period, community, name - is aimed at getting related items close to each other, and making the list something of a time-line, although this will be very imperfect.
  • inclusion of Cadw number allows ordering by this item, and demonstrates visibly the 'right' of a site to be on this list.
  • Including community enables one-click ordering by community, to group all sites in a locality together. My view is that an article on each community should be the place where more detail about the sites (plus non-scheduled sites, and other places of note) can be written up, especially if a full article on one site is not justified - but that is a long way off being comprehensive.
  • Historic county is relevant because antiquarian records and numerous books have been written using that as the organising structure. Lists with only one county don't include it. Some have nearer 50:50. Maybe in a case such as Monmouthshire, the anomolies could be put with Community in some way. (The Cadw Number also encodes historic county with a 2 letter code)
  • Cadw logo move is good. Same applies to World Heritage Sites. I like the direct link, but a non-ref link to an external site is, I think, frowned upon. I am very happy to be told otherwise on that.

This is just by way of offering my rational. I would definitely say that the lists should all follow the same structure, so anything that requires hand re-working on a major scale is definitely off my agenda, having neared completion using this layout. But maybe it could be automated. It needs to take account of quite a lot of qwerks that creep in. Good to see options being considered though. RobinLeicester (talk) 02:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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