Talk:Isle of Arran

Lochranza convenience store?

Is there a convenience store in Lochranza any more? If not, where can you get a key to the castle? From the hostel, maybe?

City/Town/Village?

The cities and other destinations should be split off into their own articles (assuming they're large enough for a tourist to stay in). (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:52, 6 Feb 2005 (EST)

The cities heading should be renamed towns / villages. (WT-en) Psychofox 03:18, 20 Mar 2005 (GMT)

The definiton of a City is rather loose concept on Wikivoyage and is also a standard template heading. Basically read City to mean any community large enough to support places for visitors, not just the locals, to eat, drink, sleep, buy necessities and communicate with the outside world. If it has a Police Station, a Post Office, Internet Cafe and a local Community Council it probably qualifies as a City. Having its own community website and Library probably also rates too. Destinations are normally places or communities that you can sleep at, in a commercial sleeping place not a private home, and each should have their own page. Does this help size things? -- (WT-en) Huttite 23:43, 19 Mar 2005 (EST)

I agree with Psychofox. The template saying "City" is a bit confusing - surely it would be better to start with Huge City, then City, then Towns, Villages. (WT-en) DanielC 15:38, 20 Mar 2005 (GMT)

The "Cities" section is standard for all regions (see the Project:region article template). Dividing the "Cities" section into multiple sub-sections is unnecessarily complicated and error-prone (how big is a town? how big is a village? how many people, how many hectares? if a big town feels like a small city, do we put it under "cities" or "towns"?). There's no other word in English besides "city" that applies for communities of 10,000 to 10 million. It's easy to add a brief description of each city to describe it ("huge megalopolis known for sorghum production", "teensy hamlet by the sea"), which is probably more descriptive than using different headings. --(WT-en) Evan 11:08, 20 Mar 2005 (EST)

A fair point Evan, except that the entire poulation of Arran is only around 5000. I understand the Wikivoyage definition of "city" but anyone describing even Lamlash (the largest village on the island) as a "city" would probably be forcibly escorted back to the ferry, and might well expect to see the men in white coats waiting when they disembarked at Ardrossan! My feeling for Arran is that we should aim to create a really good quality article covering the whole island on the one page. At present, it doesn't meet that description but there's plenty of good material here to work with. I know that most of the villages on the island have at least 1 place in which to sleep, thus qualifying as destinations in their own right, but I really don't see the value in having lots of "City" articles each with very little content. (WT-en) Tarr3n 07:51, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

Too much info under villages?

Just back from Arran today, so making a few checks to see how the pages here stand up. It seems to me, compared to other articles for similar islands and destinations, that there is far too much information in far too many formats under the Villages section. Should these entries not be edited a bit, and relevant info moved (and expanded, with contact details etc) to Eat, Sleep & Do sections further down the page? (WT-en) Jamesbrownontheroad 17:44, 15 May 2009 (EDT)

Definitely, the current page is an unusable mess. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:43, 15 May 2009 (EDT)

Status of this article

I have just knocked it back from guide to usable. Hate doing that, but the listings are just not up to guide status to my eyes. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 08:40, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

I agree. I've started to pull some of the info out from the "Villages" section and list it in the proper places (see, do, sleep etc.). I'm getting rid of a lot of duplication as I go. Once that's done we can start to tidy up the listings and get it up to Guide standard. The ferry info could do with some de-encyclopaedia-ifying as well. I need to go and do some real work now though so I'll have to come back to it! Anyone else want to join in? (WT-en) Tarr3n 09:24, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

Update. I think all the listings are where they ought to be, and the list of villages is a bit more manageable. I've tried to rewrite the brief descriptions of each village but I'm sure in some cases this could be improved upon! A lot of the listings are a bit basic and almost all of them could do with bringing up to the Manual of Style Standards. I've vfd'd Penrioch, a tiny village which somebody had created an article for. Hopefully that might have the happy side effect of a few people taking notice of this article and putting in a bit of tidying up work.(WT-en) Tarr3n 07:15, 2 November 2009 (EST)

Clan Horse Arran farm park

I removed the following listing from the see section, which seems to be closed. Add it back in if you know more about it:

• Visit the Clan Horse Arran farm park

15 November 2015 (UTC)

Large edit

In this large edit, quite a lot of useful information was added, but at the same time also useful information and structure was deleted. I'll try to recover some of the lost information if I find the time to do it, but I wanted to leave a reference here until then. Also, the newly introduced "Getting to Ardrossan" should probably merged with the Ardrossan article and only a reference should be left here. Xsobev (talk) 17:17, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I spend some time recovering deleted stuff, but it is very tedious, since some of the information has just been deleted, other information has been rewritten. @Grahamsands: could you please elaborate, why you deleted certain things? There were very useful geo-coordinates, details on buses, the tourist information center, ... I really appreciate your additions and reformulations, but if you delete stuff, then it would be great if you explained in your edit, why you deleted it. Also, making smaller edits would make it much easier to keep track of what is changed - and it would now be much easier to recover some of the information. Xsobev (talk) 23:14, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok, so I think I recovered most of the deleted stuff. There might still be something left that I missed. Xsobev (talk) 00:27, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

REPLY: Hi, first of all apologies if I’ve messed anyone up. I made a big edit to this entry last year, explaining all of which would have been even bigger, but I’d hate to hose off a fellow-contributor. I was planning in the next week or so to update for the 2017 summer season, so it may be that what you’re doing now is saving me a job, thanks. But in general I’m sceptical of detail which, while not incorrect, might mislead the visitor. A few examples:

Coordinates: these create a blob on a wiki map that is helpful for urban & man-made features but not designed for open country. Thus for Goat Fell the coods given are for the summit, so there’s a grey blob in a great white space, where are the paths and the cliffs and the bogs? And the summit is the very cood that the visitor least needs, it’s the biggest sticky-up thing on the island, so either it’s in plain view or conditions are such that it’s unwise to venture up. What the visitor more appreciates is the start of the access paths, and street directions suffice for this, eg “just by the castle gates”.

Mybus: this is a taxpayer-subsidised system to assist people with restricted access to the public transport net. It’s not a cheap taxi to take prosperous foreigners to the golf course. So eligibility is key: more needs to be said about this, probably in the “Scotland: get around” pages, with links from all the areas such as Arran where these schemes operate. (It’s actually two schemes: one for individual mobility impairment, the other for able bodies who are just a long way from a bus route. Both merit describing.) Pending such detail, I thought best just to leave the phone number for enquiries; the hours of operation only become relevant if the eligibility hurdle is cleared.

Health: needs to focus on what’s specific to Arran. Ring 999 is nationwide advice, we don’t need it on other pages so why here? And there’s truckloads of similar advice that’s better covered by NHS Scotland than by an individual GP website. Eg they recommend re-registering if you’re going to stay 3+ months, which is valid enough, but they don’t say how that varies for UK, EU and other nationalities. And they give out the number of the cottage hospital, only to warn not to use it, it’s not an entry portal to the NHS. But visitors are likely to try it, thinking they’ve discovered an inside track to services.

The further edits I plan for Arran will all be piecemeal, where as you say it’s easier to explain and debate and if necessary revert. Regards – gs

Hi and thanks for your reply with your explanations.

Regarding coordinates: They can be used for a variety of purposes, so I would definitely include them. For example, when I'm new to a place, they provide me with a quick overview of where interesting things are located and how many things there are to do and see (so for example, they quickly tell me that there are interesting things to do close to Brodick and if I only have one day, that's probably the best place to go explore the island). Also regarding the Goat Fell example, if you zoom in on the map, paths leading to the geo marker pointing at the Goat Fell summit will become visible, so it's easy to trace back on the map where the path starts. So, the more geo markers there are, the easier it is to quickly plan visiting and then navigate around a place. Of course, they don't replace the description in the "directions" field.

Regarding Mybus: I don't know the details about this service, but from the linked webpage it sounds as if it is a general service open to everyone: "MyBus is a bookable bus service offering door-to-door transport in your area. MyBus can be used for shopping, GP appointments, visiting friends, attending local clubs, and much more.". Also, not every visitor of the island is a "prosperous foreigner going to the golf course". So, for example if you are going hiking it might come in handy to be picked up or dropped off at locations where no other public bus service goes, especially if you cannot afford a taxi. I might be wrong about what MyBus is about, so in any case, it would benefit further clarification.

Regarding the health section: I think you're right, so please feel free edit this section.

Thanks again for your edits and the planned step-by-step changes. Xsobev (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that Mybus should be put back, but with a note "This is a public service operating on a tight budget, you may wish to enquire locally before booking." Our readers may include elderly on a day out from Ayr, who are fully entilled to use the service that their taxes have paid for. Locals may be able to suggest that some don't use it, but that a group booking a journey at a quiet time may help to keep the service running. AlasdairW (talk) 12:04, 24 June 2017 (UTC)