Talk:Isle of Portland
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Do people think this page is over-linked, with terms in such common usage as mile, glacier, pebble, island and limestone chosen.
I don't think adding links to every noun referenced in a subject aids readability.
- Those terms are not such common usage that they shouldn't be linked, and are very relevant to the article, e.g. "Limestone" and "Glacier" are specialist terms (read the pages). --Steinsky 07:10, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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How would you defend 'island', 'pebble', 'castle', 'quarry' and 'harbour'? Are they also specalist terms? John
- Yes. The wikipedia pages for those topics are encyclopedia pages, not dictionary pages, i.e. there is a lot to say about them. Just because you feel you're adequately familiar with those topics, doesn't mean everybody else using wikipedia for research will instantly get the point without looking it up. Why are we having this conversation? This is long established wikipedia policy, and the significance of most of the words you delinked is obvious. --Steinsky 18:18, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Could you point me to a document describing this policy, as I had a good look round the Etiquette pages without finding any guidelines? Jrbray
[edit] Island versus peninsula
Forgive me if this has been raised before (couldn't see anything in the history) but... isn't Portland a peninsula rather than an island?
The term 'Isle of Portand' can stay I think as it is historic practice, but in my opinion many of the references to 'island' in the article should read 'peninsula'.
Before I plunge in and edit - am I missing some geographical subtlety?
- Neither term describes Portland perfectly, but island is a better description than penunsula. A peninsula is an extension of the mainland into the sea, and tends to be formed when the sea erodes less resistant rock either side of a band of more resistant rock running perpendicular to the shore. Portland is a lump of limestone that has been completely severed from the clays and chalk of the mainland, but has become rejoined by the deposition of a beach. So Portland doesn't perfectly fit the common description of an island, or the technical description (or common description?) of a peninsula. I always describe it as an island, because my high school geography teachers did. We could always add a geology/physical geography section that goes into these details in depth... Joe D (t) 02:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick and learned response! I think a section more or less saying what you've said above would be the way to go. (Contrary to your experience, my teachers would describe it as a peninsula - but of course they may have said something different on the days when I couldn't get to school at all because the sea had come over the Chesil Bank!)
Another response :- Some people also describe Portland as a tombolo (like my old High School Geography teachers from a good few years ago!), however this is also incorrect, as Chesil Beach is the tombolo, not Portland. A tombolo is defined as a sand or shingle bar which connects an island to the mainland, so hence that is what Chesil Beach is, not Portland.
Somewhat confusingly, the feature is still more unusual than that, however, as Chesil Beach is not a true tombolo (which formed by wave refraction) but is more likely to be a barrier beach or a bar, formed by sea level rise, which just happened to join onto Portland at one end.
There is also some evidence to show that the land to the immediate east of Chesil Beach, upon which Portland Beach road is built, may have been formed by a second tombolo, making Portland still even more unusual. This information can be found on http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/portharb.htm, along with any other information to clarify this quite complex and interesting subject.
It is always annoying when tourist guides write about Portland, and use phrases like ...'almost an island'... or ...'explore the 'island' of Portland'... The writers should get their facts straight, as they are supposed to know about the local area, unlike the majority of the locals, who don't need to know about it. 86.133.48.130 20:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC))
[edit] Portland village stubs
The articles about the eight villages on Portland are all stubs - wouldn't it be better if they were combined into one article about all eight villages? This article would still be separate from the main article called "Isle of Portland".
- I don't see much point in doing so. Nowhere else in the UK groups villages together, there is no precedent for doing so or how such a page would be formated. And why group them as Portland? Why not a group for all of them in the borough or the county? It's a rather arbitrary choice of geographical unit. I think the only thing this would achieve is discouraging people from expanding the articles properly. Joe D (t) 11:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Improvements
After spending alot of time improving the quality of the Weymouth article, I think that I shall now try and get Isle of Portland to the same standard over the next month or so. I know Steinsky would like this article to become FA quality, so hopefully it will =). I would appreciate help in adding to the article, citing references, changing sentences around, improving tone, NPOV, and copyediting from all intersted users. Rossenglish 12:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
