In August 2020, the wiki received scrutiny from the media for the poor quality of its Scots writing and the discovery that at least 20,000 articles had been written by an editor who did not speak the language. This attention led to a review of the wiki's content by Scots speakers as well as editors from the wider Wikipedia community.[2] Most of the editor's articles have been deleted, which is evident in the decrease in the total number of articles from about 55,000 in 2018[3] to about 40,000 in 2021.
Early reception
By February 2008, the site contained 2,200 articles[4] and had outpaced Māori Wikipedia and Kashmiri Wikipedia. Reported reception, however, was mixed; Scotland on Sunday's literary editor described it as "convoluted at best, and an absolute parody at worst",[5] while Ted Brocklebank, culture spokesman for the Scottish Tories, described it as a "cheap attempt at creating a language".[5] However, Chris Robinson, director of the Dictionary of the Scots Language, wrote: "The fact it is doing well gives a lie to all those people who decry Scots and try to do it down."[5] In 2014, Jane C. Hu of Slate described the site as reading "like a transcription of a person [speaking English] with a Scottish accent" and said one Wikipedia editor had proposed that the project be closed, in the mistaken belief that it was a practical joke.[6]
Controversy
In August 2020, the site attracted attention after a Reddit post noted that the project contained an unusually high number of articles written in poor-quality Scots. They were written by a single prolific contributor, who was an American teenager. These articles consisted of mostly English instead of Scots vocabulary and grammar. It is claimed that the editor apparently used an online English–Scots dictionary to translate parts of English Wikipedia articles word-to-word in disregard of its grammar.
Over 23,000 articles, approximately a third of the entire Scots Wikipedia at that time, were created by the editor. These articles have been described as "English written in a Scottish accent," with gibberish and nonsensical words and spellings not present in any Scots dialect. Following public backlash, the editor reportedly wrote an apology.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
In response to the controversy, Scots Wikipedia started a review of its articles for language inaccuracies, and deleted many of the affected articles.[2][3]
Robert McColl Millar, professor in linguistics and Scottish language at the University of Aberdeen, has said that the affected articles displayed "a very limited knowledge both of Modern Scots and its earlier manifestations".[8] Michael Dempster, director of the Scots Language Centre, contacted the Wikimedia Foundation over the possibility of building upon the Scots Wikipedia's existing infrastructure, describing the renewed interest in the site as having "potential to be a great online focus" for the Scots language.[13]
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