Talk:Endorsements in the 2019 United Kingdom general election

Initial discussion

I appreciate this effort to make an endorsement page, but we should probably wait until we have a full list of candidates that people can endorse. 2 endorsements is not enough to justify making a page. If you can find more endorsements, it will be fine, but otherwise wait. KingWither (talk)
I think that the list has grown to the point where it is legitimate. Best to have it now and add to it as the election continues. --Brendanww2 (talk) 21:25, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Party endorsement vs candidate endorsement?

If someone endorses a party as a whole but also campaigns for a specific candidate or candidates from that party, should that be listed in both sections or just in the Party endorsement section? --Brendanww2 (talk) 21:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

The practice in 2017, which I'd endorse, is to exclude endorsers for individual candidates where they have nationally endorsed the party of that candidate. I'd include individual candidate endorsements for parties other than a national endorsement, e.g. if Donald Trump decides to endorse the Green Party candidate in Mitcham and Morden, then that should be listed alongside his national endorsement, with bracketed caveats listed at both. Ralbegen (talk) 21:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

@EddieHugh: removed several endorsements from the list. One because it was from the Daily Mail (fair enough); Trump because the source wasn't good enough (there are [https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/10/why-labour-welcomes-donald-trumps-endorsement-boris-johnson others); Grist because the endorsement wasn't unambiguous enough (which is a fair point, though I think it's pretty unambiguous); and then several because they endorsed more than one party.

I think an explicit endorsement of more than one party is fine and worth including, as they were in the 2017 equivalent article. I don't think "vote tactically against [The Conservatives, Labour, etc]" is worth including unless it's from a print newspaper or magazine. But naming two specific parties seems fine to me. Interested to hear other editors' thoughts. Ralbegen (talk) 15:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, my only thought is that the Daily Mail citation ban should be temporarily lifted to include Gilbert and George. The item was as follows:

"No doubt, the usual Leftie luvvies will come out for Jeremy Corbyn during the General Election campaign.

But Boris Johnson can count on the support of celebrated art duo Gilbert & George.

Gilbert Prousch says Boris would sometimes shout: 'Gilbert! George!' as he rode past them on his bicycle in London.

He tells me: 'That's more than enough for us. We know whose side he's on. People are trying to bring him down with all this 'liar, liar' stuff. It's quite appalling.'

The pair are also fans of Cabinet minister Michael Gove: 'He's brilliant,' says Gilbert, who gives Corbyn short shrift.

'Can you imagine if it was he who decided what art is? It would be all Nicaraguan posters.'"

I can understand how tabloid newspapers would get a bad reputation in general but my adding their endorsement was based on this quote. I am unaware of any allegation that the quote was fabricated. I wonder how this could be resolved? MaineCrab (talk) 17:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

What's needed is a very clear "I will vote for party X" / "I support party X in this election"... Trump's "fantastic man" (the only thing the New Statesman quotes) isn't enough, and a journalist's or headline writer's interpretation of that isn't enough either. I agree that the DM prohibition goes too far, but it's consensus, so we can't just ignore it. If the endorsements of more than party are to be included, it might be better listing them separately, because they represent something other than a simple statement of preference, particularly in a single-vote, first-past-the-post system (as I mentioned in the edit summary). EddieHugh (talk) 17:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I think a reliable source describing something as an endorsement is the strongest case someone can have for inclusion here. I see the bracketed caveats for two-party endorsements as sufficient—I don't think a separate section for them improves readability or clarifies things any further for readers, but might make the page slightly harder to follow. Ralbegen (talk) 19:18, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Endorsement of multiple candidates in a constituency

More United has published a list of 34 endorsements.[1] In some constituencies (such as Ceredigion), they've endorsed two candidates who are standing against each other. They state in their criteria for endorsement: "Where there are two or more qualifying candidates in a constituency that seeks More United support, we may endorse both without providing financial support, subject to a members' vote."[2] I've included these cases in the article for now with "also endorsed" notes, but would it be better to omit them? EmphasisMine (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

It's an odd decision from MU, but I think the bracketed caveats are the best way to deal with it. They have endorsed both candidates, so they're appropriate to include in the article. Ralbegen (talk) 22:29, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Bondegezou (talk) 12:01, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Tony Blair

Tony Blair is listed as endorsing Gordon Nardell, Labour candidate for the two cities. I don't think that it's worth including any endorsement from a politician for any candidate of the same party as them, and think that Blair shouldn't be listed as an endorser for any Labour candidate. Ralbegen (talk) 18:30, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. We've always said in a UK context that we don't cover endorsements of candidate of party X from someone else of party X. It's "obvious" that Blair endorses Labour. It's dog bites man stuff. If he endorsed the LibDems, then it's man bites dog and we should cover it.

Some of the existing endorsements, I wonder whether we should remove under this rule. Peter Tatchell is listed as endorsing the Greens, but he's an active member of the Green Party, previously a candidate himself, so should he be cut? Dave Ward has been on Labour's NEC, so should we be including his endorsement of Labour? Bondegezou (talk) 13:25, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

My instinct is that former officials and former candidates are fine to include, provided their notability is based on something other than their association with that party. So I think Peter Tatchell is fine because he's (far more) notable for things other than being a Green Party activist, and Ward is fine because he's notable as a union leader rather than as a Labour NEC member. But I wouldn't support including Ann Black endorsing Labour, because she's notable entirely as a Labour official. Ralbegen (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. Bondegezou (talk) 14:01, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I've boldly included Emily Benn's endorsements of Labour candidates because she's endorsed specific candidates that include non-Labour candidates. Not sure what side of the line she falls on, because she is largely notable for her Labour candidacies in the past. Happy for her Labour endorsements to be removed if others think that'd be sensible. Ralbegen (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I think if she's endorsing individual candidates, some Labour, some not, it makes sense to include all her endorsements. Not certain her article should have survived its AfD though! Bondegezou (talk) 17:43, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Alphabetising subsections

The constituency list is now verrrrrrry long. Can we do an alphabet quick links thing to aid navigation? Something like at List of Doctor Who villains? Bondegezou (talk) 11:50, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what that would look like—could you try it in sandbox and share a link here? I agree that it's pretty unwieldy. I was thinking that splitting it up into the nations might be useful but figured it'd just make it more complicated (and almost all of them are in England). Ralbegen (talk) 13:37, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what I'm doing! I was hoping someone else would. :-)

However, I've had a go: see User:Bondegezou/sandbox. Bondegezou (talk) 14:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! That looks like a more sensible solution than what we have now. It is quite silly how long you have to scroll down to get past the contents box as things stand. I'm not sure what's feasible with this style of layout, but it's definitely the right direction of travel. I'd be happy to see this implemented. Ralbegen (talk) 14:19, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not certain how it mixes with having other sections though. Maybe we should spin off constituency endorsements to a different article? The other cheat is to make the headings "A", "B", "C" etc., but not have headings for the individual constituencies so as to not to crowd the TOC. Bondegezou (talk) 16:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Another option is TOC limit|1 so that the table of contents just reads: Endorsements for parties, endorsements for individual candidates, references? But I'm not sure that makes the article easy to navigate... Ralbegen (talk) 21:48, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Have boldly split the article. Bondegezou (talk) 22:33, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. That might be the way to go—then ToC Compact can be applied to the new article. I'm agnostic on the split for now. Ralbegen (talk) 23:02, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

It was well over the WP:SPLIT guidance for article length. Bondegezou (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Not for readable prose, a significant majority of the filesize is in references. The Page size tool isn't that helpful in this case because it ignores all the text in bulleted lists, but I'd guess the text size is more like 40kB? The size rule also says that it applies more loosely to lists, so I don't think that it's likely that this article could ever have a high enough readable prose size to necessitate splitting.

That said, the article did require a lot of scrolling to get through, particularly the table of contents. So I appreciate that there was an issue that needed addressing and splitting is a reasonable solution to that. I've not been able to think of a better one! I'm happy to carry on with the two articles, but if another option comes up for making a unified article more user-friendly then that would be my preference. Ralbegen (talk) 23:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Could I propose this kind of layout? Either with countries or with the alphabet (version with the alphabet here). We can use ToC Limit so that any subsection that uses Example text or more is disincluded from the contents. That way we can keep a single article, but also a manageable contents box. Ralbegen (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I remain of the view that the article is very long and that splitting off the constituency level endorsements is a good solution. If we have one article, then those ToCs are better than what we had before. I think I prefer the alphabetical one: there's a lot to scroll through for English constituencies. Bondegezou (talk) 17:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the England section is still too big. Outside of Wikipedia I'd split them into the regions of England too, but that might be a bit OR-y for here. I feel like the split has just meant that we now have this article, which is quite short to scroll through, and the constituency article which is still very long, though the alphabet contents make it easier to navigate. My hope was that the single article could maintain that advantage. The relevant size of the article that WP:SIZERULE considers has always been well below the point at which an article needs to be split, whilst WP:MERGEREASON's overlap gives a compelling reason to keep a single article. A single article also makes it easier to exclude national endorsers from constituency endorsements and so on, generally making the page/s easier to keep track of and avoiding an editorial link between two pages. Hopefully some of this is convincing? Ralbegen (talk) 17:44, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not personally persuaded. Using the page myself, as reader and editor, I found it unwieldy as one and a bit better as two. And both pages are only growing. I don't see that WP:MERGEREASON applies: these are complementary pages, they don't duplicate or overlap. They don't need each other for context. Neither is that short. But it was a bold edit: I don't mind being reverted. Bondegezou (talk) 20:31, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

There are defined regions, as used elsewhere in Wikipedia coverage of constituencies, so no WP:OR needed. But I don't think they're very reader-friendly because the average reader won't necessarily know what region their constituency is in, at least in border areas. Bondegezou (talk) 20:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

That's a good point on regions, hm. I'll revert the split pending consensus—I personally found it easier to read and edit the page as one rather than two. I appreciate that the article was unwieldy before, but I don't think splitting does enough to mitigate that for the compromise in user-friendliness. Thank you for engaging so positively and constructively! Ralbegen (talk) 21:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Struggling to get the markup to work

Would someone mind having a look at the mark up in the endorsements, please? I added gal-dem's endorsement but could format the table correctly. Thank you. --Woofboy (talk) 18:46, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Walters and Ginger

I removed two endorsements, Ralbegen re-added, discussion ensues. I accept both are marginal cases.

Stephen Walters is included on the basis of a tweet by LabourNorthWest containing a video clip. We have generally agreed on a pretty tight standard for endorsements, particularly those from social media. I am concerned this fails WP:V. The citation is to a political party, who are clearly not an independent source. If Walters had tweeted this, or even re-tweeted it, that would be acceptable under WP:PRIMARY, but he hasn't. It's probably true that Walters endorses Labour in this election, but we have a high evidential standard and we don't definitely know that Walters supports this. Maybe the video was done for the previous general election or European or local elections earlier this year.

Next is Ginger (musician). Here, we're dealing with his own tweet: good! In it, he says, "Please register to vote." And then, "If you don't know who to vote for, vote Labour." We've had discussion on project pages that endorsements have to be clear as endorsements. This is marginal, but he doesn't say, "Vote Labour!" His main plea is supporting voter registration (as with Walters too). He then couches his recommendation with "If you don't know who to vote for": is he saying, "Everyone should vote and I'm not bothered who for, just get registered", or is he saying "Register so that you can vote Labour"?

Read Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC_on_inclusion_criteria_for_lists_of_political_endorsements. That proposed tight restrictions and was broadly supported (but not entirely and with much discussion). Bondegezou (talk) 17:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

On Walters, I accept your point. Whilst I'd still lean towards inclusion, I'm happy to concede there. On Ginger, I think "If you don't know who to vote for, vote Labour" is a pretty clear endorsement. I'd also say that "If you want [good thing], vote X" meets the threshold—I don't think there's any ambiguity there.

On the village pump discussion, I think that the first and third parts broadly match the local consensus we came to for the 2017 election's endorsements page. Strictly enforcing the second criterion's independence requirement would mean stripping away most of this article, which I don't think would be the right call, though independent RS coverage still represents the best sourcing and I replace primary sources with independent RSes where I see them. I think last time we agreed to follow the first WP:CSC, and that's what I think would be worth following again (and that's the standard I've been working to). Ralbegen (talk) 19:28, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Brexit Party/Britain First "endorsement"

The Hope Not Hate article this is sourced to alleges to have uncovered a secret "endorsement" of Brexit Party by Britain First, from a private text conversation on the messaging app Telegram. Who the parties involved in this alleged conversation were, or what, if any, official capacity they were representing BF in, is not established. This is the only example of an endorsement on this page which is not an actual public proclamation of support by the supposed endorser, but little more than a conspiracy theory by a third party. Additionally, HNH has been deprecated at WP:RSP, which states:

"Reliability should be assessed on a case by case basis, while taking context into account. Because they are an advocacy group, they are a biased and opinionated source and their statements should be attributed."

Given the context that HNH has a long history of feuding with Nigel Farage, and BF has not actually made any public endorsement of BP, this is not a suitable source for supporting an unattributed statement of fact that BF has endorsed BP. @Ralbegen:, if you would like to keep BF listed as endorsing BP, please find an appropriate WP:RS. Thank you. 223.24.185.188 (talk) 11:23, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Hope Not Hate are an advocacy group, but they are also subject matter experts. They are suitable for a statement of fact relating to the far-right, such as that Britain First have made an endorsement. Their reporting is treated seriously by reliable sources including academic papers and reliable sources, so I don't see how their advocacy against the far-right colours their reporting of facts in a way that makes them inappropriate for this example. HNH aren't deprecated, which means something specific when it comes to sources. The list of deprecated sources is at WP:DEPSOURCES. The same standard of third-party reported sourcing is used for the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front's endorsement, for example. It's inappropriate to call reporting of a Telegram post from a group which communicates by Telegram a conspiracy theory. Ralbegen (talk) 12:43, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

As HNH's RSP entry says, their statements should be attributed. Which is identical to how WP:RS instructs editors to handle opinion pieces from news outlets, they're suitable for supporting their own statements which are explicitly attributed to them, but not for supporting unattributed statements of fact. JKLF's president wrote a letter addressed to Jeremy Corbyn which was publicly released via Twitter, hand-delivered to Labour by JKLF members, and reported by a dozen news outlets. This is not at all similar with what we're talking about regarding BF, which is based on one unestablished news outlet alleging to have uncovered a private text conversation, while providing zero specifics.

Posting on Telegram ... Britain First said they’re “right behind them”.

That's the entirety of the evidence "Scram News" presents establishing BF's "endorsement" of BP, an anonymous Telegram user's text conversation they attribute to BF. Who was this telegram user? Who were they talking to? What is their relation to BF? Where did Scram News see this conversation? It's all a mystery. Whether HNH are considered reliable by other sources or are experts on the far-right is neither here nor there. There's nothing here to reasonably base this endorsement on. 223.24.185.188 (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Individual endorsements should be cut

I fear some users editing this article has failed to read WP:DUE. The point of adding every random individual who supports party X or Y is certainly not due. Newspaper endorsements are relevant, but seeing that some darts player supports the Tories, or an artist in Beirut supports Labour...? Sure, it can be sourced, but it is certainly not due in any way to just add a long list of random individuals supporting one party or another. Jeppiz (talk) 13:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to this view. We could restrict endorsements to those covered by secondary sources, thus demonstrating that they are notable, while dropping everything that's just primary sourced. Or, indeed, we could drop all these individual endorsements. The problem is that some editors like them, so I doubt we can sustain their exclusion, so we might as well do them right. Bondegezou (talk) 14:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

My view remains that the first WP:CSC is the most useful inclusion criterion for this list, where notability and WP:V are the threshold. Ralbegen (talk) 14:54, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I have now edited the list with WP:DUE in mind. I have tried very hard to be politically neutral and apply the same criteria. Quite frankly, most of the individuals were very much undue. Whether a singer in Sweden, a film director in Finland or a darts player in England support one party or the other is just irrelevant. It's also irrelevant that individual politicians support their own parties (or their party groups). I have kept endorsements that:

• Go against the expected. If a former Tory minister support the LibDems, that seems noteworthy (while it wouldn't be if he had supported the Tories).
• Come from longstanding political commentators. I think Noam Chomsky is due (others might disagree), just as I find Howard Dean due. Probably also Guy Verhofstadt given his role in negotiations.

So overall, I removed most individuals, irrespective of party. I'd encourage all users to keep readability' in mind, alongside WP:DUE. The shorter a list is, the more likely people are to read it. The list I propose now is a list reader might read. Nobody is going to go through a list of hundreds of names, especially not when 90% of those names have no connection to politics, and quite a number not even to the UK. Just random minor celebrities saying on Twitter who they support. I don't see how anything could be less WP:DUE. So once more - having a long list of names defeats the purpose of the list. Jeppiz (talk) 15:13, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Coming here after reverting Jeppiz's bold removal. There's no consensus here, there are three different opinions after two hours of discussion. I don't think that an editor's judgment about who is a longstanding political commentator or unexpected is a useful selection criterion. I think Bondegezou's proposal of requiring secondary sources is more sensible, but still think that the first WP:CSC is more appropriate. Ralbegen (talk) 15:22, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Ralbegen reverted my improvements, and I do not in any way dispute their right to do so. I adhere to WP:BRD and have no intention of reverting myself. However, I must point out again that this renders the article much worse, and make it much less likely readers will go through the endorsements. So I fail to see the purpose of the revert. More generally, the first WP:CSC is indeed relevant for some lists, but seems ill suited for lists like these. So I accept the revert, but wish to point out it makes the article meaningless and unreadable. Jeppiz (talk) 15:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Louis Emerick is an actor with a fairly short Wikipedia article, who's not particularly famous. He tweeted his support for a particularly party and his name pops up here. That does seem definitely unencyclopaedic to me.

Chris Martin or Hugh Grant saying they support a particular party or candidate, I've seen those two reported in multiple RS. That seems more appropriate content.

The Economist or The Observer endorsing (or not) a party, a trade union endorsing a party, a party endorsing another party, that definitely needs covering.

The question is how to have objective criteria we can all stick to. I agree with Ralbegen that Jeppiz's approach is too subjective, but I agree with Jeppiz that much of this article is not WP:DUE. Having the endorsement reported by a reliable source (so not letters to a newspaper that get published: we need actual reporting of) seems the clearest approach to me. But I'm happy for no action to be taken until after this election. Bondegezou (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

An issue I have with this approach is that excluding Louis Emerick means also excluding Annie Lööf. But I appreciate the point. I think the best source is a news article about a person's endorsement, then a news article (or academic paper/book some way down the line) that mentions the endorsement, then a reliable source publishing the endorsement, then a self-sourced endorsement. I think all of these satisfy WP:V. I appreciate the argument for an additional requirement of secondary coverage to establish weight in the way that we'd look to for including material in a non-list article, though I'm not convinced yet! Ralbegen (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

We haven't added Louis Emerick's support of a party to his Wikipedia article. None of his Wikipedia article is based on things he's tweeted. Why should a different article, i.e. this one, mention it? It just seems to me inconsistent with WP:INDISCRIMINATE to pick out a tweet that got 6 likes and elevate it to being an Important Piece of Information. Bondegezou (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

My reading is that due weight covers non-list, prose, articles, and selection criteria such as the CSC cover list articles. The requirement for notability stops it being indiscriminate, but I appreciate the idea that it may not be sufficiently discriminate. I think I'd take a strong line against including any material based only on tweets in a prose article. I have made efforts to increase the amount of sourcing on this page that's secondary, and I think that's a good way to go at this point no matter what inclusion conclusion we reach. Ralbegen (talk) 22:51, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the same general principles cover all Wikipedia content. Being in a list can't be an excuse for a completely different approach. If it shouldn't be in prose, it shouldn't be in a list.

I concur that improving sourcing is a sensible approach and applaud your efforts in this regard. Bondegezou (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Rage Against the Machine

Lots of endorsements by Rage Against the Machine at https://twitter.com/RATM/status/1204917431556284416?s=20 Bondegezou (talk) 09:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)