Talk:Politics in the British Isles/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

General Sanctions, British Isles now apply

In my DRV closing comment at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 June 17, I've noted that any new effort to change the title of this article in the next six months is subject to community-imposed sanctions, per Wikipedia:GS#Sanctions placed by the Wikipedia community (and recorded WP:GS/BI) by virtue of the dispute involving the use of the term "British Isles" in the title. Editors are encouraged to use dispute resolution processes focused on this article's specific content in lieu of external processes designed to impose an outcome on the article. Jclemens (talk) 21:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I've only just noticed this now, but in my opinion, this is outside the scope of WP:GS/BI. I'll double check, but the sanction was originally intended for edit-warring over unjustified insertion/deletion over multiple articles. I seriously doubt if it was ever intended to "shut up" one section of the editing community with threats. --HighKing (talk) 22:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Cornwall + Tags?

I am a little curious as to why there is no mention of Cornwall in the article. I know Cornwall is not a country, but there is a nationalist/regionalist movement in the area which is involved in politics in the United Kingdom. Perhaps something small could be added to the "Devolution and independence" section? Any thoughts? I want to also say that the article is very laden with tags at the moment. Not exactly pretty to look at. --Éamonn Cálraighe (talk) 16:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That would be reasonable to add, with a link out to more detail on the Cornwall nationalist movement. As for the tags, most were placed by those who wanted the article deleted; you can see the long discussions above about the tags and what needs to be fixed in their opinion. If you want to try to improve the article in the ways suggested, feel free to do so and then remove the tags. I think most eds have moved on from this article once it survived deletion review.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 09:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

On the "devolution and independence" section, the title is very UK-centric (i.e. devolution in the UK, independence from the UK). UK centricism like this — across the article — is part of the reason for the tags. A general section on nationalism and regionalist movements in the British Isles, rather than pinning these movement so to devolution, separatism, or independence from any one state would be more a appropriate perspective. (So the subject would be written from the perspective of Cornwall in the politics of the British Isles, as opposed to, say, Cornwall in the politics of the United Kingdom.)

Unfortunately, the article was written from day one from a POV and it is very difficult now to extract it from that POV without a fundamental re-write. --RA (talk) 10:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Any mentions of Cornwall should be given due weight. Although a Cornish nationalist movement obviously exists and should perhaps be linked from this article, it is by no means a politically dominant - or even very politically significant - viewpoint within Cornwall. This comment is not meant to detract from Cornwall's cultural distinctiveness, but this article is specifically about politics, not wider culture. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes. --RA (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Stripping out a lot

I'm going to strip out a lot of the very random stuff (like relations to international bodies, the long list of heads of states, etc.) which are really very secondary and distracting. In many cases (e.g. culture, emigration, etc.) these section stray from the topic. Hopefully, this will allow a greater focus to develop in the article. --RA (talk) 10:41, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Value of the article

I'm wondering why we have an article on the politics of a geographical entity? Surely this would be better referencing the UK and RoI articles? ----Snowded ^TALK 12:32, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

In my view the content is broadly worthwhile, but the article title is misleading. It does not deal with "politics", it deals with inter-governmental (or international) relationships within the archipelago (an archipelago which is best called the British Isles, for the time being at least). There is no perfect article title, but this article is not (and should not be, except peripherally) about politics. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense, so maybe a move to "Inter-governmental relationships in the British Isles"? Given the historical links, splits etc that would be a useful article ----Snowded ^TALK 20:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind it being called "politics in" (or "of") of BI. "Politics" can be quite broadly construed (e.g. several definitions here). However, the article does need to be clearer what it is about and how it relates to other articles. IMO, it particularly needs to be careful (a) not to duplicate content better or already handled elsewhere; and (b) not to invent a topic that doesn't actually exist while trying to carve out a niche for itself among other articles.

At a structural level, the "inter-governmental relations" in the BI are already handled either in Ireland-United Kingdom relations, (intra-)politics of the United Kingdom or the constitutional relationship between the British Islands. The European Union is another important context, too. The institutions created by (or closely related to) the Good Friday Agreement are strictly speaking, Ireland-United Kingdom relations (i.e. Ireland and the United Kingdom are the sole signatories to the relevant treaties). Additionally, relations between Ireland and the Crown dependencies are the responsibility of the United Kingdom (although articles like Ireland–Isle of Man relations do no harm).

Where this article fits into that landscape, I'm not so sure. And I am not sure the article is capable of walking the line it needs to, particularly given the ambition with which it was created. --RA (talk) 22:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's not get into this again. Please be straightforward about the fact that it was you that copied the information from here to those other articles way back when, so they are duplicating this content, not vice versa. Silverseren^C 22:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Silverseren, let's not get into your obfuscation again.

RA moved the material those articles, because they were (and are) the articles most narrowly-focused on the topics covered in the material. That's standard editing procedure on Wikipedia, per WP:SUMMARY which describes how specialist material should be summarised in the more general article, and covered in greater depth under the sub-topics.

Regrettably, several POV-pushing editors resisted this application of good editing practice, and as a result this material is duplicated between two articles, in contravention of a long-standing and stable guideline. I hope that this can be resolved some day. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Although "politics" can "be quite broadly construed", it is usually taken to mean something more specific (such as "the debate between parties having power", to quote RA's source), and I believe the current title is likely to be misleading to many readers. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:21, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair point. And, in fairness too, that was a substantive reason to given during the AfD.

Another suggestion from the AfD was to re-structure the article as an extended DAB or to have independent sections serving as summaries of more focused article in summary style. --RA (talk) 09:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I would have thought Ireland-United Kingdom relations was a better location for valid material to be honest. BI has never been a political entity (although it largely coincided with one for a period) ----Snowded ^TALK 18:01, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Plus one to this - I find it strange that this page firstly even exists with this title: but I find it even stranger that there is no mention that this naming is not favoured in Rep. Ireland - in the British Isles page, they may have some excuse for pushing it down the page [geographical naming], but here I see no reason for that. If you are going to use a name for a political article about two countries, one of whom disputes that name, it seems clear to me that a reference to that dispute (or whatever you want to call it) be given pretty high up in the article. In the British Isles page, this is mentioned in the introductions. In this political page it should be mentioned even sooner. Tomosullivan (talk) 22:38, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Snowded and Tom. Unfortunately, the article has a tangled history. It was nominated for deletion, and the discussion was closed as "delete". That closure was overturned at deletion review, and the debate continued until it was closed as "keep" by an editor displayed a "proud to be British" userbox. That closure was upheld at another another deletion review, and the closing admin invoked sanctions which prevent its nomination for deletion, merge etc for 6 months. So we are stuck with this absurdity until at least the end of December 2012.

However, the failure to sort out the article in the time since it was created will add further weight to the criticisms made of it earlier this year. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)