Talk:Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party

Vanguard versus DUP

I have left the point about the UUUC nomination strategy in as it is relevant however I removed the section about West Belfast being the strongest Nationalist seat in NI as at that point in time it was debatable (in the previous years assembly elections constituencies in the West had a higher Nationalist %) Additionally the following section in bold has been removed:

The party also obtained more seats in 1975 in the elections to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention than the DUP (in part due to that latter underestimating their support and not always putting up enough candidates in some areas of electoral strength) "in part due to that latter underestimating their support and not always putting up enough candidates in some areas of electoral strength"

This is untrue. The DUP had 1 candidate more than Vanguard overall and contested every seat (there was no VUPP candidate in West Belfast.) VUPP were also better at attracting transfers from the UUP and other Unionist candidates. The only seat in which nominations may have made a difference was in North Antrim and there I don't believe it did. It's true that DUP had 3 candidates and 4.2 quotas but this is attributable to the party leader Ian Paisley standing there. Many VUPP supporters voted for him then cast their second preference for VUPP as the transfer patterns show. Furthermore this was somewhat counterbalanced by the situation in the neighbouring Londonderry constituency where, if VUPP had balanced better, they would have won an extra seat at the expense of the DUP.

Valenciano 11:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Needs a serious cleanup

Interesting subject and the article is pretty well written, but it has NO references and needs to be wikified.

I'll try to wikify it, but someone needs to come up with some references before an overzealous admin comes along and blanks it.T L Miles 17:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks brilliant now, Valenciano ! Thanks. T L Miles 14:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Survey

WP:Good article usage is a survey of the language and style of Wikipedia editors in articles being reviewed for Good article nomination. It will help make the experience of writing Good Articles as non-threatening and satisfying as possible if all the participating editors would take a moment to answer a few questions for us, in this section please. The survey will end on April 30.

• Would you like any additional feedback on the writing style in this article?

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At any point during this review, let us know if we recommend any edits, including markup, punctuation and language, that you feel don't fit with your writing style. Thanks for your time. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

GA review May 2008

Although the article has some good solid stuff in it, I think that at present it is a fair way off from GA standard, and needs a lot of further work.

• Lead: The single-sentence introduction does not meet the requirements of WP:Lead for a precise overview of the article, and needs to be considerably expanded. Personally, I would begin this process by absorbing the Origins section into the lead, and working from there.

• Origins:
  • "bellicose pronouncements" is probably POV
  • Faulkner as "last Prime Minister..." needs a bit of explanation for the non-initiated who don’t fully appreciate the subsequent title changes to chief minister and first minister. Perhaps a footnote could be inserted?
  • Dates (or at least months and years) should be given for the suspension of Stormont, the Sunningdale Agreement, and the Vanguard breakaway

• Politics:
  • Too many references to "it" and "they". It’s not always clear who you mean.
  • Style of section is poor – too many single-sentence paragraphs.

• Extra-parliamentary activities:
  • Repetition of "large rally/rallies" in first two sentences
  • "no go" and "two day" require hyphens (I've fixed these)
  • more references to "it"

• Electoral performance:
  • In the para before the table you have DUP and Democratic Unionist Party, both linked. They are the same thing. Also, in this paragraph the punctuation has gone astray – see note below on copyedit.
  • The notes after the table are an awful muddle, and don’t add anything to the article. I advise dropping most of this. Only the last sentence makes a significant point, and in this sentence "came to grief" is non-encyclopedic, and Constitutional Convention needs linking and dating.

• 1975/6 split:
  • Poor section title. Split shouldn’t be capitalised. "1975–76 split" might be acceptable.
  • Ernest Baird was deputy leader of what?
  • Alphabet soup: From this point the article becomes a nightmare of initials – UUUC, UUUM, UUUP, etc. I know these forms are par for the course in Ulster politics, but it’s awfully difficult to understand the differences between these various groups. You have to try to clarify who they were.
  • "offering a more right-wing position" is not informative. "Right-wing" is a relative term (e.g. was Tony Blair right-wing?) and the sentence reads like opinion.

• Some general points
  • The whole article needs copyediting, with particular attention to punctuation, which is extremely wayward at times.
  • Some dates are unlinked, and possibly other link opportunities. I have fixed a few, but there are more.
    • (I've fixed all the rest that I could see)
  • MoS issues: I spotted a few MoS violations (dashes, nbsps etc), perhaps not critical for GAN purposes, but worth putting right. I’ll do this for you if you like, while you concentrate on the more substantial points.
    • (I've fixed these now).
  • Referencing: I find it odd that, for 41 in-text citations, you have 40 different reference sources, almost all from the internet. Perhaps the article would have benefited from more reliance on a smaller number of authoritative histories? I’d be interested to know why you felt the need to cast the net so wide.
  • Images: Have you investigated the possibility of finding relevant images for the article? Have you tried Google images results for Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party? Maybe the BBC would let you use the Craig photo – or have you tried? An image or two would certainly improve the overall presentation, but I do understand the difficulty.

I am putting the article on hold to give editors the chance to address these issues. My own feeling is that it’ll probably take rather more than seven days to get the article up to GA, but it’s worth a try. Brianboulton (talk) 16:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the above review. Due to limited time it will take a lot longer than seven days for me to address those. Just a couple of quick follow up comments/replies

**The notes after the table are an awful muddle, and don’t add anything to the article. I advise dropping most of this. Only the last sentence makes a significant point, and in this sentence "came to grief" is non-encyclopedic, and Constitutional Convention needs linking and dating.

I was trying to make a point there that the 1973 council elections give a misleading account of their real support back then due to many of their candidates running under different labels. I still think it's a relevant point but could maybe be phrased better.

• • (Trying to be helpful) - it seems to me that the range in the table shown as 8 - 10 should actually be 8 - 11. I also think that the notes below the table could be reduced to two short ones, as follows:-
    • The number of Vanguard councillors elected in 1973 is a matter of dispute, due to the huge potential for confusion among the various candidate designations.[26][27][28]
    • In interpreting the 1977 results it should be borne in mind that at least 13 councillors elected in 1973 under various other "loyalist" labels chose to contest the 1977 election either for Vanguard or for its splinter party, the United Ulster Unionist Party.[29][30] Brianboulton (talk) 22:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

**Some dates are unlinked, and possibly other link opportunities. I have fixed a few, but there are more.

When I read the MOS, it seemed to say that dates should only be linked when they are relevant to or help the reader better understand the article. I genuinely don't see how linking to 1973 helps in this context. 1973 in Northern Ireland yes but the year itself no. Maybe though I misinterpreted the guidelines?

• See [[Wikpedia:Tutorial (Wikipedia links) Brianboulton (talk) 21:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

**Referencing: I find it odd that, for 41 in-text citations, you have 40 different reference sources, almost all from the internet. Perhaps the article would have benefited from more reliance on a smaller number of authoritative histories? I’d be interested to know why you felt the need to cast the net so wide.

Because a previous criticism was that the article lacked cites, I fixed that, maybe to the extent of going to the opposite extreme. I don't see that it makes a difference provided that they're reliable sources and in fact to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been authoritative histories published, merely brief biogs on some of the main NI sites, so not really an option.

• No authoritative histories on Northern Ireland that cover the period in question? I find that incredible. Brianboulton (talk) 22:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

No authoritative histories which mention VUPP in any great depth and some of those which mention the party are already in. However I should also point out here that as I'm based in Latvia, books in English, nevermind books covering the intricacies of NI in the early 70s are a rare commodity, thus I'm restricted to the web and my own notes for sources. I still don't see the problem with the sources with many of them coming from sources such as CAIN, BBC, Hansard which meet WP:VERIFY. Valenciano (talk) 05:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• • I'm not actually doubting the reliability of your sources. My curiosity related to your choosing a wide range of internet sources rather than standard texts. You've explained the problem - the availability to you of specialist books since you're based in Latvia means you have to rely on the internet. I understand. Brianboulton (talk) 15:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the other points are well made and I'll have a go at them ASAP. Valenciano (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

GA Review summary

The article fails at this point, the main editor having acknowledged that it will take a considerable time to address all the points raised in the general review above. I am sure that if it is renominated after these matters have been attended to, it will get a positive reception.

In relation to the GA criteria:-

• Well-written: Fail. Inadequate lead, problems with style and punctuation, needs a very thorough copyedit.
• Accurate and verifiable: Pass
• Breadth of coverage: Pass
• Neutral: Pass
• Stable: Pass

I look forward to seeing the article back at GAN in the near future. Brianboulton (talk) 13:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Images: Provisional fail, until there has been some discussion of the problems of availability.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Frickeg (talk · contribs) 03:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   I did a very basic copyedit to fix some punctuation issues, but the style overall needs some serious work. The lead is barely adequate; I'd strongly suggest splitting it into two separate paragraphs, one dealing with history and one with ideology and politics. The whole article could use some close editing and rewriting as there is frequent repetition of similar phrases (e.g. in the lead, repetition of "agreement" in the paragraph about Sunningdale; this is not an isolated occurrence). Also beware of very short paragraphs - there are a lot of these, especially in the "Policies" section. Some may be suitable for merging, but a better idea is often to expand the coverage on these particular issues as many of them are very bald statements of fact.

   Some of the headings are a little odd too. Should "Extra-Parliamentary activity" ("Parliamentary probably shouldn't be capitalised) really be subordinate to "policies"? I also wonder about "Prominent UUP members ..." - is this not a little POV to give it this much prominence? Either way these could be either integrated into the main article where they are of sufficient note, or otherwise omitted (they are presumably noted on those politicians' pages, and I can't see an assertion of notability with regards to Vanguard itself).

   I also feel the article could benefit from some significant restructuring, on which I will go into more detail under criterion #3 below.

   A number of the points from the original GA review still stand, including "bellicose pronouncements" (POV?).

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   To begin with, the references are in desperate need of standardising with the citation templates; they aren't consistent with each other and most of them do not give the full information required of references (see WP:CITEHOW). At the very least they need dates and publishers. (This is a contributing factor to the immediate impression about sources that they are predominantly internet-based, when several are in fact from Google books.)

   There are also some significant lapses in citing sources. I have made a basic (though not comprehensive) list of statements and issues that need citation:

   • Second paragraph in "Origins" contains no citations. (Maybe one of the previously cited references covers these?)
   • The first paragraph under "Electoral performances". Needs cites for alliances and "loyalist coalition" (and the first GA review's point about double linking of the DUP still stands here).
   • Most of the specific councillors listed need citations from one or more of the sources being discussed.
   • Final paragraph of "Electoral performances" is without citation.
   • Second paragraph under "Split" is without citation.

   I note your reply to the previous reviewer regarding the difficulty in finding sources. However, a basic search of Google books includes quite a few potentially useful sources with previews. I encourage you to contact some editors in Ireland in search of more sources, since the reliance on internet sources (and the odd fact that hardly any of them are referred to more than once) remains a problem. (Not one that would necessarily prevent it passing GA, though; the main problems under this criteria have to do with reference formatting.)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   I find this by far the largest problem with the article, and would urge a comprehensive restructuring to address it. Basically there are periods of history that are both confused and difficult to locate, which would be greatly alleviated by a general "history" section (perhaps with subheadings for the "Origins", "Split", "Decline", etc.). As an example of some of the omissions I find troubling: the electoral performance section shows that the party had a significant presence in the NI Assembly and a smaller one at Westminster, but there is very little account of that (and no mention of any of these politicians, apart from Craig), in contrast to the slightly bewildering detail about councillors below. After going into such detail about local councils it is casually mentioned that the party outpolled the DUP in several elections - with no further details. I find this characteristic throughout the article.

   I am not sure whether "Ideology" and "Policies" both need separate headings, but they do need some reworking (I would suggest that they form the second of two major areas in any restructuring, probably coming after the history section). The Ideology section in particular has some NPOV problems (see below). Either way the policies section gives a lot of very specific statements but not much of an idea of the actual broader policies or goals of Vanguard. (Did they ever publish an election manifesto or something similar? This could be extremely useful in this regard.) I know that NI politics were and are very often focused entirely on the sectarian divide (especially in this period), but were there no policies whatsoever outside this issue? Also it would be very helpful to state how Vanguard's policies differed from the UUP and the DUP.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   I don't for a moment accuse you of actively trying to push a certain POV, but this does stem a little from the sources you've chosen. The "Ideology" section is a particular offender - the entire section is pretty much composed of accusations and descriptions from Vanguard's opponents. I realise this is difficult with parties perceived as "extreme", but that section badly needs a Vanguard perspective, and this holds true throughout the article. The criticisms all have a place in the article since clearly they were a big part of the public perception of the party, but they are at present unbalanced by any Vanguard viewpoints; I very much doubt the party itself identified as fascist or neo-Nazi.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The image in the infobox needs a caption noting that it is a reproduction of the actual logo. Is there a way to get the actual logo under fair use? In addition, I wonder if there are any more relevant images available? The article could certainly benefit from them, although I'm passing these criteria since I know that any from this period may be problematic with regards to copyright.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

This is an interesting article and there's a decent amount of information included. However, there are significant problems with style, referencing, coverage and NPOV that are likely to take longer than a week to address, and for this reason I am failing the article for now. There are also a number of points from the first GA review in May 2008 that have not been addressed.

The article as a whole needs a very thorough copyedit, references need formatting and the reference list could do with both consolidation and expansion - consolidating some of the diverse sources a little (since I'm sure many of them cite similar things; this may be a consequences of duplication of sources, in which case that needs addressing too), and diversifying to include some more secondary texts. Finally and most importantly, the article needs some attention for completeness since it is sometimes quite fragmentary in the history it gives, and idiosyncratic in the attention given to certain events. It needs quite a bit of work, but I hope to see it at GAN again in the future. Frickeg (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Fascist because of salutes

I am afraid that the alleged use of "an honour guard and a common salute" is woefully insufficient grounds for calling a party "fascist". Is there more than that? If not the accusation would appear to be just a scurrilous insult, and should be removedRoyalcourtier (talk) 02:04, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Ulster independence?

I remember of having read somewhere that Vanguard supported Ulster independence or something similar; anybody know something about that (to put in the article, it it is is the case)?--MiguelMadeira (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2022 (UTC)