Hi, while moving towards developing a section on British Isles usage in the MOS, I've been bold and edited a couple more articles.
Mitchell (surname) - the origin for this name is England to Scotland, with a parallel development in Ireland. I've added references.
King Raven Trilogy - a set of fantasy books where Robin Hood is transplanted to Wales and fights against the Norman English invaders. The books only portray people from Wales and England, not from the British Isles.
James Kay - I removed the piece about his contribution to industrialize the linen industry in the British Isles. It wasn't supported by any citations. I've searched a number of sources, and Google Books, and nowhere is he praised in this way, or associated with any industry in the British Isles. On reflection, I could have added a {{fact}} tag rather than removing the sentence (and other cleanups and adding some refs). I've no problem is that's what people prefer.
Hunting-Clan Air Transport - Only flew within England and Scotland. The infobox uses geographic areas so I've changed to Great Britain. Is it just me, or would a list of country or city destinations be much more helpful...???
Classical liberalism - Mixing country names and geographical areas. The referenced essay discusses countries like England, Germany, France, etc
OK, as discussed at my talk page, let's take a closer look at this long list. In line with your agreement HighKing, would you mind not changing more until people have had time to go through these and also pre-notify them and then allow time? Thanks. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 23:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
So this one first - the primary architects of classical liberalism within these islands were surely Adam Smith (Scottish), Malthus (English), David Hume (Scottish) and Ricardo - Jewish of Dutch origin residing in London. This would seem a classic for the "British Isles" - it is certainly not "England" as you have it. More tomorrow! Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 23:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I'll not change any more until people are happy we've discussed these ones. It's best to break out any you want to discuss into separate sections. I'll do this now for Classical liberalism and copy your comments. --HighKing (talk) 23:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
JB Joyce & Co - I tagged the asserion "Since 1945 the company has installed over 2,000 large public clocks in the British Isles, the majority being the synchronous mains controlled type and a high proportion installed in churches." rather than removed it. I need to check into this some more, but I wasn't able to verify it.
Channel Television - is a TV station in the Channel Islands, which may be in the British Isles, but makes sense to follow convention of smallest appropriate area here
New Britain - stated that "New Britain and New Ireland are so named because their outlines on a map roughly correspond to those of the British Isles". Well obviously not - they were named because they resembled each respective island, Great Britain and Ireland.
Eric Cantona - another one of the "first player outside the British Isles to" articles. Changed to use "Home Nations" instead.
I'm not making a habit of replying at this unnecessary page but note that I've put British Isles back in this article. Home Nations is an arrogant term for this encyclopedia and is British-centric. Few people from outside these islands know what it means but most people know what British Isles means. LevenBoy (talk) 17:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Bulldog and American Bulldog - states breed originates from the British Isles. Sources either say "Britain" or "England".
List of cuisines - I removed the grouping of UK and Ireland under British Isles and Northern Europe, and instead included them under Western Europe.
British national grid reference system - Incorrectly used British Isles when the context suggests it should be United Kingdom (the point being made that even though there's a "British" national grid reference system, Northern Ireland uses the (different) Irish grid system. Obviously didn't mean British Isles since Channel Islands uses neither).
Regional airline - Stated "In the British Isles for example, BA CityFlyer a regional subsidiary of British Airways ..." which is inaccurate usage. BA CityFlyer is based in Manchester, England, and flies to Europe and Scotland. So it's more correct to either say its based in Great Britain or UK. I elected to change to UK.
Mitchell (surname) - according to references, has three independent origins - England, Scotland and Ireland.
Christian Aid - reference states "It was formed by British and Irish church leaders as the Christian Reconstruction in Europe", so I've changes to agree with the ref
History of lesbianism - Oddly enough described Penitentials as follows: "They were unofficial guidebooks which became popular, especially in the British Isles." Instead, I added a description from the article to state "They were books or sets of church rules concerning the Christiansacrament of penance".
Albert Guðmundsson - another one of the "second player from outside the British Isles" - changed to "Home Nations" and fact tagged
UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying - this one was confusing as it appears to use "Home Nations" to exclude RoI first. I changed it around so that "Home Nations" includes Ireland although we may have to revisit this one if there's confusion.
Scottish coinage - More appropriate to state that the Roman Empire retreated from Britain (or Great Britain), not from the "British Isles"
Fly (Hilary Duff song) - Albums don't get released "in the British Isles". They're either release in the UK, or Ireland, or both. The rest of the point talks about the UK charts, so I changed to UK instead.
Regional variations of barbecue - Changed "As with the United Kingdom and the other islands of the British Isles" to just state "as with the United Kingdom". The article talks about countries. And the UK isn't an island.
Can this whole section also be archived? With the status quo remaining. If people have concerns about individual cases they can relist them individually in a new section. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Dammit, BW, you just caused me an edit conflict ;-)
I replaced an incorrect usage of "British Isles" with "United Kingdom", seeing as how we're talking about a school syllabus. --HighKing (talk) 17:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Wiring a 3-pin plug is part of the syllabus in Ireland. The "British Isles" was thus correct but suggest "Hong Kong, Ireland and the United Kingdom" since the syllabus is relates to each state individually. --RA (talk) 18:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
The "British Isles" was incorrect for two reasons. The full sentence reads The [[Secondary education#United Kingdom|secondary school]] physics [[syllabus]]es in the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Hong Kong]] include the procedure for wiring BS 1363 plugs. We don't share an educational system. UK has one. Ireland has a different one. And since the "secondary education" link is pointing to the UK, it's obvious we're talking about the UK. Secondly, the article is about a British standard, BS 1363. Ireland has an equivalent and teaches IS 401 & 411, and not BS 1363. --HighKing (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
You're right about it being incorrect HK, but your second reason is dubious. (Part of the problem of doing site-wide deletes is that you will regularly hit delete on ones where you are a little hazy on the facts.) Ireland simply replicates BS1363 and downloads it into IS401 and 411. Irish plugs are completely identical to British plugs! In fact, my British house is wired entirely with plugs conforming to the Irish standard! Hurrah! My proposal is you take a lot of time on your next proposal and get the facts squared away. Preferably by consulting in advance with the editors on that local article. Which I thought we have to do anyway under the ANI ruling? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
He's testing the water. Can he get away with two removals without them being regarded as "systematic"; apparently so. I guess he'll now take a few days off then come back with ... three. See what happens. How much flak is there? Not much. Many editors have now moved on. Let's go for a few more ... and on, and on, it goes. Failing that, let's just slip in the odd one every so often and see what response it draws. LevenBoy (talk) 19:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
HK, I agree that a change is better. ("British Isles" is not incorrect, however, it is a part of the syllabus in the British Isles.) The problem is that you changed "British Isles and Hong Kong" → "United Kingdom and Hong Kong" when "Hong Kong, Ireland and the United Kingdom" is more accurate and more appropriate to the content.
"And since the 'secondary education' link is pointing to the UK, it's obvious we're talking about the UK." The sentence mentions Hong Kong also. A fix to the "secondary education" looks appropriate also.
The "secondary education" link does need to be fixed. But if that is changed would it be incorrect to say "Throughout the British Isles and Hong Kong"? If this does not apply to the Republic of Ireland then yes it should just say United Kingdom and Hong Kong. But if there is a case to say Hong Kong, Republic of Ireland and United Kingdom, then "throughout the British Isles" would be ok in this case but ive no idea what the situation is and if we can not be sure.. just Hong Kong/UK is acceptable in this case. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
An alert to interested editors - RA has filed the yet-to-be-agreed "guidelines" on British Isles usage in the WP:MOS, therby claiming acceptance. LevenBoy (talk) 21:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Alert! Alert! You've a tase for the dramatic, LB. :-) In the main, we can do with less drama on this issue, and that is partly the intention of the guidelines.
(ec)Of particular concern is this section Get consensus + particularly in relation to IRE/ROI. The only person to agree to this is RA himself. Numerous editors have reservations and one is vehermently opposed, yet this point is arguably the most contentious since it singles out ROI for special attention. There is absolutely no consensus on this matter, so please either withdraw the whole set of guidelines immediately, or at the very least, this one. LevenBoy (talk) 21:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
"The only person to agree to this is RA himself." – Huh?
LB, all it says it to think before you do. Particularly on those articles. We've seen in the past how edit wars have flared up on those articles. Just consider your actions. What you do after giving consideration to them is up to you. --RA (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Blanket ruling for non-political issues {e.g. any flora and fauna listed in British Isles)
Resolved
– We seem to have consensus for giving this a go. "Fauna" is being tried out initially, I'd be happy to start considering what we try next. TFOWR11:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
{{Unresolved}}It seems to me that we could get consensus for some areas, but not others. I do not believe that should prevent us trying to devise "blanket rulings" for those areas in which we can get consensus. TFOWR14:22, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Look, it will be ridiculous if we have to argue the same argument with the same people over very last flower and beast on the British Isles.
Therefore, I propose that any topic regarding any subject commonly listed in a scientific almanac, encyclopedia or guidebook as "of the British Isles" rather than "of Ireland" or "of Great Britain" be allowed to be named or listed as "of the British Isles" without any fear of punitive repercussions.
This will save a lost of wasted time and energy.
It would seem that the POV pushers are really just planning a territorial 'war of attrition' and it would seems somewhere between ridiculous and impossible to debate each such weed and beastie, case by case.
What you are talking about there is a guideline, something several of us have been trying to put in place for some time. This is a good candidate but they need to be agreed in the round. For the moment I suggest you simply notify and most people will accept in this area provided the distribution is truly BI in nature. Its rather like the citation case which is another obvious guideline (if the citations don't say it don't use it) which I would have thought was equally self-evident. In the case of the "weed" its clear, in the case of the Atlas's less so. I suggest you stop making general (and specific) accusations against other editors and maybe focus on participating in this and other pages on content issues only and working to create some guidelines which will reduce the workload. --SnowdedTALK05:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
A blanket ruling is not going to get agreement, if we agreed to such a position then it would justify a blanket ban being introduced against the use of British Isles in some areas, like anything on the Republic of Ireland.
This is an area where use of British Isles is clearly more justified than others. If you do find examples where you think it incorrectly says Britain and Ireland instead of saying British Isles, then let us know here. But make sure you do not add British Isles to articles without mentioning it here first, coz you are now "involved" and im sure some will be keeping an eye on your contributions so it would be reverted and you may get into trouble. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I like the idea of categories, which someone mentioned recently during my "offline but trying hard to follow everything"-phase, so I can't point to it right now. I suspect BW's right about blanket rulings, but guidelines, per Snowded, might be do-able? It would save time if we could broadly agree that in one category BI is generally appropriate/inappropriate, and then we'd only need to consider the exceptions, rather than every case. Categories would also help make this page more manageable... i.e. we have sections for categories and sub-sections for articles that may or may not be exceptions to the category's guideline. Obviously we'd also need a "everything else" category for articles without a category. ...and this is where you all point me at the prior discussion, and tell me why categories are a bad idea! TFOWR18:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Again, this is an area where we need a blanket ruling. The Wikipedia is a voluntary project. It depends on people's goodwill and available time. Some people might well be attracted by doing nice, orderly librarian type work and innocently blitzing a particular dusty corner of it. If you tie each and every decision up in bureaucracy nothing will get done.
Bugs and buds are non-political. They recognise no national borders. British Isles in such a use is right and outside of the contention of this discussion which is politically charged areas.
Therefore, I realise that what I am suggesting is for us to separate in our minds the human/historical/political element --- which are sensitive --- from the non-human, non-political topics. If a user is not able to do so --- then I think we have to suspect their have some deeper, more personal political or even psychological issue going on.
Of course I am talking about "reasonable" editing, not the kind of blanket POV pushing that got us into this in the first place with the removal of the term by HighKing and others. --Triton Rocker (talk) 00:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
All you have to do is bring nominations here Triton, its not a major problem. In general you will get agreement for bugs and buds if its supported by the citations. --SnowdedTALK03:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
No Triton, its an example of people saying to you again (and again and again) that you need to bring examples here and reach agreement. --SnowdedTALK09:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Which I disagree upon as being ridiculous, unworkable and unnecessarily burdensome even for you. You are not thinking it through.
You have no expertise in the area. You are not committed to developing the topics.
In short, you have no moral nor technical authority in this area at all.
Why should anyone (not just me) have to pay respect to you? Do you want expert volunteers to come forward to the Wikipedia or not?
I'd rather you explain to me in detail the miraculous uniqueness of the flora and fauna of Channel Islands and Isle of Man and why they should be continually excluded from a geographic area which they are obviously part of.
Triton, if you find an example bring it here and see if others agree. Its really very simply and all other editors have agreed to go along with it. While you are at it please try to stop throwing out accusations against other editors, it really doesn't help. --SnowdedTALK23:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I am sorry but, no, Snowded. It is not practical for the reasons stated above. On one hand, you have no expertise in the area from any perspective and I don't see you working on the topics. On the other, you use unnecessarily punitive deletions as a provocation of others and other apparently unmentionable techniques [2]. It seems that you are now stalking me around the Wikipedia too.
I apologise for my frankness but stating a fact is not an accusation.
If you want to repair your credibility in a grown up manner, please address the issue.
Explain to us in detail the miraculous uniqueness of the flora and fauna of Channel Islands and Isle of Man and why they should be continually excluded from a geographic area which they are obviously part of by using the term 'Great Britain and Ireland'.
Surely "Great Britain and Ireland" should be used only when it accurately refers to "Great Britain and Ireland" only ... and I have yet to find any one single example of flora and fauna which are limited ONLY to Great Britain and Ireland and not the other islands.
It is very practical and moreover you are under a community sanction that requires you specifically to do so. It is hardly an "unmentionable technique" to report your violation of a community ban and your block log makes the point. The expertise of any editor in wikipedia is not yours to determine, all editors here should address content issues only. I don't plan to loose any sleep over whether you take me seriously or not. --SnowdedTALK09:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes, but where are all these plants and animals that are only present on GB and Ireland, and are not to be found on any one of a thousand other islands that make up the British Isles? To be on the safe side, GB&I should absolutely not be used in these contexts and British Isles should be used. Could someone create a bot to make the necessary changes - that would be a step in the right direction. LemonMonday Talk 16:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The ruling is no changes without discussion - check out Triton's Block log and the sanction list if you don't believe me. I don't think a bot exacltly complies with that. --SnowdedTALK18:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Snowded, as far as I'm concerned editors' block logs etc fall under the same umbrella as editors' POVs. They're not relevant to discussion of issues here. Black Kite and I am well aware of individual editors' POVs, blocks, etc and will take that into consideration when enforcing anything - not when considering issues. Please refrain in future from discussion editors' blocks etc here. TFOWR10:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Oh, quit snide attempts to damage other people's reputation or wind them up ...
We are discussing a universal policy and blanket ruling over the flora and fauna of the British Isles because of the ridiculous impossibility of having to discuss each and every species. This is what encyclopedias have. Comprehensive and consistent editorial guidelines.
Look, here is an example of a problematic list, taken at random, without even starting to work our way down the taxonomic trees.
What are they talking about --- Britain, Great Britain or British Isles?
Now, let's follow our way down each Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species --- what do we find all over the place? A mishmash of Britain, Great Britain or British Isles. Are you really suggesting those that apparently exclude the IoM and CI are deliberately and accurately excluding them?
Take any one, for example a List of shield bug species of Great Britain. The only reference is for one stating "British Isles" --- "A photographic guide to the Shieldbugs and Squashbugs of the British Isles". That needs renamed.
This is why I say it is impossible argument to argue against a blanket ruling. Only individuals who have:
a) no expertise at all in the academic specialism involved, and
b) some political agenda
could or would ever try to do so --- would even suggest doing so.
I am not comfortable about blanket rulings because if we have one covering areas like you mention then we have to have others too, some would like us to ban its use in what they consider political areas. I agree that where Great Britain or Great Britain and Ireland is used incorrectly and is really talking about the BI it should say British Isles. But this is often the debate. One debate at the moment is about foreign players in the Scottish premier league. To me it seems very clear that the article is meant to be talking about people not from the British isles, rather than not from GB and Ireland. But we have to debate this until there is agreement. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Copying over a post I just placed on Black Kite's talk page.
I do have some sympathy with some of Triton Rocker's points. Arguing over every plant and insect is becoming stupid, and making Wikipedia look stupid in my opinion. I have a shelf full of Floras of the British Isles, the current standard flora is Staces New Flora of the British Isles (with a ringing endorsement from the The Irish Naturalist Journal in the Product description section), and there is a society dedicated to same, with a website full of up to date information on the flora of the...yes, British Isles. Normally I have no problem with the alternate expressions - there are no long rivers or high mountains in the Outer Islands - but we should have fixed an agreement that the term is the one to use for flora and fauna, and stop arguing over every grass and bloody invertibrate. If it helps, I would support an exemption that if a critter is found ONLY in the Republic of Ireland, the article does not have to mention British Isles, and the article can say "X is found only in the Burren, in Ireland." Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Strongly agree. I appreciate there are going to be edge cases: they can be discussed here. I can well understand that there may be problems using the term "British Isles" in an article about a snake, but I do not for one minute believe that that should prevent us having a blanket ruling for fauna. There are only so many hours in the day, and if we're to tackle this effectively we need to become more efficient. Debating endlessly each and every animal on the islands of Western Europe is not efficient. TFOWR10:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
My concern is what other areas will get blanket rulings though. I can understand the reasons for saying BI should be used in cases relating to Fauna. I would be prepared to support that, but will others unless there is also a blanket ruling on an area where the BI should not be used? BritishWatcher (talk) 11:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Its an obvious candidate for a set of general heuristics and there have been a few attempts to get them agreed. Rannpháirtí anaithnid produced a set recently which had potential. I am with BW here, probably because we both have the scars of long involvement here. Maybe an experiment with a few - take flora (Fauna was challenged by someone last time this was discussed) as an agreed rule for inclusion and take a political set for non-inclusion and see how they go. --SnowdedTALK11:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Areas where there's a consensus to do so. This isn't just going to be an arbitrary "there is now a blanket ruling - live with it" process. There'll be a discussion beforehand ;-) I'd presume that we'll institute blanket rulings here, once similar topics have been discussed here a few times. TFOWR11:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC):::: Take it slow. Instead of asking 'are there sources to use the term' ask 'is there any good reason not to use the term', eg is the occurrence so restricted that a smaller locale would be better.
Or much wider, i.e. there is no good reason to use the term as Europe or similar covers the BI area. Guidelines need to written so that breaking them is pretty self-evident. Oh and you will then get the mixture of countries and geographical areas in a single list (proposed guideline don't mix). --SnowdedTALK14:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Just reading over everything, it seems that it would be a better idea to have Blanket guidelines rather than blanket rulings. This would allow editors here to make changes within the guidelines without discussion. However, if there is an issue raised, it can be easily brought here. As for which areas will get blanket rulings, there should be a discussion here for each one. I say one for flora and fauna is indeed a good idea, and British Isles should be used, unless someone finds a highly nationalistic Irish stinkbug. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Attempting a draft
Hence my use of the word "heuristics", but they do need to be agreed. We also need to remember (and its easy to forget) that this is an international encyclopedia, its not confined to the British Isles. That would imply a guideline along the lines of:
For an entry in the lede the highest geographical area should be used (Ireland or British Isles or Western Europe etc.).
If there are sub headings then either country names or geographical areas (so British Isles & Australasia OR England, Wales & New Zealand).
You then need at least for a period while trust is established a requirement to post notice of any removal or addition here, and a IRR rule on discussion if there is a disagreement --SnowdedTALK14:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed that the highest geographical area should be used. If there is none, an appropriate solution could be devised for each article. Of course it depends on the topic, but for flora and fauna, I'd make the subheading geographical. In the British Isles case, Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, etc. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
If it is something that has a very small locus, then the larger divisions become meaningless, so if something only occurs on the Isle of Man, then it would be arbitrary to use any larger divisions.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
That was my intent - feel free to improve the wording. If its only on the Aran Islands, then that is the highest geographical area, however if its all over Western Europe then say Western Europe don't list British Isles, France etc (that would be mixing terms) --SnowdedTALK14:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not entirely sure on the first point so i could not agree with that at this point. I agree with the second line about having countries as sections or areas. So British Isles should not be in line with USA and Canada. But if its areas like Scandinavia, or it is a mix of two (So North America, China, Scandinavia, British Isles), if there is that sort of split sections in an article then BI should be left alone.
I also think all involved editors should not be adding or removing BI without raising it here first (unless its undoing a recent change once). If the guidelines are in place then it would not take long to get agreement here. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:25, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The British Isles is denoted as a "scientific region" for fauna - but not for Flora. Flora is divided up differently - Great Britain including the Isle of Man, Ireland, and the Channel Islands are considered part of the distribution region of France. The Botanical Society of the British Isles appears to also use this notation. The BSBI also publish Watsonia. It would be pretty normal to see "British Isles" being referred to when discussing fauna, and more unusual when discussing Flora. Internationally recognized and defined regions can be found in this PDF. Thats not to say that some editors publish books listing "Big Trees of the British Isles" or some such, but that's probably less frequent today than it was in older times. In summary, a blanket ruling for Fauna and Flora would make sense, where British Isles is fine for Fauna but not for Flora. --HighKing (talk) 18:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
OK so lets make the proposal above one for fauna which will give us a constrained test to see how this words out in practice --SnowdedTALK19:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Let's just take a random selection of what real experts think and do:
The Taraxacum flora of the British Isles and Ecological Database of the British Isles (and others) - by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
The Genetical Flora of the British Isles - by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Ecological Flora of the British Isles sponsored by the National Environmental Research Council (--- who, funnily enough, I once worked for).
Botanical Society of the British Isles - e.g. immediately includes Scilly
Biological Flora of the British Isles - by the British Ecological Society
Biological flora of the British Isles - The Journal of Animal Ecology etc etc etc
New Flora of the British Isles by Clive Stace (Cambridge University Press) is the standard work on British plant identification and really just about covers it all in one. His 'Field flora of the British Isles' clearly includes Ireland and the Channel Islands.
Google Scholar turns up 48,100 uses, JSTOR 7,160 and I have not even dug into JANET yet.
HighKing, are you honestly putting your expertise as above theirs? Can no one else see how ridiculous such comment are? Next you will be telling us that Kew is obviously deluded by English nationalism or anti-Irish sentiments ! --Triton Rocker (talk) 03:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It is not "ridiculous tosh" its an attempt to create a controlled experiment that would test if the wider freedom you are advocating would be practical. Such an experiment would be dependent on all involved editors showing some respect for the process. Given your sanction it would also require support for a relaxation of that sanction to allow you to make any such edits. That is something that I (and I think others) would support if you showed a willingness to work within the bounds of that experiment. --SnowdedTALK04:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I personally find it hard to believe that the British Isles do not have a set of endemic flora. I also don't see how this prevents the blanket guideline for articles on such flora which are created to list ones in the British Isles. In regards to bans, I think that if such a guideline was established they could edit within it, of course, if they exceed the guideline intentionally then they could be banned from that too. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Useful links HighKing. I am curious what you base your statement (HK) that Britain is included with France on? In the NMH document, map 2 (the lower level detail) clearly shows Britain and Ireland are seperate zones. It is true that the taxonomic database for plant science document does not define "British Isles" as one of it's zones. However, this seems at least partly, if you read the introduction notes, to be based on political considerations - they take account of national boundaries. I think we need to be cautious about contexts here. The TDPS is used, as far as I can tell as a non-expert, for scientists to classify finds and research data by geo-location. That does not mean that other works on flora cannot reference the BI as a geo-region. As we have seen, they frequently do. There is a difference between official international academic standards and common usages, even in scientific and semi-scientific works. So I don't think we can make a blanket ruling on this basis, although it is useful background. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 09:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
@James, perhaps my statement mislead you. It's not Britain that's included with France. There are three areas. Great Britain including the Isle of Man is one. Ireland is another. And the Channel Islands are included with France. You say that "British Isles" is not a zone based on political considerations - not true. The intro states "Botanical Country (which may often ignore purely political considerations) which is nearly the opposite of what you say:
The system offered covers the whole world and identifies units at four levels, firstly continental, secondly
regional (or subcontinental), thirdly at what may be called “Botanical Country” level (which may often ignore purely political considerations), and fourthly at a slightly lower level called “Basic Recording Units” where political integrity is fully recognised. In many cases, where Botanical Countries have no complicating political factors, the units at Level-3 and Level-4 are identical. Very large countries, however, have been subdivided into more conveniently sized units according to constituent states or provinces. It is a fundamental principle that units at all levels are bounded either by political boundaries which appear on modern maps or by coast lines. Modern geographical information systems have not superseded the need for such a scheme.
At the same time, as I've already stated, there are many publications on flora within the British Isles. And if is a little confusing that "British Isles" *is* considered a geographic unit for Fauna. But if articles here discuss distribution of flora, it should stick with the Scientific regions, and not mix "apples and oranges". --HighKing (talk) 09:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Disagree entirely. "Flora of the British Isles" is still routinely taught as a university subject, and Staces "Flora of the British Isles is still on the reading list eg Kent Uni (where Staces is on the reading list), Reading uni and Liverpool John Moores [3], Staces is Emeritus professor at Leicester, and has produced [4] the Flora on DVD - published by ETI, The Expert Centre for Taxonomic Identification, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in operational relations with UNESCO and an international leader in producing interactive multimedia resources on biodiversity (with contributions for what was Duchas and is now environ. Interestingly, I believe all the courses which have a British flora component are environmental courses, not 'pure' botany. Also Watsonia publish the SimpsonsIndex which lists Floras, Herbals, Periodicals, Societies and References relating to the identification, distribution and occurrence ofPhanerogams, Vascular Cryptogams and Charophytes in the British Isles which includes entries from numerous Irish sources. It is evidently perfectly possible to continue to not only speak of but study the Flora of the British Isles, notwithstanding that some scientific data is grouped in a different way, just as it is still possible to speak of crime in the City of Bradford, even though the West Yorkshire police do not have division boundaries that exactly correspond to the boundaries of the Metropolitan District (and very annoying that is sometimes). Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I also disagree, looked through the lists, and it does seem to try and stick within political boundaries in order to prevent disputes. One good point has been raised though, they channel islands are unrelated to the main British Isles environmentally. This could probably be addressed in the articles introduction though. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It states very clearly thirdly at what may be called “Botanical Country” level (which may often ignore purely political considerations). How can looking through the lists lead you to a conclusion that they try to stick within political boundaries in order to prevent disputes? Where are disputes even mentioned? --HighKing (talk) 11:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
My point is to run an experiment where there is no disagreement - fauna - and see how it pans out in practice. Given the sheer number of articles there will be enough to do. Incidentally Chipmunk you have marked out one of the problems. Some people have argued that Britain and Ireland can not be used as that excludes the Channel Islands, However if the Channel Islands are not included but the Isle of Man is, then both British Isles and Britain and Ireland are both technically incorrect in several cases --SnowdedTALK11:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
If it is specifically excludes the channel islands then there is no problem in those cases if we make clear its excluded, although in some cases i would suspect the sources themselves do not make clear if they are including it or not. BI most of the time includes the CI, unlike GB+I which never does. On the issue of a experiment for this agreement, im prepared to support one if its limited to the fauna and/or flora issue, but if getting that accepted requires an agreement on another area which is problematic, ill oppose both. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think Snowded is right, we should give it a go with fauna or flora, and attempt a draft that works for fauna. If we can do that, then we can look to see if it will expand. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
How about this then
As a limited experiment, for all articles on fauna the following guidelines apply:
The geographical distribution area referenced should either be (i) the largest area of distribution (so if it is Western Europe, use Western Europe not British Isles) or, if appropriate (ii) a list of the main geographical areas (for example British Isles & Scandinavia). Geographical and Political entities should not be mixed.
If there are subsections within the article for different distribution areas, the same rules apply. The largest referenced geographical area is used, or a list of the main geographical areas as per the example above.
Any change to any article should be notified at the time to a section to be set up at the start of this page and signed by the author
If any author disagrees with the change, then they may revert it if, and only if they set up a discussion area on this page with reasons.
If an uninvolved editor carries out the edit and it is seen by one of the participants in this process, then they should notify it to the section above. If they (or anyone else) reverts it then they should provide a link to this discussion and the sanction ruling on the talk page of the article concerned.
I think that covers it, and if Triton is prepared to agree with it, then I am happy to make a case for his sanction not to apply to this specific area so that he is free to edit on the same terms as others.
--SnowdedTALK11:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I can accept that, although if a day after the experiment starts there is suddenly a dozen notes about removal or inclusions of British Isles and one is questionable, ill consider the experiment a failure. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
There may be, and probably will be, some articles where there is a logical (non nationalistic) reason to use another term then the British Isles. That is expected. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Aslong as there is a logical reason for the change. Trouble is the "logical reasons" are usually highly disputed, but in this one specific area it shouldnt be too bad. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
One other thing, what do we do about uninvolved editors? If an uninvolved editors adds/removes and we spot it, do we note it here or just ignore it? BritishWatcher (talk) 12:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Note it here I think, leave it unless you object. If it is reverted the uninvolved editor should be linked here? As to assuming a failure if we get a flurry in the first few days, based on the last month it is more likely to be insertion! I think we should be prepared to live with that for a bit, especially if we can have some rapid admin sanctions for objections which just say "I disagree". --SnowdedTALK12:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
and when one is objected to and the stable version restored, does it get moved to a new section for a full on debate about it or just an admin ruling on it? BritishWatcher (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I could agree to these guidelines but do not believe giving Triton Rocker the chance to edit again in any area of BI is a good idea. I may change my mind in a couple of months but up until now I have been totally unimpressed with his behaviour since his topic block. Bjmullan (talk) 12:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It may be problematic too as the agreed sanctions are very clear, there is an absolute restriction on adding/removing BI. I dont know if wed have to go back to the admin noticeboard to get agreement to amend it which would seem like a lot of work. If TR has some places where he thinks it should be added under this experiment, the safest way forward would be for him to mention it here and an admin or other editor add it without a need for a long winded debate over it. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think we should cut him some slack, if he agrees to follow it. I'm happy to make the suggestion as it would have to be made by the community as a whole. Personally I don;t think there is a danger. If its abused then the sanction is likely to move to a topic ban --SnowdedTALK13:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it would be in line with WP:AGF to cut him some slack, but we don't have that in our gift, lets see how this works over the next few months and if it does then lets look at the topic ban. Codf1977 (talk) 13:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think I can claim the highest level of personal abuse! OK it a community decision, to be honest I would prefer to see if he can handle it or not - --SnowdedTALK13:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
(ec)
It's the first time I've warned them, and they haven't reverted me after I "snipped" their comment, so no. A topic ban is not in order. TFOWR14:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with cutting TR some slack, its just the technical side of it i have concerns about. To change the sanctions mean we would have to go back to ANI i would think and we already overwork them there. It would be far easier and quicker for TR just to mention any examples where a change is needed under the experiment and it gets done for him. Either that or if hes prepared to agree to follow the rules and not add BI to other articles (with the exception of this experiment), remove the sanctions, but i doubt there would be agreement for that. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I object to the whole concept of these "guidelines". They will be confusing to so-called uninvolved editors, will lead to edit warring all over the place and are simply not necessary. It's an invitation to certain editors to trawl What Links Here on BI and make mass reversions and use these "guidelines" as an excuse (see Stroke City)> The whole matter should be left to people who know what they are talking about (no one here). LemonMonday Talk 14:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Snowded theres no need to exacerbate the problem x.x I also agree on giving TR some leeway. Just post a set of rules on his talkpage or something in an amendment to his topic ban, and let him follow it or not. If he intentionally and purposefully breaks it, then thats his fault, and it should be dealt with accordingly at that time. Until then, why not see what he does with a new lease on editing responsibly? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Oh come on, I'm the one proposing giving TR some leeway, and hoping to get LemonMonday to change the signature colour (a few admins are asking for the same) by example. --SnowdedTALK14:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
LemonMonday, to help those of us prone to headaches, could we come to some sort of deal about when you talk, for example, could it be restricted to 3-5am UK time? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I am going to ask at Talk:Photographic filter if a yellow filter would take it all out. If it does, I can distribute details to those who need them. 18:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Just to be clear my "tosh" comment was not aimed at Snowded who I appreciate is trying to knock some sense into this right now. It was aimed at HighKing for claiming, " It would be more unusual (to see "British Isles") when discussing Flora", thereby derailing and disempowering most of the discussion.
Tosh10, with a big laugh, goes for the comment that quoting Kew, the established standard work and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh as examples is "original research". I am sorry folks but can no one else see how far out of proportion with reality this is!?!
What you are doing here is a good thing. It is defining the broad, consistent editorial guidelines that real publications use and which the Wikipedia lacks.
The basic principles of what are being said above are fine enough but --- for the reason above --- it should apply to flora from the start. There is no dividing the two. However, I would like to quite honest. My intentions would be to free as much of the Wikipedia and Wikipedians as possible from ridiculous contortions, remove all falsely politicised notions and the need for every other topic to be X-Rayed by a self-appointed mob (who may or may not have various political agendas).
The reason for this is that old age has taught me that it is the most psychologically obsessive who will stick something out for the longest, warping reality with it. Most reasonable people, and the reasonable point if view with them, will just walk away way before they tire. --Triton Rocker (talk) 05:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
So does that mean you accept the experiment on fauna and agree to abide by those conditions. A yes or no with out nonsensical references to self-appointed mobs would be ideal. Although you would still have to apply for a let on your sanction to participate--SnowdedTALK07:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Snowded I think you have made a mistake wrapping these guidelines up with the inclusion of TR. I for one will not accept the two together. These are separate issues and as such should be deal that way. Bjmullan (talk) 08:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I do think it is wiser to hold the discussion on guidelines and the discusion on Triton Rocker's sanctions separately. TR can by all means take part in the discussion on guidelines (if he can do so in a reasonable manner) but the discussion on lifting sanctions should be at least in a different thread, and probably in a different venue.Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Let's sort out the fauna experiment first, then worry about the scope of topic bans later (though I think that that idea has some merit). TFOWR09:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Can we set this up then? Why don't we just have one section here, called fauna. Then articles changed can be bullet pointed with a short summary of change under it. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Comment In the absence of any dissenting voices I'd say go for it. I'm leaving this open in case anyone wants to mount an eleventh-hour oppose campaign... TFOWR14:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
{{Unresolved}} I'm lazy and can't be bothered wading through a long thread about four different and apparently unrelated articles, a thread which also discusses behavioural issues. Could someone start a few new threads, one for each article (or logical group of articles, if any are logically related)? Ta! TFOWR14:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Back to non-political uses --- given the time frames, these two seem fraught with difficulties which could be fixed by using British Isles.
Please propose changes here with a reason - you have inserted BI three times this morning without discussing them here (none of the above). That is getting very close to systematic insertion which can lead to a block just as much as systematic deletion. --SnowdedTALK07:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I reverted two, Tenant Farmer and Lichen with a request to bring the discussion here. Ghmyrtle reverted Arts&Craft. I also made sure that Triton Rocker is aware of the ruling on systematic insertion/removal with a link on his/her talk page. If I look at the examples, the language used in the current versions follows the references or the linked categories (in the case of studs). --SnowdedTALK07:59, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Note - I have added Triton Rocker to the topic ban list. He may still enter in discussion here, but any removal or insertion of BI will result in a block by any admin - you don't need to find me to do it - which is just as well because I'm going on holiday tomorrow. Black Kite (t)(c)09:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I've blocked TritonRocker for 24 hours for violating their topic ban with this edit. I take the view that this is the first violation since the topic ban came into affect, so the block should be for 24 hours only. TFOWR08:16, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Four items were changed this morning. Looking through them I would propose:
Tenant farmer The material in the section relates to the laws of England and Wales, not Scotland or Ireland bar one general reference. So in this case the established "Britain" and "British Isles" are both wrong. I suggesting changing to England and Wales to match the legal material. Ideally the article then either needs the two countries removed (this is a world wide thing not just the US and England) to their own sub-articles, or other country or regional material should be added.
List of foreign Scottish Premier League players Given the name of the list, then surely foreign means not Scottish? I'm not sure why either Great Britain and Ireland or British Isles are appropriate
List of lichen checklists Here the referenced book title is "Great Britain and Ireland" so there is no case to make it British Isles unless we are in the business of correcting the book titles of experts in the field.
The more straight forward move would have been to revert them to the prior state and see if anyone wanted to nominate them for change or make a case. That should happen anyway, but I thought I would try out a quick proposal first --SnowdedTALK10:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
That was my concern, in fact its a list of people who play for the Scottish Premier Leagues who do not have any origin in the British Isles, so the title is wrong --SnowdedTALK10:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
the obvious correction would be to List of overseas Scottish Premier League players but even that is wrong, but any technically correct version I could think of would not be in every day use and be an unlikely search term and potentially confusing. I think we should leave that issue to another place; with the article text as written BI is correct. Codf1977 (talk) 10:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) List of lichen checklists, I see no reason to change, however disagree with Snowded reasons, as I have said before trying to second guess the reasons why an author chose to use "Great Britain and Ireland" vs "British Isles" is not good. It is quite possible that the wrong one can be used by the title of the book, that does not mean here on WP we should automatically compound any mistake by blindly following what could be a choice made for commercial reasons.
I'm happy to go with that as a sensible all round approach over the four articles. The book title issue one is an interesting one - its been a very useful way of preventing multiple edit wars and endless discussion in the past, as going with the reference is a fairly standard Wikipedia approach. Its one of those guideline issues we should discuss. (Oh and as a Liverpool supporter it may be legitimate to call Giggs a foreigner although he did stay loyal to Wales unlike Michael Owen)--SnowdedTALK10:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Michael Owen is (was) Welsh?! I agree we shouldn't second guess why the author chose "Great Britain and Ireland" over "British Isles" which is why I believe we should keep strictly to the references. On reflection I agree that the use of foreigner in footballing terms does not include those players from Ireland, even if they are not using the term correctly. Jack 1314 (talk) 10:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Yep, grew up in Hawarden (born in Chester as that is the nearest hospital, just over the border). He also lives in Wales still (or did last time I checked) in Lower Soughton Hall) just down the road from Hawarden. The other famous inhabitant of which is Gladstone by the way.--SnowdedTALK11:01, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You need to look at the overall context - that should be the first step, in the case of List of lichen checklists there is none so use the title of the book as there is nothing else to go on. But as a rule it is not appropriate as it is open to mistakes or errors. Codf1977 (talk) 11:11, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
and surprise surprise we just get those settled and along comes LevenBoy and immediately reinstates British Isles without engaging in the discussion here. --SnowdedTALK12:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Glad to see Triton Rocker has been added to the topic ban list, i dont know he continues to add it. In the specific cases, i agree with snowded on the Tenant farmers article, If the article is expanded to cover Northern Ireland and Scotland then it could say UK. But no need for British Isles there.
The Footballer article depends on if its accurate or not. If people in the British isles are treated a certain way compared to the rest of the world then it should remain. If it only applies to Scottish players, or UK players (rather than ROI, Isle of man etc) then it should not mention British Isles.
List of lichen checklists should say what the book says.
I do believe that British Isles is a reasonable addition to the Arts and crafts one. The section currently called UK has a paragraph at the end on Ireland and this is talking about a period where it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland rather than just the present UK. So British Isles seems reasonable as a section heading there. I found this sorce [5] which says "the earliest and perhaps the fullest development of the movement was in the British Isles". So that change seems ok to me. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
My only hesitation on the lichens one is that the publication is a reference work of the British Lichen Society - the only geographical scopes they express in their website are here [6] - saying that the society "... arranges annual residential meetings in spring, summer and autumn in all parts of the British Isles... " - and here [7] - showing meetings in the Isle of Man, England, Scotland, Wales, etc. The book isn't stand-alone, it's their specific publication. I suspect they are indeed a BI grouping and that this book is a BI-wide reference work, although I accept the general point about book titles. This may be another case of us clunking a bit into an area we actually know little about. 12:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC) Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 12:59, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Snowded on the Tenant farmer. I think that UK & ROI should be used at List of foreign Scottish Premier League players. Stick with the reference @ List of lichen checklists but I agree with what James says above. Bjmullan (talk) 13:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
No view on whether the above comment should stay or go, but worth noting that a now-blocked editor added it - not LevenBoy, who merely re-added it in good faith. TFOWR20:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm a wee bit surprised myself. Just thought it worth pointing out that it wasn't LevenBoy who made the comment - though I 'spose re-adding it amounts to an endorsement of the sock's comment. I'd have thought it'd be easier just to state one's view for oneself, rather than re-add the view of a blocked editor, but it takes all sorts. @GoodDay: less space than our comments ;-) TFOWR20:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Why thank you! ;-) True, I guess. This thread, though, doesn't really help the task at hand much. Still, conversation's always a positive thing. TFOWR20:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I do agree with the sock's comment, and it's highlighted the article again. That article should have British Isles as a heading. The heading does not relate to the publication beneath it, other than as a broad grouping for it, and potentially other publications. I have found a publication detailing lichens in the IoM, so by adding that maybe British Isles is better. LevenBoy (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
You left it there because he was making a point! Sorry LevenBoy, a banned sock isn't permitted to make a point here so I'll remove the post. Jack 1314 (talk) 20:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Absent friends I think. LevenBoy, we are only going to make progress here if consensus agreements are honored. --SnowdedTALK20:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
(ec)Er..where did I say he was making a point? I said I agreed with what he said, but MY point is that it was an indicator to something that was going on that perhaps we should be aware of. Anyway, I don't really give a monkeys, and if you are so concerned about such trivia, as you clearly are, feel free to remove it, I won't revert it since I know what's going on now. LevenBoy (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but there's a difference between the link title and the section titles in the article. That looks like useful material LevenBoy. Also we should encourage collaborative editing when we see it Snowded and not carp. :-) Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Come on James, this one was discussed and you yourself with the "chunking around" comment accepted the general point about book titles. Codf1977 on the talk pages says that s/he plans a general reworking of the titles, and if you check I supported that. Pending a wider change this one was closed off, and we really don't want every one which is closed being opened again shortly afterwards. On the other hand this entry starts with reinstating a posting from an established sock farm. There is a difference. and the OR point stands, its not carping its an argument. --SnowdedTALK11:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
The Lichens one doesn't seem to be closed - what closed it exactly? As regards the titles, I see no reason why continued editing of the article needs to stop because someone has (vaguely) promised that at some future point they will rework the titles. At the moment, there are a variety of section-themes in that article, including down to the State level in the US. Adding material about the IofM and the CI seems very reasonable. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Snowded, you obviously didn't read my comments above (20:47, 27 July 2010) so here is the gist, again; the title is just a grouping for publications appearing beneath it. It is not directly related to a particular entry so how you manage to conjure up OR in this context is quite beyond me. You seem to be stonewalling on this one. British Isles is an obvious title for the group of publications that we could now add to. And please reflect further on the comments I placed on your Talk Page regarding just what is, and what isn't OR. LevenBoy (talk) 11:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Guys, if you really want to reopen this one feel free. You might want to look at the flora and fauna point etc. LevenBoy, there is only one title as its a list of lists. If you follow the current page convention then you should create sections for Guernsey, possibly IoM & Ireland (although those are books not lists). On the other hand it might make sense to completely re-organise it into geographical areas (in which case BI is fine if the others are things like North America) or nations etc. I think that was Codf1977's point. However just inserting BI instead of the current title is neither one thing or the other. --SnowdedTALK11:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
As has been pointed out, the *current* text is correct. The section headings reflect the publications within the lists, and reflect the titles within the publications. There's no grouping - for example, we don't have a section heading entitled "USA" with the appropriate publications under that heading. As Snowded correctly points out above, following the convention within the article would simply require adding a section for "Ireland", and another for "Isle of Man", etc, and listing the publication. In order to *insert* "British Isles" into this article, it requires a rewrite to organize and group by geographical regions. Of course, if it's deemed OK to edit articles to rewrite sections and introduce new material, its best we're all crystal clear on that too... --HighKing (talk) 12:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
They don't currently match up precisely. See for example North America, which is listed as "A Cumulative Checklist for the Lichen-forming, Lichenicolous and Allied Fungi of the Continental United States and Canada." US and Canada is not North America. Clearly there is scope for improving the article. It also isn't up to you HighKing to resist adding material to that article that is appropriate, contextual and properly referenced. I am not sure what the problem is here exactly. If LevenBoy chooses not to add that material, I will. 14:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
If there are more lists then I would add them, in their own sections relating the heading to the list. I'm less sure about the two books which are not (other than by implication) lists bit that is a minor point. I don;t see High King arguing against adding material --SnowdedTALK14:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Disagree, either add within the current convention or restructure by geographical area (in which case BI or Europe or similar is fine). The latter is a better idea to be honest although it involves a bit more work. FAD No consent to insertion of BI without other changes--SnowdedTALK14:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
@James - the easiest solution is to follow the existing convention. Your North American example, which technically incorrect, is ambiguously referenced since the link brings you to a page entitled "North American Lichen Checklist". If you want to add new material, fine. But the community would ...take a dim view... of an editor completely changing around the current convention of an article, and then adding to an article, solely with the intention to insert "British Isles", especially against a consensus here. --HighKing (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Do you mean the same way the Lichen Society pages take you to lots of references to British Isles? As for the "current convention" of the article, there doesn't seem to be a straightforward one, as the North American example shows. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 17:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
James, restructuring the list by geographical regions is the obvious and least controversial solution - why not just go with that? I'll even do the work if you want --SnowdedTALK17:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
The taskforce is primarily concerned with examining usage in articles - as they are currently being used. In this case, usage of "Great Britain and Ireland" is valid and correct, given the existing current naming conventions used within the article. I believe that setting out to materially rewrite or reorganize an article is not within the spirit of this task force. Restructuring the list by geographical regions might validate an insertion of "British Isles" - but I believe there is no justification for restructuring beyond the insertion of "British Isles", and I disagree with that motive. --HighKing (talk) 23:26, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Holiday spam
Resolved
– Back from me hols, it rained a lot, archiving needs done. I'll get some archiving done later. I think I promised I'd do it yesterday - obviously that didn't happen, can't promise it'll necessarily happen today but I'll do my best. TFOWR11:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll do my best. I'll be around until at least Saturday, and with a bit of luck I'll be popping in over from time to time over the following week. TFOWR23:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Related to the above, and I have mentioned it way up the page but it's probably going to be more visible here, I'm starting to close out resolved issues - marking them as {{Resolved}}, with whatever decision was reached. Any objections? Obviously this only applies to issues that are clearly resolved. TFOWR08:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
"Officially" the holiday is Monday - Friday, but I'll need to spend this weekend packing, sorting stuff out (hence my slightly liberal holiday spam warning - I was hoping to keep the weekend slightly clearer for packing!) I'll be "on-wiki", but only really here at WT:BISE (or doing trivial things). TFOWR08:45, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Understood. I hope by the way that Triton takes you up on your offer to talk. He is a very good content editor and will hopefully realise your 48 hours was mild compared with what others might have imposed. --SnowdedTALK08:54, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Agreed - the resolved issues and any "dead" discussions also need to be archived as the page is 200K+ long. Codf1977 (talk) 08:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Burnt orchid
Resolved
– Leave BI out of this. It's largest population anywhere is in Wiltshire. Adding BI is just silly. TFOWR11:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Triton rocker made a direct change to British Isles Burnt orchid. I have made an ANI report for failure to abide by the general sanction and reverted the change for the moment. However it seems to me that this is one of those cases where British Isles would be better. If there are no objections I will revert my revert. --SnowdedTALK05:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
What Triton rocker did was add yet another CLEAR academic reference ... replaced here:
You are under a general sanction not to insert British Isles into articles. That general sanction is in place to prevent edit wars, as is this project page. All you have to do is to bring proposals here. If you break sanctions you will find yourself subject to blocks of increasing length which would be a pity as you are a good content editor. You just need to learn to work with others --SnowdedTALK06:44, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Looking at it again it would make most sense to delete the two titles Status and Britain, neither add anything to what is a stub, the largest population in Wiltshire is significant but it doesn't need two headings! Comments? --SnowdedTALK07:14, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Agreed the headings are not needed. This is an example of my point about using the title of books to guide the use of BI, the context here clearly is that it is talking about an area of England so BI is not appropriate but Triton Rocker feels he is able to added it because the ref uses the term. Codf1977 (talk) 08:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
My point is I don't think it makes for a good starting point as (setting aside his Topic ban for the moment) it was what enabled Triton Rocker to insert it in this article. It should only be used as the last point if there is nothing else left to guide. Codf1977 (talk) 11:10, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
TR has put in a reference - what is the problem with that? Is the reference not valid? Does it not conform to WP:RS? Oh, it contains the words "British Isles" in the title, that seems to be the problem. Well I would suggest you stop judging it on the basis of whether or not it contains some words that a few editors don't like, and judge it on its merits. It seems to me to be a perfectly valid reference for the subject in question. It's just unfortunate for some that it happens to include "British Isles" in the title. LevenBoy (talk) 11:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
The issue IMO is that the context of the topic did not warrant the change from Britain to British Isles, it was an action by Triton Rocker that he either knew or at least should have suspected was in contravention of his Topic ban and was not appropriate. Codf1977 (talk) 12:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Reference was no problem, but he also changed Britain to British Isles when he was under a general prohibition not to add BI without consent. --SnowdedTALK12:02, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Quite. Both of these edits, for an editor who wasn't subject to a topic ban, would most likely be OK. The problem here isn't "an editor adding the term British Isles once." It's an editor who has a history of doing this and a topic ban prohibiting them from doing it and a recent block for violating their topic ban. TFOWR12:55, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
You'll all probably have noticed that I've gone through the page trying to close out discussions that have reached some sort of consensus. Hopefully this will make our lives easier going forward.
I've marked a few issues as {{Unresolved}} - it would be helpful if we could focus on those. In one of them I've also posted at a talkpage, thanking the two editors from there that helped here, and asking that more editors come here to offer their opinion. In general, I've been applying the following process:
Comments from more topic-knowledgeable editors trump comments from "lay editors" here.
Consensus and comments at outside talkpages "trump" consensus and comments here.
Consensus and comments at outside noticeboards trump consensus and comments here (and they trump outside talkpages, too).
I hope that won't be regarded as too controversial. What may be controversial is: I appreciate that some editors here may be topic-knowledgeable - sorry, but I've ignored that prospect. If you're a regular here I regard you as a lay editor for topics. I'm not sure that's very fair, but I don't have an easy way of spotting that you may actually be a topic-knowledgeable editor. I'd welcome suggestions for handling this scenario.
I'd like to see issues that are definitely resolved summarised to help with future issues - Snowded mentioned a one line summary, retained (I think?) at the top of this page. That sounds good to me. If someone wants to action that I'd be very happy.
LevenBoy mentioned "blanket rulings" for broad topics (e.g. flora, fauna). Where this is workable I'd like to do it. I accept that this won't be possible in all areas (we may get flora to work, but not fauna, for example). I also accept that there will occasionally be exceptions. However, it will make our lives easier if we can rule out the easy stuff and focus on the hard stuff.
Finally - a reminder that I'm going to be away for most of next week. Hopefully I'll be able to drop in from time to time, but I can't make any guarantees. In the absence of regular admin coverage, I'd suggest continuing to raise issues related to sanctions/topic bans/etc at ANI. In the meantime, I'm going to be around until Monday morning, so if you want to raise anything with me - do it in the next day or so. TFOWR14:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
– Article edited to use England and Wales, can be changed as applicable if/when article is expanded. TFOWR12:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
The material in the section relates to the laws of England and Wales, not Scotland or Ireland bar one general reference. So in this case the established "Britain" and "British Isles" are both wrong. I suggesting changing to England and Wales to match the legal material. Ideally the article then either needs the two countries removed (this is a world wide thing not just the US and England) to their own sub-articles, or other country or regional material should be added.--SnowdedTALK10:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
In the specific cases, i agree with snowded on the Tenant farmers article, If the article is expanded to cover Northern Ireland and Scotland then it could say UK. But no need for British Isles there. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
– I'm really not seeing a case for BI here, because... they're Irish Travellers. Use "Ireland" and a term applicable for that part of the BI which doesn't include Ireland. I'd suggest "Ireland and (to a lesser extent) the British Islands [or... the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man ]". Outside Ireland the majority of Travellers are not Irish Travellers. TFOWR13:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Usual problem, used more than once Ireland and Great Britain when, of course, clearly referring to the British Isles as one cannot exclude the Isle of Man and Channel Isles.
I suppose on that one it's first because the article is mainly about an Ireland topic. I did some searching and couldn't immediately find any references online to traveller communities in Isle of Man, CI, etc, although I'm sure something could be found with sufficient effort. This one seems a bit of a stretch really, the existing article at least is about Britain and Ireland. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 12:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
They why are they listed on the British Isle box at the bottom of the page? [11].
They could be there because they are in the British Isles. Whether they are outside of Great Britain and Ireland is the question. I reckon it should be Great Britain and Ireland though, spelling order. Especially in this article, where Ireland appearing out of the blue seems to detract from the Irish when the people are described, though that may just be me. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Again, I've removed the Resolved tag, becuase it isn't. Can someone please explain precisely what the problem with British Isles is here? How does it differ from Britain and Ireland - the latter being an ambiguous term that we should try to avoid if at all possible. British Isles is clearly appropraite here. I support Triton's suggestion.LevenBoy (talk) 09:48, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Again, I replaced the resolved tag since it was placed there by an admin who looked at the arguments and made a decision. If you disagree, open a new section. --HighKing (talk) 10:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Objection
(copied LB comment from above)Can someone please explain precisely what the problem with British Isles is here? How does it differ from Britain and Ireland - the latter being an ambiguous term that we should try to avoid if at all possible. British Isles is clearly appropraite here. I support Triton's suggestion.LevenBoy (talk) 09:48, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a complex subject. It's not quite as simple as may seem from a simply skimming of the surface. The Irish Traveller is distinct from other travellers such as say the Roma or Scottish Travellers. But it's possible that British Isles is appropriate here - Irish Travellers are nomadic. I'd like to take up TR's on his claim that references would be easy to drop, to support TR and LB's claims that Irish Travellers have settled in the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. --HighKing (talk) 10:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think Irish Travellers means exclusively from Ireland, at least not by the article. They seem to have spread, and the ethnic group is called Irish travellers, not just the ones in Ireland. If they have moved to Manx I think British Isles is appropriate. If not Great Britain and Ireland. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
What's needed is some good source material about their geographical extent within these islands - I couldn't see any from a brief online search and there isn't any on that article. Therefore the admin resolved call was a good one, at least for now. I think these are examples of articles where progress still needs to be made in terms of referencing, additional material, etc. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 10:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Why are we looking at this as being "unresolved" based on "progress still needs to be made in terms of referencing, additional material, etc"??? Our function is not to serve as content experts, but to look at usage. The article didn't use "British Isles" and no references can be produced to back that up. Closed. Move on. --HighKing (talk) 11:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I didn't think I was saying it was unresolved HK - the reverse - I was merely commenting that the article could do with more material and sourcing as it's interesting. Or perhaps you are not particularly interested in the detail of any given article? Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 00:09, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Sorry just to be clear on this that BI is only correct if there is evidence that they moved to IoM, so given the definition of Great Britain in this non political instance as "It refers to the largest island only" and not for example Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland what you are saying is that BI can only be used if it can be shown that they moved to every island that makes up the BI ? Codf1977 (talk) 11:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Wow had to move Codf1977's comment there.
British Isles is more appropriate if they live throughout the British Isles, it is more accurate than the current "Ireland and Britain". I think that this article mainly uses that phrase when speaking about geography, not politics, as "UK" is often used.
To clear up Codf, Great Britain is an island, the largest in the British Isles. The Irish Travellers do not have to move to every island in the British Isles for that term to be applicable. However, if they only live on Great Britain and Ireland, than that phrase should be acceptable. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
This question underlines the whole problem with this silliness, the futility of the argument in non-political, non-sensitive areas.
Where and when is "Britain" ... There is no such place. Are you talking about Great Britain, the United Kingdom, some previous incarnation (some of which included all or parts of Ireland). Can excluding all the smaller islands, as well as Isle of Man and Channel Islands etc?
"Britain and Ireland" is an anachronistic term, used as an abbreviation for the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1927, i.e. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), when Ireland and the Irish were subject to Westminister. Anyone supporting the use of Britain and Ireland is, essentially, harking back to that period.
Encyclopedia of world cultures by David Levinson. 1992 "Irish Travellers live and travel throughout Ireland and in the neighboring British Isles (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England)."
Irish travellers: culture and ethnicity by May McCann, Séamas Ó Síocháin, Joseph Ruane. 1994. "Within the British Isles we have four such "old" Travelling groups - the Welsh, English, Scottish and Irish Travellers".
Ethnic groups worldwide: a ready reference handbook. David Levinson - 1998. "Irish Travellers are ethnic Irish whose ancestors as long ago as the 5th century came to be viewed as a distinct group ... Travellers are found throughout the British Isles."
Roma, gypsies, travellers. Jean-Pierre Liégeois - 1994 "There are also Traveller groups who speak ancient dialects, the origins of which remain obscure: for example the Irish Travellers of the British Isles whose language, Gammon, seems to go back to Celtic structures"
Nomads Under the Westway: Irish Travellers, Gypsies and Other Traders by Christopher Griffin. 2008. "Several of the older men had travelled extensively in Ireland and other parts of the British Isles."
The world in so many words: a country-by-country tour by Allan A. Metcalf - 1999. "That language, along with the Irish Travelers who speak it, has spread to the rest of the British Isles"
Ethnicity and the American cemetery by Richard E. Meyer - 1993. "Travellers and Roms abound to this day in the British Isles".
Gypsies, tinkers and other travellers by Farnham Rehfisch - 1975. "Unlike the Gypsies who spread over rather a wide area, Irish Travellers are limited to the British Isles"
Irish Travellers: Racism and the Politics of Culture by Jane Helleiner
Health care needs of travellers by P Van Cleemput. Archives of disease in childhood, 2000. "In the British Isles they mainly comprise English and Welsh Romanichal or Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers, and Scottish Travellers, in addition to a growing number of European Romanichals (Roma)."
Tinkers: Synge and the cultural history of the Irish Traveller by Mary M. Burke. "aboriginal authenticity in the British Isles ... treking throughout the British Isles"
The Gypsies by Angus M. Fraser - 1995. "In the British Isles, the itinerants in Ireland, who are popularly referred to as Tinkers but now prefer to be called Travellers"
Ethnic challenge: the politics of ethnicity in Europe by Hans Vermeulen, Jeremy Boissevain. Edition Herodot, 1984
I've no objection to British Isles on this one, but for the record "Britain and Ireland" is not anachronistic, it is in current use. --SnowdedTALK05:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
And the examples above go to the heard of TR's editing. Nearly all references are talking about the wider group of Travellers and not just Irish Travellers. TR is politically POV-pushing to create new content simply to insert "British Isles" into articles, as he has done on previous articles. This is not the job of this task force, and the sanction is very clear on systematic insertion. I say again, the current *usage* within this article is correct. --HighKing (talk) 10:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I object to "Britain and Ireland" on a semantic basis, but that shouldn't matter now. I do think that British Isles does seem more appropriate here, reading through the article, the sources provided by triton and the article, and basing it on the information provided by this taskforce on usage. Describing their extent seems to be a geographical basis, talking about the islands in which this ethnic group has been settled on. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
"Britain and Ireland" is a very common phrase - although I grant you that it can be ambiguous. But it's not synonymous with "British Isles". Also, none of the sources provided by TR actually back up the statement, and is more of an attempt to insert "British Isles" into the article by adding content - which would be seen as in breach of the sanction. --HighKing (talk) 12:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Indeed interesting. The first reference clearly limits the "British Isles" to the "United Kingdom" by listing the constituent countries. So if we want to redefine "British Isles" to be limited in this way, then sure, I'm fine with that also. (not) --HighKing (talk) 12:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
This one seems to be quite a struggle. At least partly I think this is down to the article itself being rather unclear - for example, on some rather key demographic points, it has unreferenced sources or dead links - it also has rather little about the precise geo-spread of Irish travellers specifically. Another point from the above discussions is that it isn't clear from the sources if everyone thinks "travellers" in, say Britain, are by definition the same as "Irish Travellers" or something else. There seems to be a little bit of glossing over this and looking back in the article history, I would guess Irish Travellers was started as a sort of catch-all for "travellers" plus a dash of stereotyping. I find this discussion a bit counter-productive. What really needs to happen is improvement to that article as a whole. We are bogged down because the article is also a hard subject to gain accurate evidence on. I would suggest a "do-nothing" policy on this one. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 10:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
If you say "Britain and Ireland" is in "current use", Snowded, you would still have to define 'for when' and 'for what', and by whom, because it is clumsy and inaccurate. Does it play by the rules of the Wikipedia?
I am sorry but here you have,
on one hand, a clumsy, inaccurate technically meaningless term without references; and
on the other, 13 perfectly clear and acceptable references staring you in the face offering a solution.
What is the problem?
As a minor point, by nature this group do not just "settle", they "travel" wherever the work, opportunities or other reasons lead them. Hence British Isles. --Triton Rocker (talk) 15:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Triton please read what I say don't just react. I said I had no objections to BI on this one, but corrected you on your anachronistic comment. If you check out the various BI discussions you will find references that show it increasing in use for Atlas titles (to take just one example. --SnowdedTALK08:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it can definitely be improved, however it seems that in referring to a group of what seems like nomads, whom could move around the area, British Isles should be used. Although they probably began in Ireland, the article seems to say that they are old enough to have existed when Ireland was part of the UK, and thus they probably moved around the entire area of the British Isles.
So that is agreed then. No one has presented one reference for "Ireland and Britain" as it is at present.
Please bear in mind what a ridiculous waste of time and energy this debate is in face of such a preponderance of evidence. --Triton Rocker (talk) 01:13, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
it is not a waste of time to discuss changes in controversial areas and get agreement before moving on. That way we avoid edit wars, topic bans etc. etc. The more normal approach for you to have taken would have been to say something along the lines of "OK it looks like we are all agreed on BI here, if no one objects in the next 24 hours I will change it". Its Ok this time, but other articles might be more sensitive and the world will not come to an end if we give people time to respond. --SnowdedTALK03:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Just to help out TR in his quest for Britain and Ireland references:
Nope, my request was for "Ireland and Britain" references - which account for zero. "Britain" and Great Britain are entirely two different matters. Anyway, I went and did some work. The rest of your "foremen" rest on your shovels for as long and you want and natter. --Triton Rocker (talk) 06:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
But if you want an Ireland and Britain reference instead then this one will probably suffice. "This group are an indigenous nomadic ethnic group in Northern and Southern Ireland and Britain....". Plenty more out there. And the point of this is what? Fmph (talk) 08:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
If people haven't already noticed TR has already made the change without getting consensus and going against his topic ban. I have asked him to self revert but he will not engage in the discussion preferring instead to redirect his talk page. Bjmullan (talk) 08:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
@Fmph, unfortunately 'Britain' and 'Great Britain' are not synonymous in the context of this argument. as 'Great Britain' (which is not as defined a term as at first appears) does not include the outer islands, and sometimes does not include the Western Isles either. Whereas when sources say 'Britain', they sometimes mean 'the British Isles', they sometimes mean 'the British Isles' but shove 'Ireland' on also in a kind of belt-and-braces approach, they sometimes mean Great Britain (any definition of same), they sometimes mean 'the UK', and they sometimes mean some vague concept about empire and Britannia ruling the waves.Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Euler diagram of states and government in the British Isles
Which is precisely --- if in doubt --- why we have to move away from politicized terminology and use the geographic alternative --- especially when it is obviously well referenced --- and end this waste of time and energy.
The point being made --- time and time again --- is that "Britain and Ireland" is erroneously exclusive whereas British Isles is inclusive. Southern Ireland is still within the British Isles. --Triton Rocker (talk) 09:53, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
When people say "Britain" these days, they usually mean the "United Kingdom". It's a term actively promoted by official UK sources to become synonymous with "United Kingdom". For example, the British Tourist Authority is located at visitbritain.com and uses the strapline of "Britain you're invited". Other sources, for example The Economist, uses the term "Britain" interchangeably with "United Kingdom". The UK government uses the phrase, British politicians, the BBC, the list goes on and on. Rarely does the term get used to mean "British Isles", and the WP:COMMON interpretation of "Britain" is "United Kingdom". --HighKing (talk) 11:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
While it's true that in vernacular Britain is synonymous with the UK, whether it is commonly synonymous with Great Britain is the question. I think for this the geographic names should be used, seems the most NPOV and inclusive solution. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Based on recent references (last 20 years) I would say that "Britain" is synonymous with "United Kingdom", and vernacularly it is occasionally used to have other meanings. You say that the most NPOV and inclusive solution is to use geographic names. Yet most studies and statistics and news stories are carried out within a political jurisdiction - UK, Ireland, USA, etc. Seems to me that it's far easier to stick with the sources, and to stop trying to rewrite content or cherry-pick publications simply to insert British Isles. All the worse since I doubt there's a single content expert on Irish Travellers among this group of participants. --HighKing (talk) 11:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
See here for official British Government position on use of "Britain" - used informally to mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. --HighKing (talk) 19:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
To be fair HK, I think in that context they were just explaining how the word is commonly used as a help guide for reading the site - kind of like those legal shorthands you often get at the top of big contracts. I don't think it means the British Government officially thinks that. I think the document makes it clear that officially the UK composes of Britain + NI. Around the world though and in many sources of course Britain often is synonomous with UK. There are no simple answers to the endless question of Britain (terminology). Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 21:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Proposal to deal with personal comments on this page
Resolved
– This was raised at ANI. Comments on other editors will be removed, and editors making such comments will be warned. Repeat offences will result in blocks for disruption. TFOWR19:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
It has been stated many times to comment on content, not the contributor, though it appears that recently the volume of comments containing personal comments has increased. What can be done? We cannot reasonably expect admins to monitor discussions 24x7, so can I suggest that in future:
Admins will issue warnings for personal comments
It is acceptable to remove personal comments from the discussion?
With this approach, there is less of an incentive to make personal comments, and this discussion page won't constantly get taken up with pointless name calling. --HighKing (talk) 15:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I would much rather a more open environment where we can speak more freely. The more restrictions in place over a debate the more disputes are likely to spark. Both you and Mick used some foul language, i can live with that. Lets not distract ourselves from the above debate on foreign players by getting into a debate about the rules here. Especially as we now have an article clearly using incorrect use of "Great Britain and Ireland". BritishWatcher (talk) 15:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Tend to agree (and I'll collapse rather than remove discussions, for that reason). In this case I collapsed the part of the discussion that was clearly no longer related to the topic (footy). I suspect a rule that says "anyone can remove/collapse comments" will cause more drama than it will prevent (and I'd recommend leaving removing/collapsing to Black Kite, me, or another uninvolved party), but I'm open to arguments to the contrary. Incidentally, I can live with profanity - provided it's on-topic. "Fucking football", yes: "Fucking User:EditorWithAnAllegedAgenda", no. TFOWR15:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I think as long as third editors can step in and remind others using personal comments not to, it should sort itself out. It's a tricky topic, and I'm sure sometimes if someones editing in a notsogood mood or something issues will occur. I don't think we need to issue warning for them (unless they are obviously directed as a huge insult), and I'm sure admins will be around enough to take care of any blatant insults Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I shouldn't have responding to the obvious provocation - and normally I don't. But it had gotten to the stage where every single comment made by some editors is a personal attack on me (or Snowded, or whoever. This week, it's me). Then their allegations are repeated as fact by editors who appear here with no knowledge, or by admins who skim AN/I reports or the latest interactions. It's hugely more damaging when nobody seems to react, and I'm still naive enough to expect admins to issue warnings. When I reacted, TFWOR posted a warning - fair enough - and it was promptly ignored by Mick to launch yet another attack. Today, TR posts personal comments, and nothing. What's the answer? Perhaps I should preface all my discussions with 10 lines of invective where I describe an editor in some unjustifiable fashion? Perhaps if the shoe was on the other foot, the idea of an "open environment where we can speak more freely" might lose it's attraction??? --HighKing (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, i always enjoy reading the more imaginative and direct responses. It would be helpful if we all avoid going too far in our comments, but i do think the more we focus on the rules and trying catch them out the more problematic things will become. The sort of thing Mick says here is the same sort of way he talks over on the Admin noticeboard most of the time and other admins have not taken action over it. We just all have to do our best not to be provoked. Thats the key thing rather than what others say. I wish Triton would engage properly here rather than getting swept along with all of the tension and going too far as he did in the past before the block. I hope things have changed now. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Fair point. Why I intervened last night is because both of you had gone way off-topic. If any comments today had spawned a similar off-topic rant-fest I'd have similarly warned both/all editors. I expect this page to be messy at times but I don't want it to remain messy for too long. TFOWR17:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
A "no, absolutely", to HighKing suggesting "it is acceptable to remove personal comments". He is already acting in a far too personally invasive and provocative manner. It would be a recipe for disaster.
I am not offended at all by profanity. It is a lot more healthy than dishonesty or denial. I would rather someone tell me straight, like a man, rather than snooping around my edits trying to find some dirt to wind or trip me up with, and acting like secret police.
I am sorry HighKing but you are never going to be an admin and so you don't get to make rules for others. Personal comments will come up because this is all about personal issues for you on two levels:
a) relating to your anti-British-Irish separatist issues
b) relating your self-image. You seem to be attracted to structuring rules and policies for others to follow and are using the issue above.
Personally, I am still waiting for anyone to come up with the reason for a blanket exclusion of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands by sticking pedantically to the use of the term 'Great Britain and Ireland' --- or even more unique to the Wikipedia 'Ireland and Britain'. One cannot.
Funnily enough, I actually went on to further education to study history and geography as a joint honours degree and so I know a little about this stuff. --Triton Rocker (talk) 17:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Once again, personal comments are being made with no reprimand. Do not attribute motivations to me, and especially do not attempt to paint me as anti-British, or Republican or any other nonsense. Show me one anti-British edit I have ever made. I expect admins to issue you a warning - this type of unfounded and untrue commentary has no place on any discussion page. --HighKing (talk) 17:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Such commenting on contributors should be taking place at respective editors talkpages, IMHO. Overall, I'd rather have editors firing f-bombs at each other, then edit warring. GoodDay (talk) 19:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I will comment on the contributor while it is relevant to the debate, as I explained in that debate. "HighKing steers discussions / incorrectly summarises / games procedures / cherry picks references / ignores counter-points, with the explicit and self-confessed goal of removing the term British Isles from the pedia a.k.a. a POV push", is the sort of perfectly valid comment on his contributions here that I will be making, and will continue to make. For that sample statement, I can provide bulletproof diffs for, as each one of these behaviours has occured in that football debate alone. I'll take it to any venue he wants for examination, if he is really interested in clearing his name of this 'wiki-libel' he keeps bitching about, when he's done with making proposals nobody will ever support of course. Me, I'd rather see admins issue warnings when someone blatantly ignores a factual counter-point, that's the sort of wishfull thinking I prefer to engage in. I neither seek or want any admin to stop HighKing from letting his guard down and giving us all a few home truths, as it is usually very informative as to his reason for being here. "HighKing hates the British" or "stay the fuck away from me" is the sort of commenting on contributors I do not make, and will not make, but is the sort of comment HighKing does make when the charade of his wiki-persona breaks down. I will also never attempt to silence my opponents, or game admins, instead of addressing people's actual factual points. If HighKing wants to engage in such behaviour, I could care less if it doesn't get the type of behavioural correction it deserves. If he wants to do that, he can ask Sarah777 how she fared when she went down that route in the Ireland naming poll, and how succesful her subsequent appeals of the resultant blocks of her actually were. Still, she thinks it's because of The Conspiracy that her victimhood driven disruptive fun and games were not tolerated for very long. At the end of the day, HighKing's wiki-career is only going one way, due to the serious issues of self-awareness he has, which I have seen multiple editors observe in him and give feedback on, but without the slightest indication that he gets it. He's not even close to getting it imho. MickMacNee (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Stating "HighKing steers discussions / incorrectly summarises / games procedures / cherry picks references / ignores counter-points" in conjunction with "I can provide bulletproof diffs for, as each one of these behaviours has occured in that football debate" is fine. Please provide these bullet-proof diffs. --109.255.108.96 (talk) 12:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Whilst i know you are not the only one Mick, i must stress please tone it down! You only loose credibility as an editor with endless accusations and swearing even if you do have a valid point or not. We should always try to contribute on the content and not feed the flames by commenting on the editor! Maybe less time in the pub... ;-) The same to everyone else. Mabuska(talk)22:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Look Mabuska, people here just need serioulsy get real, and not be so wiki-naive. Imploring people to 'comment on content' is useless if the person you are debating with is a straight up POV pusher. I will say it one last time, if anybody, I mean anybody, has an issue with these 'accusations', then I'll lay my diffs on the table in a venue where we can all get satisfaction. The football debate has probably been the best evidence yet of all the well known classic behaviours of a POV pusher at work, which the people who deal with it daily will recognise quickly and easily, so I'm glad it's come up. As it happens, I did get to the pub tonight for last orders. I told the lads of the new definition of a foreign player. They laughed their fucking tits off. Good times. /JLC MickMacNee (talk) 01:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with MickMacNee we have a number of editors trying to aggressively remove the term British Isles from articles because they feel the term is a "politicly loaded one" and that they have a problem with the fact the Republic of Ireland is located in the British Isles and would rather it was not. This is POV pushing and by trying to pander to them we are legitimising their political view in unrelated articles. Most of them have the stated aim of the end of the use of the term (see Sarah777 comment here). Codf1977 (talk) 08:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
So *who* are these editors who are *trying to aggressively remove the term* and who have a problem with RoI being located on the British Isles? Name names and provide evidence. --109.255.108.96 (talk) 12:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Hooray. Drama. Or... we could just stick to discussing each issue on its merits and get away from the tired old format of drama-drama-drama? Just a thought... TFOWR12:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
There was a valid point in amongst the off-topic book-burning spiel. Feel free to extract the on-topic part. TFOWR09:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Certain editors attempts to rename the British Isles article itself to erase it from history also highlighted what is taking place here. There can be no doubt, there is a crusade by some editors to remove it, (images of men in the 1930s burning books come to my mind when i think about this problem). Whilst i am glad we are hear because id rather a debate about it than edit wars over dozens of articles, this whole place does give the POV pushing a sort of legitimacy. Whilst i want BISE to continue, one thing we do need and has yet to be agreed, is a strict limit on the number of cases an editor can bring or the number of cases that can be open at one time. Because its impossible when there is like 10 different sections open on this page that we are meant to be following. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
And now we have some editors on an active campaign to insert it BW. I really think you should strike the 1930s comment, you are in effect suggesting that some editors are Nazis and that is normally unacceptable here. --SnowdedTALK09:11, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not suggesting anyone is a Nazi or anything else. But i honestly do see some of what has been happening as an attempt to erase history and change the history books to pretend the term British Isles never existed and that makes me think of people burning books in the 30s. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I am equally as exasperated with those who seek to add it when it is clearly inappropriate or in an inappropriate way. Codf1977 (talk) 09:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
We don't all need to follow each open issue ;-)
I'd like to see topic-experts being brought in much more: an issue gets raised here: we punt it to the relevant talkpage or WikiProject, they come here with comments, we discuss, resolve, and move on. I think that would make dealing with issues much easier.
I'd also like to see categorisation, so that we can make "blanket rulings" and then deal with the edge cases (e.g. 'Robotics articles always use the term "British Isles" (except for this article, because...)' and 'Space-exploration articles never use the term "British Isles" (except for this article, because...)'
The first one is presumably pretty easy - we've done it before, and I'd like to see it getting done every time it's possible to do it. The second one is probably going to require some thought as to how we go about doing it. TFOWR09:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
@TFWOR - So what's the position on editors accusing editors of having a "campaign to rid Wikipedia of British Isles"? That's a personal comment, repeated by many, and it's untrue. Nobody ever seem to get a warning for this any more, although they used in the past. It is these personal comments that should be removed on sight, and a warning issued. --HighKing (talk) 17:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
My position is that I really do not consider it necessary to discuss other editors' motivations in order to resolve issues here. I don't currently have a remove-and-warn policy, but if Black Kite's operated that in the past I'm more than happy to continue it, because the constant sniping is pissing me off. I'll raise it with Black Kite. TFOWR17:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
It is very clear some have been on a mission to remove British Isles from wikipedia, i do not see how we can avoid ever mentioning that fact in our very long debates here. I do not see the problem with me talking about the "Crusade to remove British Isles", especially if its in a general sense and not directed at one editors actions today. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The only reason we are all here today is because it is very clear from the history on wikipedia there has been a crusade to remove British Isles. We must accept what has taken place in the past if we are to understand why all this is happening. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
How about I make a template that says something like "ANI got so pissed off with editors systematically adding or removing the term British Isles that they gave a mandate to topic ban editors who continued to do this. Further progress does not rely on mentioning 'crusades' by either side; indeed, continuing to harp on about this history is counter-productive." Now, any danger we could get back to the task at hand and leave the Wikipedia history lessons to the history tab? TFOWR17:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
What would a template achieve? I do see it as a problem. How are content experts supposed to react if they believe that there's a campaign? Calling it a campaign is a tactic designed to turn it into a nationalistic squabble, and to turn the discussions away from references, usage, context, etc. Look above and you'll see that when a usage can't be supported, the discussion turns personal. That has to stop. I'm not sure if you were being funny about a template or maybe I don't understand how a template would be used. And BW has stated many times on pages that "HighKing has a crusade to remove British Isles" so it's entirely two-faced to then claim that he only makes a general statement. --HighKing (talk) 17:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
It would save me typing the same words over and over and over. I was hoping that the suggestion that it had reached the point where I'm annoyed at having to repeat this might help editors realise that it's time to stop with the history lessons, and start with the moving forward. So yes, I was being funny. Not to put to fine a point on it, but I have other tools I would use before wasting time creating a template. TFOWR18:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
"I do not see the problem with me talking about the "Crusade to remove British Isles", especially if its in a general sense and not directed at one editors actions today." No where in that sentence do i ever say i have never said a certain editor or editors have been involved in a crusade in the past so i am not two faced. My point was i do not see a problem with it especially if we avoid attributing it to a certain editor and are talking about the past. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Well it is two-faced in the context that you've dropped comments on article Talk pages and other Talk pages about "HighKing's campaign". It doesn't matter if you later refer to it as a campaign if it's clear that it's the same campaign, and you'll already tried to lay it at my door. It's a cheap trick, and it should stop. --HighKing (talk) 18:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
It's certainly not as policy-stretching as directing it at a specific editor, but it's singularly unhelpful and counter-productive. Editors arriving here do not need to know the full, gory history of the various crusades, ANI, or anything else. Use this talkpage to talk about BI terminology, not to gripe about crusades. TFOWR18:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Well people need to know if its against the rules or not. If we are prohibited from saying here "crusade" or "mission" regarding what has taken place in the past with the removal of British Isles then so be it, i will not say it again, but its seemed like a reasonable statement backed up by the history. If such terms are banned then we need an agreed way to describe what has taken place that states clearly what came first, because it is the case that one side started this even if the situation is now problematic on both sides. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
If it serves a useful purpose, i.e. it helps us determine the correct usage of British Isles terminology - it's OK. If it serves no useful purpose, particularly if it's already been said a zillion times before, or if it obviously pisses people off - it's not OK. If you want a ruling, this is it: this board is to discuss terminology in the British Isles dispute. It is not to discuss the past history of the dispute. We do not need - nor should we - continue to rehash the same, tired, boring crap about crusades. We all know why we're here, now can we - please - get on with moving forward? TFOWR18:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree we should avoid just debating the past here and focus on the present, but what happens when the past comes up? Like in the debate about the proposals below. Checking through the history to find out what happened / when seems valid in a specific case. n those sorts of cases it seems hard to avoid. From this point on though i will avoid mentioning the crusades on this page as it appears to be a problem. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Checking through the history is fine and useful. Ascribing motivations to other editors, talking about crusades, campaigns, motivations, whatever - not fine, not useful. What's done is done (and blimey! we're talking, I think, about four years ago here) - there is no need to do anything other than say "this was removed (in August 2006)". Who removed it, why it might have been removed - none of that is useful to our current task. TFOWR18:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I am ok with us inviting experts here on a specific issue or consulting them on a wikiproject somewhere to try and get to grips with the subject matter. But when it comes to making proposals here about the remove/insertion of BI i think it would be helpful if we try and form a position here first before raising it on the talk page of the article in question. That avoids bringing lots of other articles into our dispute, only raising it on the article itself after we are sure theres not going to be an "involved editor" objecting to the proposed change.
I oppose anything that would say we should use BI in these cases and not in another. This is very problematic and several opposed when trying to agree on the MOS for this. Banning BI for "political matters" is what some wanted as has been shown below by Snowded. I do not considering it "political" to have a geographical term in any sentence or article. Like the example below = Germany invaded the British Isles (this is BI used in a geographical way and its fine), British Isles invaded Germany (this is BI used in a political way as its giving the BI a political action only done by a state, there for its incorrect). BritishWatcher (talk) 17:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
We certainly have enough use cases to attempt a categorization, and they can be used to develop guidelines. I've already started categorization of the oldest cases. Ideally they should have their own pages I suppose. Any suggestions? --HighKing (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
But we recently tried creating an MOS for this matter giving people guidelines on when to use it and when not to use it. We can all agree on the common sense stuff, but it was impossible to get agreement on a couple of the core areas which is where the problem usually is. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
As I expected, somebody has decided to "test" whether admins are going to enforce WP:CIVIL or not. Let's see what happens with Micks grossly personal post above. --HighKing (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL states, Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of others.. That's pretty much what I said, and then I laid out the ways you do this, even this week. If doing that scares you up so much that you have to whine like this instead of addressing it, I think that speaks volumes. If TFOWR is not interested in addressing it, then there are other venues. You better be ready for the time you push me enough with this crap to spend the time ensuring your behaviour is presented to the people who have to do something about it. MickMacNee (talk) 20:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
If you want to address other editors' POVs - take it to an RfC. Take it to ArbCom. This page is not a venue for addressing POVs but for resolving issues. And you're damn right I'm not interested in addressing it - I'm interested in moving past it. And I'll continue to remove comments made about other editors until, hopefully, it sinks in that this isn't an RfC, it isn't ArbCom - it's a page for discussing terminology. TFOWR20:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I really don't know how you got to be an admin if you don't see the gaping flaws of logic in what you just said. No issue resolved here is legitimate while discussions are tainted by unmoderated POV pushing behaviour. POV pushing is not simply holding a different view, it is about the abuse of process and logic to such a point that the resulting consensus of a venue just like this is not neutral, or even factual. MickMacNee (talk) 20:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Mick it would be far more productive if you contributed to the debate below so we can get agreement on appropriate inclusion of BI, rather than fighting with highking. That will resolve nothing. Dont get yourself into trouble for no reason. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm WP:RECALLable. And I'll repeat what I said on your talkpage: I do not need you to annotate or editorialise other editors comments. If you see the taint of POV in their words - great. Keep it to yourself. Don't assume that you're the only person to see it, but equally don't assume that you need to follow every post by other editors with your personal commentary. Apart from anything else, it seriously detracts from the valid points you make in the midst of all the ... other stuff. TFOWR20:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This is not a regular 'issue' section, and I was merely making an on-point observation on this particular discussion as it was going, as to why it would be extremely wrong to pretend that all this talk of 'campaigns' etc, relates to things that happened years ago. It is happening here and it is happening now. We can agree to disagree on what you are obliged to do if you see it, but I'm not about to recall you for such deriliction. No, if it carries on, which it will, I can see it ending up at arbitration. Annoying and time-consuming as that is, HighKing patently needs that sort of reality check to hit him square in the face, before he gets it, especially if you won't be doing anything about it, as it appears. MickMacNee (talk) 21:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Mick, it's a pity but arb doesn't seem to work. It's just a bloody talking shop, like this page. This page is the pits, it really is. Nothing is going to stop this carry on over British Isles, at least it seems not. One good thing about this page is I suppose that the whole issue is now totally bogged down by stonewalling, POV pushing and mindless "debate". HighKing can't delete British Isles any more because of it, but it's a high price to pay. LemonMonday Talk 22:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Comments on other editors...
Resolved
– This was raised at ANI. Comments on other editors will be removed, and editors making such comments will be warned. Repeat offences will result in blocks for disruption. TFOWR19:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
...have been removed (see "Snip" in the edit summaries). I appreciate that there are comments that predate this that remain, and I appreciate that this new zero-tolerance policy may cause collateral damage. The easiest way to avoid being caught in the crossfire is to keep comments focussed. This is going to reduce some of the humour on this page, and I apologise for that, but it's also going to reduce most of the drama. For which I make no apology.
– No blanket ruling on climate: I still feel we should get the first test (fauna) working first. Very inappropriate use of a redirect: I don't believe BI redirects should ever point to UK pages. The redirect has been changed to an article: further discussion about the article should take place on its talkpage. Every country has a "climate" page: I don't accept that the countries in the British Isles should be any different, so no - don't roll them all into this new article. No comment on the climate of the British Isles, but the climate where I am is generally wet and/or windy. TFOWR12:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Climate is obviously non-political --- even if England has to breath most of its wind second hand after it has been passed by Ireland and Wales (and I have never heard the English complain about that).
I would see a similar blanket ruling to that of flora and fauna above for the use of British Isles relating to climatological topics. It would stands to reason. I find it very difficult to see how one can separate the parts except for the smallest of microclimates.
There is general agreement to an experiment on Fauna (see above) lets try that out first before we move onto another one --SnowdedTALK07:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
No, this is an easy one. British Isles should be the normal usage here. No need for endless stonewalling debate. Let's agree now on this, and show that progress can actually be made. LemonMonday Talk 13:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
No it should not redirect to the UK article! Fix that, that's just pushing the idea that the UK is the British Isles. No-one would want that. Maybe just merge the articles into that, and keep a separate one for each country? That would make everyone happy. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
So merge Northern Irelands page into the UK page. Make the Ireland one clearly just about the Republic of Ireland. And then have the British Isles as an overview mentioning everything and linking to the other articles? BritishWatcher (talk) 14:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Thinking aloud, but I'd tend to agree that the current redirect should become a disambiguation page pointing at whatever more specific articles exist. Incidentally, and without being a geographer, wouldn't climate mostly affect the islands? i.e. there would be "Climate of Great Britain" and "Climate of Ireland (island)"? It seems odd to separate Northern Ireland and Ireland (country) like this, but there's - maybe - a reason for it beyond mere politics.
And re: blanket rulings. If there's a consensus to make anything other than fauna the first test case, that's fine, but if not I'd like to get the first test case running successfully before moving on to further blanket rulings (also, someone mentioned "blanket rulings" was a bad phrase - they're right. Obviously there'll be caveats. "Blanket ruling" is just the term we've been using and it's engrained into my "muscle memory" - I type it without thinking).TFOWR14:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Each country has its own climate section, it's only fair. I believe its a policy of wikiproject countries. As for BW's proposal, I'd be happy to work on that with him. Would that need discussing here? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)#
Climate of the British Isles isn't exactly a disambiguation candidate. It's not synonymous with any of the entities below. I think it should be a summary of the other pages, which can be listed in its See Also section. None of the other pages should be deleted, let's not get into that. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree we would not be allowed to call it a disam page if it was just the links to those different articles. Best bet is for a summary article giving an overview of the details and linking to the main articles. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm prepared to make a ruling that it's entirely inappropriate to have a BI redirect pointing at a UK page, so to answer your question: go for it. I'll defer to WikiProject Countries on this, while noting that I don't set great store by "fairness" - we should do what's right and accurate, and if that means a perception of unfairness by one side or t'other, so be it. TFOWR14:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
That works for me. I'd suggest summarising the other articles - maybe not much more than a paragraph - and use {{Main}} to point to the articles. There's a "Climate of the Isle of Man" article, so include that, and check for Channel Islands etc - if IoM is a blue-link it's entirely possible that CI are too. TFOWR14:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
A dab page or list is basically what I was thinking initially, and I'd certainly have no objection to that if we've got articles for most of the countries. So long as the current inappropriate redirect goes away, I'm happy. TFOWR15:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
So what is it that is notable about the climate of the British Isles, that requires its own article? Surely, given the information is self-contained in other articles, the most appropriate solution would be a dab page. There is already a climate based {{Europe_topic}} template in use, which does not have a neat pigeon hole into which the British Isles or the Balearic Isles, or similar would fit. So the Climate of the British Isles article will end up orphaned. Its just not a notable subject.
It would not be allowed to become a dab page, it could just list the other articles but it would be far better presentation wise to have a summary article, about a paragraph on each of the other climate articles. What makes climate of the British Isles notable? There are many books on the climate of the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
It can not be a dab page. If you stick a dab template on that list one of the DAB team will come around and remove it. DAB would be to deal with something like Ireland which has two meanings. A list of articles about things within the British Isles is not a dab page. There is no reason not to have a summary article (we are talking about a few paragraphs directing people to the main articles). An entire proper article on the climate of the British Isles would be more justified than one on London or a southern region of England. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd suggest the most obvious choice for a list of things would be ... a list ;-) And I've probably not helped much here, I realise that... TFOWR15:26, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
It could be just turned into a list yes (just not a dab), but i think a summary article is justified having a paragraph on each and linking to the different articles, and it would be more helpful for the reader, especially when there are many books on climate of the British Isles. [12]BritishWatcher (talk) 15:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'd like to move to wrapping this up if at all possible. Per Black Kite there are two options:
We delete it.
We create a list of existing articles.
Is there any value in creating a list? Are people likely to encounter the list first, or find it useful? TFOWR15:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
We should not just delete the link, which others will then block ever creating again. The proposed change should be resolved before action is taken. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
As a point of order, deleting the redirect won't prevent it being recreated (it would need to be WP:SALTed, which the deleting admin presumably wouldn't do. TFOWR15:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, there is value in an article called Climate of the British Isles. Have it as a list linking to all other relevant articles. Then when a user who is interested in the British Isles (perish the thought!) does a search for British Isles, amongst other things he comes up "Climate of the British Isles", from where he can go the article of choice if so desired. It aides navigation at the very least. Call it a dab page or whatever, but we need a list, and ideally a short summary as well. It is notable. LemonMonday Talk 15:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I wasnt meaning technical difficulties, i meant the fact it will have been deleted will be used as justification here for a list or summary article not to be recreated. I am ok with it being turned into just a list linking to all the other articles, there is no reason to delete it and not do that. The issue should be does it become just a list or does it become a summary article, with a few paragraphs and linking to the different articles. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I can see your point, but if it is closed in the way I proposed - "Deleted, with no bar on a later creation of a list" - then any objection to the list can be pointed to the close and that is that.Codf1977 (talk) 16:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
As well as not being notable I think we have problems with including the Channel Islands as they should really be including in the climate of France or Brittany as that is what they are closes too and that is what the weather is like. I'm with Codf1977 in that what is needed (and I think already there) is climate for each of the islands. Bjmullan (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually the point is that the Channel Islands share their climate with most of southern and central England, Ireland, southern Scotland , most of Wales and France and parts of Germany, Belgium, Netherlands. The BI as a whole does not have a cohesive climate. But its not the Channel Islands that stands out. Its Northern England and Scotland that are the standouts Koppen World Climate Distribution. Fmph (talk) 16:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This is an attempt at an article, [13] which I created on the redirect then reverted. There is already an article for each island isn't there? The Channel Islands are not always included in the British Isles, so maybe this could be mentioned in the start of the article? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Something like that looks good yes, as long as all the links are present to the different climate articles. I do think something like that is better than a simple list, but it should be one of those two options. Deletion seems pointless, we just need to fix the incorrect redirect. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:26, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree it looks (at first glance) fine, my preference for delete was to get this closed, rather than moving on to the debate of what should replace it which this is not the place to deal with that, if TFOWR is happy then the discussion of the contents can move to the talk of that page and we can deal with other more contentious issues here. Codf1977 (talk) 16:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see all countries covered (IoM, for example), and links to the respective articles. I'd envisaged more of a list, but that's a personal preference. Frankly, so long as it's not a redirect to the UK page I'm happy. I'd suggest moving article discussions to the talkpage, I'll leave this open for now, but I'll mark this as resolved later today (unless Black Kite beats me to it, or just beats me - which is always an option ;-) Incidentally, I'm heading offline shortly - should be back online later tonight, but can't guarantee it - today is my Great Internet Connection Switchover Day, and I foresee unforeseen problems, if you see what I mean... TFOWR16:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Alright, with that I'll insert my edit. Apologies for not summarizing each area. Don't have time to do that right now. Climate of the United Kingdom has a good framework for inserting summaries for each area, and has summaries for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Something similar in the British Isles article? I only added Climate of the United Kingdom and Climate of Ireland to the See also because the crown territories only have tiny paragraphs, in Jerseys case its really just a sentence saying "Jersey is temperate", which is really not useful or informative at all.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Chipmunkdavis (talk • contribs)
At the very least, the main topic should be moved over from Climate of United Kingdom to Climate of British Isles. I cannot see the argument for a separate Climate of Ireland topic so combine the Climate of Northern Ireland with Climate of Ireland as a step to bundling all countries into one topic. After that, just use the other titles to redirect to the main topic. Job's a good 'un.
Thanks to the North Atlantic Drift, the British Isles, including Channel, do share an interesting "Maritime" climate. You cannot try on "France" because the "French climate" goes all the way to down to Alpine and Mediterranean. I am sorry, again, a screamingly outrageous attempt at all costs to avoid the rational and obvious.
I'd love to do a skit comparing a Unionist weather report (...och, it is dour, grey, and mainly overcast day again like I warned you it would be, marred as usual by winds from the South and West) --- with a Republican weather report (...to be sure, it is a beautiful green day and the shamrocks are glistening in the dew, lit by the most joyful sunny breaks!) --- of the same LondonDerry day, but I fear it might not be appreciated here and damage my credibility.
Thank God someone sorted out that LemonMonday chappie. We cannot have individuals expressing their individualism around here, can we? Heavens knows where it might lead.
"..., most of Wales and France, ..." = most of Wales and most of France. Re-read the entire comma separated list and try to understand why the commas were used in each case. And, in case you don't understand punctuation, have a look at the picture. Click on it, and zoom in on the high-res version. It will show that "most of France" has a maritime climate, the same as Ireland, the Channel Islands, most of Wales, the southern part of Scotland, central, southern and the northern coastal areas of England, Belgium, Netherlands, western Germany, parts of Norway, Denmark and Spain. All the same climate. There is nothing notable about the climate of the British Isles. I know who is avoiding the rational and obvious, but who can't accept it. Fmph (talk) 08:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
We could go higher level - Maritime Climates of North West Europe, have a descriptor which includes the phrase British Isles along with the North Sea coastal countries of mainland Europe - then links to all of the other articles --SnowdedTALK09:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that purging all "nonnotable" weather articles are the way to go. A geographic area has certain weather, be it a country or an area. If we follow Fmph's logic through, we get articles like Climate of northern europe and temperature siberia between X and YN. There's no problem having an article about the climate of a country, or of an area. It doesn't have to be special, just do describe the situation. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
We already have articles about the climate of every sovereign state in Europe, and, I think, the whole world. All of them linked from the country's main article. Any additional climate articles need to be notable, otherwise they are unnecessarily duplicating existing content. If the Climate of northern europe and temperature siberia between X and YN is notable then it should have an article. there is already an article which describes the climate of northwestern-europe, and it does so extremely well. We don't need a BI climate page, because no one will search for it, no one will link to it, and it will add nothing to the encyclopaedia. If a DAB page will sate the rabid British nationalism, then I for one am happy to agree to it, but don't lets pretend that it's doing anything other then avoiding the real issue. Fmph (talk) 10:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Some of us here think it is notable, and the fact there are many books on the subject of climate in the British Isles backs our position up. Also please avoid mentions of "British Nationalism" on this page, we are not meant to be assigning motives to anyone. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
There are so many books on the subject even if i was interested in climate i would not have the time to read them all to tell you what they say. Here is a googlebooks link to some [14]BritishWatcher (talk) 10:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
What we need here is a reliable third party source which identifies the major regions under which climate is assessed. Our general rules (which we sort of agreed above under fauna) is that we should use the highest cohesive group. We need an expert here or an appropriate source. To make it clear, if climatologists regard the British isles as having a distinctive climate other than as a part of the oceanic north-western Europe one then I would support its use. But if not then its a needless addition. --SnowdedTALK10:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The general rules agreed above were strictly confined to the issue of Fauna. The BBC Weatherman always talks of the British Isles, we have many books on the climate of the British Isles. There may be other areas too like Northern Europe or something like that, but it does not change the fact climate of the British Isles is notable too. It is not like we are going to remove the articles on Ireland/UK, those will remain, this just helps give an overview of the climate of the geographical area known as the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
None of those climate books reference any sort of notability. How about this quote "Why is the weather and climate of the British Isles so variable?". Fmph (talk) 10:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Isn't such a discussion out of the responsibility of this page? It should be taken up at some Climate wikiproject. The idea here was to get rid of the shocking redirect, that has been done. Actually, the climate articles are not the most well written of articles for either the UK or Ireland, that should be mentioned to a rabid climatologist. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Sorry, but I've had enough. There are some pretty unpleasant posts in this thread: rather than read through and extract all the bile I'm just going to close it. The subject may be common knowledge to people in the know, but it's not common knowledge to me - nor, I suspect, to many readers. Find a reference to justify changing it, find a reference to justify keeping it unchanged - I really don't care. For the time-being: FOOTY seemed happy with it as it was, and that's good enough for me. Revisit this topic once the definition used is referenced. TFOWR07:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Unresolved
– I really don't feel comfortable closing this out while the definition used is unsourced. Get a verifiable definition of "foreign" in place and I'll revisit this. TFOWR12:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Given the name of the list, then surely foreign means not Scottish? I'm not sure why either Great Britain and Ireland or British Isles are appropriate--SnowdedTALK10:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
That was my concern, in fact its a list of people who play for the Scottish Premier Leagues who do not have any origin in the British Isles, so the title is wrong --SnowdedTALK10:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Valid use of "British Isles", it has been common for a number of years not to refer to players born in the BI as a 'foreigner' - for example no one refers to Ryan Giggs as a 'foreigner' playing for Manchester United. Codf1977 (talk) 10:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
the obvious correction would be to List of overseas Scottish Premier League players but even that is wrong, but any technically correct version I could think of would not be in every day use and be an unlikely search term and potentially confusing. I think we should leave that issue to another place; with the article text as written BI is correct. Codf1977 (talk) 10:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
The Footballer article depends on if its accurate or not. If people in the British isles are treated a certain way compared to the rest of the world then it should remain. If it only applies to Scottish players, or UK players (rather than ROI, Isle of man etc) then it should not mention British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
In reply to TFOWR, the SFA (indeed any UEFA country) does not have a definition of "foreign player". The do have a definition for a home-grown player though, which is what they use for any rules concerning the number of players that can be in the team for certain competitions. The term "foreign player" has no place in these articles and smacks of nationalism. --HighKing (talk) 16:55, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I found this interesting article with the heading Fifa backs 6+5 rule to restrict foreign influence from 2008. I'll quote the relevant paragraph: "The relevant article of Fifa's "regulations Governing the Applications of the statutes" now say a player is eligible provided "he has lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association".
This says that unless a player has lived within the assossiation territory (Scotland in this case) for at least 5 years after the age of 18 then they are considered 'foreign'. This would put into question the criteria of excluding players from the British Isles. Jack 1314 (talk) 17:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi Jack, that is correct. UEFA only defines "home grown" players. The interpretation would then be that somebody trained at an England club would be considered to be just as foreign as somebody in Brazil. WP usage is at variance with UEFA definitions. --HighKing (talk) 18:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
"Home Nations" is generaly inappropriate in Wikipedia; it is too parochial for an international encyclopedia. Why should it not mention British Isles? There is nothing inherently wrong with those words. TOo many people are bending over backwards to find reasons to avoid them. Their use here is not inaacurate. LevenBoy (talk) 09:59, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that anyone is saying that Home Nations should be used. I gave a reference on FIFA ruling on the eligibility of players playing in an assossiations territory (in this case Scotland). The heading for that article mentioned the word 'foreign', but HK has informed me that UEFA don't use that term but rather they use "Home grown". The question now is, should the article name be changed to "players who are not home grown in Scottish football teams", or something similar. Jack 1314 (talk) 16:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
The term "British Isles" isn't recognized or used by UEFA or FIFA, or even the associations of any of the national football organizations in the UK or Ireland. On the other hand, the term "Home Nations" is a WP:COMMON term used in sport among teams from these islands. There's not many competition in Association Football that involve only teams from UK&I but one that does exist is for players with Learning Difficulties. And that is called the "Home Nations Championships" - see links here from the IFA and here from the FAI. --HighKing (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there anything on the FIFA position? If foreign means people born outside, with no grandparents and no five years residency then its simple. If England etc. are a special case then its a matter of the best collective noun - of course it might be that FIFA count UK as a special case but not Ireland (the state) --SnowdedTALK11:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I think there is justification for saying British Isles in this case, if we are going to change the term then we would have to go through every single season since 1998 to ensure everyone from England, Wales, Northern Ireland the ROI, Isle of Man and Channel Islands are added to the list. If the concern here is about the use of the term "foreign player" and it some how being seen as FIFAs official definition, then lets change the name of the article and the wording of the introduction, to just say Players from outside of the British isles, or something along those lines. The situation with the UK + Ireland is complex on this matter, with Irish players appearing to be able to pick and choose which Irish team they play for, with people from the Isle of Man/Channel isles having to play for England by the sounds of it. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
'foreign player' is in common use in contempory coverage and historical analysis of the EPL/SPL competitions, and it's meaning is well understood, as outlined in the article, as any player not born in or playing for for England, Wales, Scotland, or the Irelands. Isle of Man I have no idea about, but nobody in their right mind talks about players not from the 'home nations' when what they actualy means is a foreign player. The term has got nothing at all to do with the phrase 'home grown' in current usage as the new home grown squad rules, which is a modern invention and has no relation to national team eligibity. Instead of pissing around in here with things some people seem to have no clue about but want to object to anyway, why not ask the opinion of the people who know. Once they've stopped laughing, I'm sure they will set you all straight, and may even give you references if still not convinced. Either that, or we are about to see BISE be the source of yet another astounding fuckup producing more garbage content just because of HighKing's irrational hatred of the term BI. MickMacNee (talk) 13:22, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
If you didn't have such an irrationally abrasive manner, I and others might care about your opinion. Most of the astounding fuckups I've seen have been usage of British Isles where clearly it doesn't belong, and most of the irrational arguments start when no references or sources can be found. Funny that. --HighKing (talk) 17:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
You can keep shoveling this if you want, it's becoming a theme of yours I see, but nobody is buying it. Nobody here, and I mean absolutely nobody, is so stupid as to believe that as long as someone is chucking around 'sources' in a debate, they are not a POV pusher, and the evidence of that comes in what you say after people even bring you sources, or point out the flaws in the ones you bring. We already have terrabytes of evidence to support the conclusion that what you might think is 'clearly' wrong based on 'sources', isn't necessarily so. But yet, we still have to do this dance time and again on any topic, whether you know anything about it or not, and topic banning you is apparently not a solution that let's people actually write articles they know about. This debate on this example is proceeding along very familiar albeit tedious lines, as you waste inordinate amounts of other peoples time pandering to your crusade to change the English languague. MickMacNee (talk) 19:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Your pointless name-calling is better suited to a playground full or unwashed pimple-faced adolescents - they might even be impressed. I've learned to tune out the nationalistic ranting, and pity you for hating the Irish so much. Maybe Riverdance was a step too far... --HighKing (talk) 19:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
You tune out a great many things, that's simply a well known fact. You have got no idea what you are talking about, you haven't got a shred of evidence to back up your pathetic name calling about nationalism and your actually rather serious allegations that I hate the Irish, whereas I can produce diff after diff after diff that shows you are a basic POV pusher whose only purpose at Wikipedia is to game play over the inclusion/exclusion of the term 'British Isles'. You've even just provided a couple this last hour in this very section, although as usual, you won't have a bloody clue how/where/why, such are your self-perception issues and general poor understanding of NPOV. MickMacNee (talk) 19:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Both of you - knock it off. The constant comments about each other are pissing me off. Both of you know the tired old mantra: comment on content, not the contributor. You shouldn't need me to repeat it. I won't be repeating it. TFOWR20:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
When I said "knock it off" what I really meant was "knock it off". Mick, deciding whether or not to use "British Isles" in an article about soccer really does not require in-depth knowledge on an editor's past editing patterns. High King, any editor who isn't topic banned is entitled to post here and all-caps demands like yours below are well short of the level of conduct I'd like to see here. Both of you: KNOCK IT OFF. If you both want to continue squabbling here I'll cut-and-paste it to ANI and let the wider community decide how to address your respective grievances. TFOWR07:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I've said it before and I stand by it, if the problems of a dispute all stem from one single editor's views and methods, it is perfectly fine to comment on that editor's views and methods in the discussion. In the unlikely event that nobody is aware of the backstory of this page (and given the fact we have invited FOOTY people in here), this sort of commenting on the contributor is absolutely helpful to those editors who would benefit from such information, including editor specific aspects, before adding their own input. I've always done that where necessary, but I've never once gone down HighKing's route of simply unjustifiably asserting that the reason he says or does what he does is simply because he 'hates the British'. That is what I call 'commenting on the contributor' in a disruptive way, not what I do. You can see below where this discussion has arrived, and I will stand by the assertion all day long that it has only arrived there because of HighKing. The original complaint was quite different to where we've ended up, again. MickMacNee (talk) 20:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Funny how the warnings only start getting brandished when I respond - I've had about enough from you that anyone can reasonable be expected from to take MickMack today, this must be the 4th or 5th rant. I respond once, and suddenly the warnings start flying. Even BK posted his response below, directly after your first comment on the editor. Well fuck that - I'm responding, not initiating, seeing as how I can't expect or rely on warnings to appear when the comments start - there's only so much anyone can realistically be expected to take without responding, and these comments are now so endemic that there's a lot of editors out there who read them and believe them. As to MickMack and LevenBoy and others - what percentage of your last 100 comments on this topic have you commented on the editor and not on the content? So don't start acting the fuckwit about NPOV and gaming the system. Your constant barrage against me HAS TO STOP! And saying that this discussion only arrived here because of HighKing - if you bothered your arse actually taking part here, I DID NOT open this topic, and I DID NOT have anything to do with this article. Triton Rock changed it, and Snowded opened it here. I'm entitled to comment, which I've done, and I'm entitled to ask for references, which I've done. You are *NOT* entitled to accuse me of not knowing my arse from NPOV, and you are *NOT* entitled to lie across multiple topics accusing me of motives and behaviour that *YOU* have invented. So if you can't or won't comment on the content, KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!! --HighKing (talk) 21:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
wtf are you on about with 'stay away from me!!!!'. This isn't your talk page. The only time I've ever gone to your talk page is to fulfill your request during one of the hundred times you've bleated on about 'what am I doing wrong, which policy am I breaking', and you treated that insight into your issues like you do with every single other person, complete and utter self-denial. You've got some bloody brass neck talking about the damage of lies, or are you about to expand on this idea that I 'hate the Irish' in all this victimhood going on here. I didn't fucking think so. I've got no control over what Black Kite or anybody does, so enough of it already. You are accusing me of attributing this topic to you, when it's pretty bloody clear from what I said below that I know full well who started it, and my reference to 'where we are now' is to how the conversation changed from what it was, a topic specific issue being explained and debated as such, although not very cluefully, into the same generic 'BI is not sourced so it goes' POV push. Your own words condemn you, which is why you never responded down there to that perfectly on-point observation. Triton Rocker and his edits are a direct result of your long running POV campaign, he's said so himself about a million times so I don't know how you haven't picked up on that already. You can't dissacociate yourself from his existence simply because you won't voluntarily self-examine, and nobody has the time or the will to force you to do it. As for this venue, I don't participate here normally because it has no business existing, no legitimacy at all due to the way it operates and it's founding premises, which violate NPOV in themselves, but when I saw where this one was going, I simply had to comment. You don't like it, then leave. I've said all along this venue only exists due to your campaign, so let's test that theory once and for all and see what happens if you retire, and see whether the page and the things that occur on it would be necessary anymore, or whether this whole dispute is artificialy created and sustained, and is causing more disruption than is worth for the odd mistaken use of the term by editors who simply don't know any better. If this venue has been dealing in the main with simple mistakes, it's news to me. No, it deals with the kind of mistake that requires someone to consider someone else's language wrong and seek to correct it on their behalf, for no good reason other than pure POV. I hope people do believe what I write about it and you, because it's fact, and I'll defend it anytime anywhere if someone gives me motivation to do so, such as the prospect of your behaviour actualy being examined in a proper venue once and for all, with real examination of fact from fiction, evidentiary motive from asserted motive, policy knowledge from policy distortion, and the prospect of actual consequences for proof of systematic behaviour that is to my mind one of the worst violations of NPOV I've ever seen. MickMacNee (talk) 23:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Mick is right - this is the standard footballing convention as regards "foreign" players in Eng/Scot/Wales/NI/Ire. As he says, asking at WP:FOOTY will confirm this. BritishWatcher's points above are also relevant and valid. Black Kite (t)(c)15:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
You'd think that if it was a standard footballing convention, a source would have been found by now? BW's point is relevant only if "foreign player" is a common term used in football and used to include all the home associations of the "British Isles". But it's not. For example, this is a fans forum for a poll on best foreign player, and it includes Roy Keane. This BBC article compares where today's premier league players come from with a decade ago, and include RoI players as foreign. This article defines "foreign" as any player not eligible for the National Team. This Newspaper article defines foreign as anyone who isn't British. --HighKing (talk) 17:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Then we should simply remove the term "foreign player" and focus on it just being a list of players from outside of the British Isles. Im not sure about FPs correct usage(i am not a big football fan as i am denied a national football team) but "foreign player" is a more complicated matter in the UK than in other nations as no one has EWSNI citizenship.
Restricting it to just Scotland, would mean having to go through every single season since 1998 for all the other players to add. The author of the article in question clearly included the Republic of Ireland, Us going along and changing the criteria and the makeup of the list is the sort of thing we should be avoiding here. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Let's put aside, for now, that issue of the way "foreign player" is defined as it is being used in the article. If we remove that definition, then it begs why is the article relevant or notable? I could understand it if the list was relevant to players who would be regarded as not being "home grown", and would therefore impact the teams that could be fielded in certain competitions. But if it's just a random list based on some editor's own and irrelevant criteria..... --HighKing (talk) 18:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm assuming - I'm hoping - that it's not based on "some editor's own and irrelevant criteria". However... I would like to see refs for the definitions at the top. That would help us with the issue at hand. Beyond that, I'm going to agree with MickMacNee and Black Kite - let's punt this to WP:FOOTY. TFOWR18:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Well no one involved in the BI naming dispute decided to create the list which clearly included the Republic of Ireland (excluding their players from the list), so we should avoid just attacking an editor making a list about this. Considering the complex nature of "foreign" when relating to EWSNI and yes ROI, it seems such a list is justified. Lets say we go with the foreign player source above that mentions the UK, it fails to take note of the fact the isle of man is not in the UK and that they are not foreign ( theyd have to play for the English national team) so in such a case saying British isles (excluding ROI) would be just as reasonable as saying UK+IOM+Channel Islands. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
True, but someone from the BI naming dispute changed the article to insert "British Isles". The first thing we check when the term is either added or removed is to see if a reliable source or citation can be found. That's where we're at. And it seems we can't find a reference... --HighKing (talk) 19:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The first reference uses the definition of "outside the UK and IRE". The second source doesn't give any scope to their definition. The other article appears to have been the original template for this article, and uses GB&I. --HighKing (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Hmm that one should probably be changed to say the British Isles, if we accept the usage on the Scottish article. They clearly also mean the Isle of Man/Channel islands are excluded from that list, yet only say Great Britain and Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The usage on this article is unreferenced and unsourced. We've established that the term is not used by UEFA, FIFA, the SFA, or anywhere else that we can see. Given that Triton Rock inserted the term, and there's no references, the article should be returned to it's original state. Fair's fair. If I'd removed the term, it would have been reinserted first, and debated second. That said, the references pointed our by BK and others would justify a change to either UK&I or "Home Nations". --HighKing (talk) 19:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
If a list of foreign players (basically excluding people from EWSNI and ROI) are justified then that has to include the IOM and Channel Islands, because players from there can play for England. Just saying GB and Ireland, missing out IOM and Channel islands is inaccurate. It should say British Isles, its describing a geographical location. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I have come across this article (as i mentioned on the Footy page)[17] which says:
"There has been some confusion and much debate in recent days about whether or not Nacho Novo can play for Scotland," said SFA chief executive Gordon Smith."On one hand, the Fifa regulations say that George Burley can pick eligible players who hold a British passport - and, on the other, we have the gentlemen's agreement with the other Home Associations that says that we will pick players based on their bloodline."
That was in 2008, i dont know if there has been changes since then, but according to that it doesnt sound like FIFA view English people to be "foreign" when it comes to Scotland and there for nor are people of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands which are not part of the United Kingdom. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
So, rather than being about the usage of GB&I and/or BI to mean 'foreign player' in the context of the SPL, which was the original complaint, suddenly it has turned into the usual tit-for-tat "fair's fair" gameplay of adding/removing the term 'British Isles', with the usual 'BI is not referenced' POV push trump card being offered, conveniently overlooking the fact that 'Great Britain and Ireland' was similarly, not referenced, and that its correction to British Isles was perfectly justifiable based on the Isle of Man aspect. Is anybody surprised the discussion somehow came round to this, given the person involved? Anybody? MickMacNee (talk) 20:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't know how you sneaked in above me BW, but my post was to HK, but you've pretty much nailed the GB&I point I was trying to make. The fact is, the issue of national team eligibility has always been a somewhat convoluted one for the BI, but the notion of who is and isn't classed as a foreigner for the purposes of the EPL/SPL simply in common usage, derives if anything from the issue of work permits rather than national team eligibility. MickMacNee (talk) 20:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Foreign means from another nation and Ireland IS another nation. The use of BI would be total inappropriate in this article. In fact in footballing terms England, Wales and Northern Ireland are foreign as well. Bjmullan (talk) 00:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Not in English/Scottish football it doesn't. Is it a topic you have any familiarity with at all? I do not accept that anybody can make this kind of basic mistake if they do, certainly not if they watch or read about the sport with any regularity. Do you even realise that the first 'foreign player' to play in England was actually a Canadian, well before 1900, and that this was so noted as the first 'foreign' player despite some English teams of the time having been made up entirely of Scottish players for years? And the only way Ireland's status in this issue as a different 'nation' would be even remotely relevant is as you point out if we did start treating the UK as one nation for footballing reasons. And then we really would have proved that this entire discussion is not grounded in a knowledge of football at all. MickMacNee (talk) 01:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the logic Mick. It also proves that treating British Isles as one nation (the rest being "foreign") for footballing reasons also shows that this entire discussion is not grounded in a knowledge of football. Foot nicely shot. --HighKing (talk) 11:07, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
God knows where you got that conclusion from, but the football world treats anyone from outside the British Isles as foreign players wrt the EPL/SPL, so whatever you think I might of said to say I shot myself in the foot, it's clearly not what I said, or meant for that matter. MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Mick if you are saying the the reader needs a knowledge of football before he can even understand this article then maybe the article name should be changed. What about "List of Scottish Premier League players not from the UK or Ireland"? Bjmullan (talk) 08:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm saying readers who don't have a clue about football should not be trying to fix any article about football, especially not if they are going to ignore people who do know about football. Your proposed title is nonsense, it is simply factually incorrect as well as being made up of terminology that no sane person who knows about football would ever use in favour of simply 'foreign player'. If you think that this title is so confusing for someone who knows nothing about football, and you are not happy with the introduction which explains what a foreign player is, then take it up with the football project. If you ask nicely, they might whip you up a foreign player (association football) article. Renaming this list is not going to fix a problem which, if it exists as you assert, has far more wide reaching implications for Wikipedia than just this one article. MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
if you are ok with a list existing with a title like List of Scottish Premier league players not from the UK or Ireland then there is no reason not to be more accurate and talk about players from outside the geographical location of the British Isles (like you could say outside of Europe). The trouble is saying UK and Ireland is not enough, because it fails to cover IOM and Channel Islands, both of which are not part of the UK but under the criteria stated (about national teams), would be covered as they play for England if they are from the IOM.
There is no need to rename the list. If there are people out there who don't know what 'foreign' means in the context of the SPL/EPL, then the place to explain that is in the article, not by violating WP:PRECISION and WP:COMMON NAME in the title by producing titles that, if you don't already know about this definition of 'foreign', would not make any sense as a list scope anyway and would still have to be explained in the article. MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
We're getting pulled off topic. TR inserted "British Isles" without reference. We've now looked and none can be found. Furthermore, other similar articles use "Great Britain and Ireland". On that basis, the article should be reverted, as has been done numerous times in the past when the term was inserted. If we want to then debate a more appropriate title for the article, or whether what this article uses as a criteria for "foreign" has relevance, or whether the article should even exist, we can start another discussion. --HighKing (talk) 11:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
'Great Britain and Ireland' is also not sourced, and it is also factually incorrect. 'United Kingdom and Ireland' is also factually incorrect, and violates the much vaunted 'apples and oranges' rule of mixing non-associated terms - in football, there is no UK or 'Ireland' team. British Isles is factually correct for the geographic area needing to be described, whether people have a clue about football or not. This page is not a gaming venue, so ignoring these facts while just pushing for removal of BI is simply not going to happen. MickMacNee (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Great Britain and Ireland is not accurate, the criteria talks about people playing for the national teams to help define if they are foreign or not. people of the IOM play for England, there for just saying GB + Ireland excludes them. It rightly says British Isles and the other article for the English premiership foreign players should say British Isles too. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Commonsense has to rule. It is just another typically ridiculous POV pot stir by HighKing on his "remove British Isles at all cost" campaign.
I am sorry but there is a considerable degree of chauvinism in the exclusive joint term "Great Britain and Ireland" towards the other smaller islands in the British Isles --- exactly the same kind of chauvinism the Irish accuse the English of. We should be conscious of that chauvinism, and remove it.
The all inclusive geographic term "British Isles" remains the over-riding and non-political resolution to all these problems.
It is pointless to refer to "other similar articles" as if it means anything because,
a) they could well be equally wrong, and
b) either he or one of his minions have probably already changed them to suit his agenda.
It is fine to bleat "comment on content, not the contributor", TFOWR, but I don't see you contributing to the topics and having your time, energy and goodwill wasted.
There will come a point when all concerned have to admit this is one man's psychological baggage around which the Wikipedia is being bent and deal with it at that level --- the sooner that point comes, the better. --Triton Rocker (talk) 14:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
TFOWR you said above "term "British Isles" remains the over-riding and non-political resolution". The issue MANY of us have (not just HK) is that the statement is a very politicly loaded one. When it come to flower and fauna I have little problem with the term but here we are using it to describe people from different sovereign nations. Bjmullan (talk) 14:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Triton Rocker, I am absolutely not going to contribute to any insertion or removal of the term "British Isles", for reasons I would have thought are blindingly obvious. TFOWR15:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) With all due respect if "MANY" find the statement ["British Isles"] to be a "a very politicly loaded one" it is their problem and they should deal with it on their own - they should not try to deal with it by trying to remove references to it. This is POV pushing pure an simple. By act of nature the Republic of Ireland is in the British Isles and no amount of debate can change that. There are uses that are clearly wrong when discussing matters only pertaining to one area of the group of islands, but this is far from one of those - it is time to close this and get on with other more important stuff. Codf1977 (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that British Isles is clearly the correct term in this article, as that is the case List of foreign Premier League players should have Great Britain and Ireland changed to British Isles. As that is the accurate description of the location the criteria is talking about. just saying GB + I is not accurate. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I was not commenting on if "British Isles" is "politically loaded", even if some find it so, it is still POV pushing to edit to remove it. Codf1977 (talk) 15:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
British Isles politically loaded? What utter, utter shite! It's only politically loaded in the minds of idiots. British Isles is correct here. I'm going to change it if someone has not already done so. One good thing about all this "discussion" - it keeps the lid on the British Isles removers no error. What's the score so far chaps? Are we winning? LemonMonday Talk 14:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I've restored the version prior to the edit that prompted this thread, without prejudice to whether the version is correct or not. It's a little like protecting a page: The Wrong Version goes with the territory... TFOWR15:46, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, so High King has asked at WT:FOOTY#Definition of "Foreign Player". I'd suggest that we wait and see what the conclusion is there. I appreciate that football is one area most of us (well, excluding me) know a fair bit about, but right now this thread is generating way too much heat and not nearly enough light. The article's lead is very poorly referenced, and I'm hoping that's something that can be addressed by the WP:FOOTY folk. Until it is, we're just throwing wild-ass guesses around, and worse. TFOWR15:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
So far nobody there has said the term is clearly incorrect and should be changed. How long will we be waiting for a response? I think people will presume that matter has been dealt with now. What happens if there are no more comments. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
To summarize so far:
There is no agreed definition for "Foreign Player", official or otherwise. It doesn't exist. References have been shown to use a wide variety of definitions, all from good sources.
Great Britain and Ireland. The argument to keep these terms is that these terms were the original terms used in the article. Argument against is that it omits the crown dependencies.
British Isles. Argument against is that football isn't organized this way - there is no British Isles team - and that it fails to correctly distinguish RoI as a "foreign" nation.
Home Nations. Argument against is that it is a parochial term, and more common in Rugby and Association Football. Argument for is that it is a sporting term in use, and a collective term for the sporting associations. Leaving aside the other discussions about the relevance of the article, etc, it might to broadly capture what has been discussed so far. --HighKing (talk) 15:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Having looked at the article again I have come to the conclusion that the definition is badly written in that it make two attempts to define what a foreign player is. (First by mentioning BI and then refining this with all of the national football teams.) Would it not be just easier to re-write this to say: "2. Are considered foreign, i.e., a player is considered foreign if he is not eligible to play for the national teams of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland." I know that I will get accused by some of removing BI but it would make the article read better. Bjmullan (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
@BW: the discussion was active yesterday, doesn't seem to be much happening today. I'd suggest give it until Sunday evening - that gives folk who are only online at weekends a chance to comment. Any objections? Sadly I no longer have anything to occupy me on Sunday nights...TFOWR16:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
ok, we should all take a break from this for 48 hours then and pick up where we left off, including taking into account any more comments. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, TFOWR, I did not mean adding or subtracting the term British Isles.
I meant you and the others actually working on the topic themselves as I did.
It strikes me that this issue has attracted a load of individuals who demand to have an opinion over others work but who are not doing any themselves, e.g. Tenant farmer and numerous others.
I apologise for asking this outright, Bjmullan, but do you have any academic expertise in this area at all, if so what?
It is very hard to tell who one is actually speaking to and at what level, and it is not very fair for the rest of us if you don't.
Unfortunately, your statement is academically wrong. We have no other inclusive, non-political geographic term to use.
Triton Rocker if you have any doubts over my statement on BI being a political laden term then I suggest the you take time and read British Isles naming dispute where they are many reference to support this claim. As for academic expertise I was unaware that I needed any to take part in this or any other discussion. Perhaps you can correct me on this assumption. Bjmullan (talk) 16:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
British Isles is just as much a geographic term as Europe or the Irish Sea. Some people may not like the term British Isles and think it is political, but it is not a reason we should avoid using it. BI should only be removed when it is inaccurately used. In exactly the same way GB+I should be removed and replaced with British Isles when GB+I is inaccurate. Like in this case. People seem happy for it to be about the ROI and UK, yet they are unhappy about using British Isles even though thanks to the IOM and CI it is the accurate term. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure if this source has been mentioned above, but i found this telegraph article about the English one "A mere 12 players from outside the British Isles were named in the starting line-ups when the 22 founder members of the Premier League kicked off the competition's inaugural season in August 1992." [18]. This BBC one too [19] uses British Isles when talking about foreign players. It does seem to be standard practice compared to some other methods, even if it is not an official definition by UEFA, FIFA or the SPL. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
How can you state that "It does seem to be standard practice"? That is your opinion, but we need references. As I posted earlier above:
BW's point is relevant only if "foreign player" is a common term used in football and used to include all the home associations of the "British Isles". But it's not. For example, this is a fans forum for a poll on best foreign player, and it includes Roy Keane. This BBC article compares where today's premier league players come from with a decade ago, and include RoI players as foreign. This article defines "foreign" as any player not eligible for the National Team. This Newspaper article defines foreign as anyone who isn't British. --HighKing (talk) 17:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Sunday Evening has arrived already
Well it is now sunday evening. Whilst there have been no further comments in our section on the Footy WP, another debate about eligibility for the England team did come up here. That basically confirmed the fact again that FIFA appear not to have any official position on internal UK players they are all just British citizens, its simply being down to a gentlemans agreement between the 4 FAs not to pouch each others players from what ive read. So "Foreign player" does not apply to English people when talking about Scotland, there for it does not apply to the Isle of Man or Channel Islands, who can play for England. There for it is inaccurate simply to say Great Britain and Ireland. The situation with Irish citizens in regards to being foreign is more complex but considering we have several sources who talk about players from outside the British Isles, considering the creator of that article chose to include Ireland, and the fact the English alternative article also covers both GB and Ireland, there is no justification for us to remove the Republic of Ireland (basically include their players in the list as foreign), something which would require us to go through the history books to check for over many years. This may not be too hard for the Scottish Premier league but its like to be far far more difficult for the English one.
Such a change is required because at present we are saying GB + I even though they are also referring to the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. The introduction can of course clearly explain in detail who is left off the list, but there is no reason why the British Isles should not be mentioned on those articles.
You've got more into this than I have - are you saying that an Irish Citizen (not born in Northern Ireland with the dual option) is able to play for Scotland? --SnowdedTALK17:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I still think that the best solution is to clearly define point 2 of what a foreign player is and not have two stabs at it. Therefore point 2 would simple read: "2. Are considered foreign, i.e., a player is considered foreign if he is not eligible to play for the national teams of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland." That covers it in one sentence. Bjmullan (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
No i am saying people from England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands by FIFA rules would have the right to play for Scotland from what i have read on that WP. It seems its just an internal unofficial agreement by the four home nations FAs to not pouch each others players that stop them from getting Scots to play for England and vice versa. ROI players would not be eligible so officially FIFA would view them as foreign.
The trouble we have is both of these lists were created clearly excluding Irish players, and quite a few reliable sources can be found doing the same when talking about foreign players from "outside the British Isles". There for i do not see a need for changing the criteria of the list (which would be problematic, going through every year of both leagues to check of Irish players and to add them) to just be about the UK, IOM and CI, but at present it excludes people from the IOM and CI, yet only says GB and Ireland. It is far easier to just explain this is about people from outside of the BI, which is why my suggested name change above to avoid the term "foreign player". might help resolve the problem. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
BW - you posted at WP:FOOTY: agree, there is no need for a change and the list is of use to the reader. Fine. The list is now back to the stable version, before TR made any changes. You've also agreed with the following:
UEFA, FIFA, and the SFA, FA, etc, have no official definition of "foreign player"
The definition used in this article defined "foreign" in terms of eligibility of national teams
Many of the definitions use the term "British" to define "foreign". i.e. Not British = Foreign
The original poster, and other articles, all use "Great Britain and Ireland".
If we all agree that GB&I is inaccurate, this discussion then revolves around what changes, if any, should be made to the article. Your argument for "British Isles" needs clarification, because it doesn't gel with your previous argument for "British" being used in previous definitions. I've outlined the choices above - perhaps you can address the pros and cons of each choice? I believe the best option is to use either "Home Nations" since it is a sporting term that includes UK&I, or that we amend the existing text to simply state "the associations of UK&I". --HighKing (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe i said there was no need for a change before the previous version was restored. I believe a change is needed for both articles now because they incorrectly just say Great Britain and Ireland when clearly they also mean the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
So we have the following options..
Remove the term "foreign player" from the title and make this just about people from outside the British Isles.
Change Great Britain and Ireland to British Isles in the introduction of both articles and explain the situation relating to ROI. (can do this without without the above idea)
The other option would be to remove the ROI and treat it as foreign players. This would involve us havin to say United KingdomIsle of Man and Channel Islands but the bigger problem with this idea is we would then have to go through every season looking for Irish players to add to the list.
We would then be changing the criteria of the article because of our dispute here and we would be going against quite a few examples who talk of foreign players from outside of the British Isles. The creator of both lists excluded Ireland as "foreign". We should accept that and not say we do not like it. We just need to fix the terms used, and British Isles is the accurate term and of course the detailed explanation about who is not included can make clear its about the right to play for the associations. But at the end of the day, if people accept that ROI can remain being treated like England on that list, there is no reason not to say British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
There's two problems as far as I can see. I can accept that "foreign" isn't intended to include British players - that is, players who are eligible to play for one of the associations of ENISW. But I don't see how "foreign" can include non-British. And that comes back to the definition used within the article - it uses eligibility to play for national teams to determine inclusion on the list. So I believe that is the definition intended, and simply stating it in those terms is clear and unambiguous, and in keeping with the definitions used by sport and association football. --HighKing (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
There are 3 issues here..
1) we have to decide if the list should continue to exclude Irish players and basically treat them like EWNI players. I think it should do that, several sources do the same thing, the creator of that article and the English one both deemed it was important to leave Irish players off when talking about "foreign".
2) Now if we accept that the list continues to exclude Irish players we then have to decide if we should remove the term "foreign" to avoid confusion. If we can live with foreign remaining in the titles of the articles then we then have to move on to the explanation. I would support removing the term foreign, although i do not think its needed if we are clear in the introduction.
3) At present it simply states Great Britain and Ireland. This is inaccurate because it leaves out IOM and CI. Now we can either add Isle of Man and Channel islands or we simply say British Isles in that sentence.
I see no reason not to say British Isles if we accept point 1 and 2 point. We also need to remember the work that will be needed if we decide we can not accept point 1 and must treat ROI like France rather than like EWNI .BritishWatcher (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Do we have any sources yet? I don't believe we need to decide whether the list should exclude Irish players at all - surely someone's commented in writing somewhere on what SFA policy is? TFOWR20:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
There's no sources and no policy, simply because there's no concept of "foreign players" in football. There is only the concept of "home grown". Players are assigned to national associations, so anybody not assigned to the Scottish association is considered foreign to Scotland. --HighKing (talk) 00:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
And it would be very very difficult to adjust these lists to simply define foreign player as non Scottish. There must be a lot of English, Welsh and Irish people who have played in the Scottish Premier league over the decade it has existed. It would be even worse for the English premier league. So going with the definition of anyone from outside Scotland clearly is problematic. We should there for stick with the current criteria, but state it accurately. To do that all we need to do is change GB+I to BI so the channel Islands and IOM are not ignored. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
ROI would be considered foreign by FIFA. From what i understood EWSNI are not considered foreign because we all are British citizens and the FIFA statues makes specific mention of the British FA's being allowed to field their own team. However i have just come across this article [20] which says WSNI players would be considered "foreign" to the English premier league.
The term foreign is clearly problematic, and i think we should seek to remove that. The easiest way of dealing with that without having to change the inclusion/exclusion criteria of the lists and content would be to say players from outside of the British Isles. Going through 12 years (or how ever long the leagues have been run) to find all the Irish players to add them to the list would be rather time consuming, but to do the same for English, Welsh and NI players for the SPL and even worse to find Welsh, Scottish and NI players for the English premier league would be a nightmare. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
This list's scope, and the concept of what is a foreign player or not, has nothing to do with SFA policy. It has nothing to do with FIFA either as it happens. It is simply a concept in common usage in football, full stop. People were talking about foreign players in the SPL/EPL and their predecessors, long before FIFA (est. 1904) even existed, and have included Ireland in it, in all it's forms, ever since. FIFA's post-1990s definition of a 'home grown' player is about as relevant to this list as a cucumber. What you are about to do here is redefine or otherwise uneccessarily garble a concept that has been commonly understood in football for over 100 years. British Isles is correct, GB&I is not. MickMacNee (talk) 21:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Talking of cucumbers, the concept of "British Isles" in football is yet another cucumber. It's not used by anybody connected to football. This is starting to look very like an article where it looks like the next attempt will be to "rewrite" the article, just to insert the term. --HighKing (talk) 00:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
"This is starting to look very like an article where it looks like the next attempt will be to "rewrite" the article, just to insert the term." - I hope that was not assigning a motive to our actions here.
The reality is actually the opposite. I want Great Britain and Ireland to say British Isles because at present it fails to mention Isle of Man and Channel Islands which are also excluded from the list. I have also suggested we remove the term "Foreign player" because it clearly has several meanings. My proposed title change to something like Players in the Scottish Premier League from outside of the British Isles would also address the "foreign player" problem in the title. The alternative to mentioning British Isles is to continue to fail to mention IOM/CI or it is to change the criteria on the list and radically change it if we try to insert English, Welsh, NI and Irish players. That option clearly has to be avoided.
There for if we accept the fact this list is to treat players from Scotland like players from England and Ireland, then we need to use the term British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think it's very clear what's going on. We've established there's no official definition for "foreign" player. We've established that footballers are assigned to "national" associations, not geographic regions. We've established that Isle of Man and Channel Islanders come under the FA (England). The article itself uses these definitions when it states A player is considered foreign if he is not eligible to play for the national teams of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. So yes, I don't understand why you feel the need to change the title of the article and insert a different definition to the one that's already included. Far simpler to delete the outside Great Britain and Ireland part of point 2. --HighKing (talk) 01:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Why is it far easier to delete that sentence, when we could replace the inaccurate use of Great Britain and Ireland with British Isles which covers the accurate area. I am prepared to support leaving foreign player in ther intro and in the title if others are (i thought that is what people were concerned about). But GB+I needs to say BI. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
If you connect that point with the previous points that were established, it makes no sense to change it to British Isles.
Maybe you missed it. You're ignoring the fact that national football associations are not geographic (e.g. Channel Islands are part of the FA (England)), there's no definition for "foreign player" by any football association, and you're conveniently switching from agreeing with the discussion at WP:FOOTY where one editor stated I will just like to remind everybody that the article is stable and there has not been any debate regarding any player neither nobody wanted to incorporate other British nations in it. On the other hend, the list has been very usefull to show the non-domestic players that played in the Scottish Premier League.. Note the use of "other British nations" and "non-domestic players". Interestingly, in response you said I agree, there is no need for a change and the list is of use to the reader. when "British Isles" was in the title, but now it appears you want to change the title and the definition? It's clear from the article what the original author intended - which was to define foreign in terms of eligibility to play for national associations. --HighKing (talk) 01:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I agreed with that editor when the article said British Isles, it was over 12 hours before TFOWR changed it back to Great Britain and Ireland at your request. I agree with you the article is justified and as long as we explain what we describe as foreign i am fine with that. I thought that is what people had a problem with here, (Irish not being treated as foreign). So if you are comfortable with that, then that issue is fine. We are just left with what to do with that second sentence which currently says: Are considered foreign, i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, determined by the following:. You say we should delete it, i see no reason why that should be deleted. I support that stating the correct term which covers the area in question, Not two islands, but the geographical location known as the British Isles which includes GB+I+IOM+CI. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I pointed out that you agreed when the term "British Isles" was in the article, sure, but you were agreeing with the editor that the article was stable and no changes were necessary, *and* the fact the other editor was talking about "British" nations and "non-domestic players". It's wrong to include players with eligibility to play for RoI in that list - and this is the point - because the average reader assumes that it is a list of non-British players. That's a problem with using the term "British Isles" for non-geographic articles.
But even leaving aside "foreign", and whether Ireland should be included or not. Geographic regions have nothing to do with establishing eligibility - your insistence on inserting "British Isles" didn't get agreement at WP:FOOTY and I've pointed out several things that are wrong with it, and the simplest solution. We can agree to disagree and let TFWOR make a ruling based on the evidence. --HighKing (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I am happy with the article as it is with one exception. It currently says GB + Ireland where it should say British Isles. The eligibility rule for the national teams is mentioned in detail below, that of course should say. The problem is its not just people from GB and Ireland who are eligible for those national teams. It is in fact people from throughout the British Isles including the Channel islands and Isle of Man. I see no reason why we should delete a whole sentence just so that we do not have to correct a mistake and use the term British Isles.
I was and still am prepared to support a change in the title and the wording to avoid saying "foreign player" if that is problematic in relation to the Republic of Ireland, but if you are fine with the criteria for the list, i do not see the harm in saying BI in that sentence. This is a clear case of where GB + I is used but is about the whole of the British Isles. I am happy to debate this matter further, i think we should avoid having an admin make a ruling one way or another at this stage, there certainly needs to be more debate. But if a ruling is to be made then these are the facts as i see them.
We are in agreement with the contents of the article. (it should continue to exclude English, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish players and people from IOM and CI).
The key problem is a statement that presently says "Are considered foreign, i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, determined by the following:"
This is a problem because it clearly leaves out the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
The two options are either to correct the sentence by saying British Isles (the area clearly meant) or we delete the sentence just so we do not have to say British Isles.
That sums it up i think. Use of British Isles in the sentence would be totally justified, it is a geographical location that accurately reflects the area involved, it is also an area which several sources have used when talking about foreign players from outside of the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The article should not use a geographic area to determine eligibility. Doing so with necessitate adding players like Shaun Maloney to the list, seeing as how he plays for Celtic and Scotland but was born in Malaysia. Or adding John Barnes or Owen Hargreaves as foreign English players on the English article. At the risk of repeating myself, there's a simpler solution, to simply delete 5 words. The article doesn't suffer - it's still clear to readers how the exclusions are determined, and what's more, it's more accurate. --HighKing (talk) 11:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
But it dos not. It states outside of a geographical area and then explains how it is determined (eligibility for all the national teams within the British Isles, clearly listing them). There is no confusion in that, the only problem at the moment is we list Great Britain and Ireland which is not the whole geographical area in question. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, that sums up where we disagree. The geographic area is different that eligibility. If you use a geographic area then you'll have to add Shaun Maloney. If you use the eligibility criteria, it makes the geographic area meaningless. And if you're now suggesting that the geographic areas are used to describe the national teams and not the players, that's yet another change you want to make to the article to insert the term, and also using UK&I is more correct since we are now switching from geographical to "national". I can see you're not going to agree. Let's just agree to disagree and let TFWOR make a call. --HighKing (talk) 12:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
So what happens to someone who is born outside of the BI but is eligible to play for one of the national side? I still think we ditch the BI bit altogether and only use the criteria concerning if they are eligible to play for one of the four nations. It really is that simple. Bjmullan (talk) 12:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Well it says..
"Are considered foreign, i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, determined by the following:
A player is considered foreign if he is not eligible to play for the national teams of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland."
So it does not say anything about being born somewhere. it is simply describing the geographical location we are talking about and then defining it by eligibility to play for one of the national teams within the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
and at the moment the problem is it is stating the wrong geographical location because it should be including the isle of man and Channel islands. If we do not state the geographical area then it would make just as much sense to include France. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
and at the moment the problem is it is stating the wrong geographical location because it should be including the isle of man and Channel islands - well, no it's not. Above you state eligibility for all the national teams within the British Isles - well, using the exact same criteria, eligibility for all the national teams within Great Britain and Ireland is equally correct. --HighKing (talk) 14:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I never said it does. I said that *you* stated that when you were attempting to use "British Isles" as a way to qualify which national teams were included. I'm simply trying to point out that using a geographical area clashes with the normal eligibility criteria. Using a geographical area to qualify the national teams (as you tried above) would actually mean that GB&I is correct since all of the national teams are located on the two main islands (although I believe UK&I is better since "national" equates to political boundaries). --HighKing (talk) 15:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
"Are considered foreign, i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, determined by the following". clearly fails to cover the IOM and CI there for it is incorrect. Changing that to say outside the UK and Ireland would still be incorrect because the IOM and CI are not part of the UK. Saying British Isles there makes sense, is the only reason i can see for the grouping at all, if this is more about political than geographical then we would need to not treat the ROI the same way as EWNI. And as there is confusion over the legal definition, we might have to treat EWNI players differently too and consider them foreign. Either option would require us to go through the logs of every year for both the English and Scottish Premier league to add those players to the list. Just saying BI seems like the simpliest and quickest solution to the problem we have, just "deleting the whole sentence" is another option, but i think its helpful to mention the geographical area we are talking about. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
You're now going back in circles. This is frustrating. Let's take it point by point. If you say "outside GB&I determined by the following", what exactly are you referring to as being "outside"? --HighKing (talk) 15:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
People from outside of Great Britain and Ireland. (which would mean players from the IOM and CI would have to be on the list). The eligibility definition afterwards deals with the point about being eligible for one of the national teams within the British isles, which covers the citizenship issues. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
People from outside of X is wrong in this case, doesn't matter if X is GB&I, UK&I, or BI. Therefore, delete the "outside of X" and let the eligibility criteria remain. --HighKing (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It would be wrong if it said born outside of GB or I or outside the BI. But if they are eligible to play for a British national team they are not deemed foreigners, they are simply foreign born. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
To quote BW:
“
That basically confirmed the fact again that FIFA appear not to have any official position on internal UK players they are all just British citizens, its simply being down to a gentlemans agreement between the 4 FAs not to pouch each others players from what ive read.
”
Lol gentlemans agreement? Northern Ireland recently fielded an English player they poached and are allegedly trying to secure an £8 million (maybe it was £7) rated English striker who's dad is from NI? Mabuska(talk)21:59, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
... Comment on other editors snipped. Editor who posted it has already been warned. Re-removed. TFOWR08:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
This whole area is rather confusing and seems to be a good reason just to change the title and the terms to talk about outside of the British Isles which would avoid any content change that would take a very very long time. I have no national football team to support sadly so i dont take a real interest in national teams or all these rules. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:36, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I can't see how "outside of the British Isles" is especially notable while I can see the case for "foreign". However in that case foreign would mean outside of the UK. We really need something authoritative about actual qualifications under FIFA rules or similar to determine this one. Press reports of gentlemens agreements are rather dubious --SnowdedTALK15:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The exact definition is hard to find. There was this article just a couple of days ago [21] talking about English premier league clubs having a home grown rule, which considers English or Welsh as homegrown but not Scottish. The telegraph football correspondent last year said that if FIFA introduced a similar rule it would treat Welsh, Irish and Scottish as "foreign" to the English Premier league. [22] although according to that first article, FIFA has given up on pushing the rule because it would have broken EU law. i can not see how ROI players would not be considered foreign players officially today under FIFA or UEFA rules. So the term might just be outside the UK +(IOM+CI) are deemed foreign, but that is no clear either despite us all having the same nationality. I agree a clear list on foreign players is more notable than just a list of players from BI. But it would be hugely time consuming for us to go through the list and add ROI citizens to it (and the English player one), and it would be bad to have to add Welsh, English and NI players to the Scottish list, but a real nightmare to do the same thing for the foreign player list in the English premier league. Thats why it would seem more sensible to keep the criteria for the list, just amend the name or title if its a problem. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The exact definition is hard to find? Nope - one doesn't exist. The only definition concerns "home grown", and the English Premiership have implemented rules using this definition. --HighKing (talk) 15:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Which treats Welsh and English players a different way to Scottish, Northern Irish and players from the Republic. There for if we go by such a definition we would have to insert a huge amount of other players to the list. Far easy to focus this just on the geographical area. Players from outside the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Its not difficult - if you go with "not British" as a definition of foreign which is reasonable then you just create a section for Irish and let people add to it. I very much doubt anything other country section is complete. If the current definition is "Scottish" then add in setions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and put a hat note in each section. --SnowdedTALK15:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
We would be changing the criteria of the list, and creating a huge burden on other editors there when the solution is just to clearly state its about players from outside the BI. Editors included ROI players for some reason and other sources have done the same when talking about foreign players from outside the British Isles. Highking does not seem to have a problem with the list treating ROI players like EWNI players. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Would I be correct in summarising the situation as: the SFA have informal agreements with various other FAs, and these agreements aren't well documented?
It seems to me that E/NI/S/W are all "non foreign". I'm surprised that the phrase "Great Britain and Ireland" was used (instead of "the United Kingdom and Ireland") - I presume that that's due to Ireland being one big island for the purposes of football? Is that correct? It also seems to be correct to say that Ireland (i.e. the country, not the island) is "non foreign". Is that also correct?
Do the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have their own FAs? Are they part of this "gentlemens' agreement"?
IOM and Channel Islands basically act like counties of England (this shows them in a list of counties and other equivalents. [23], and their players can play for England. Irish football (the type we are talking about) is split between NI/ROI. The issue of how we define foreign within the UK itself is more complicated. I considered that as we were all British citizens we dont class people from other parts of the UK as foreign under official regulations, but some of the above articles posted before suggest they do get treated differently. The one from 2 days ago said English and Welsh are treated as "home grown" in the English premier league, not not Scottish and NI. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, so would I be correct in saying that the article needs to say something more restrictive than it currently does (i.e. "Great Britain and Ireland" is too inclusive, and "British Isles" is definitely too inclusive)? That seems to me to be a discussion for the article's talkpage, and outside our scope here. Or am I misunderstanding? TFOWR16:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
We should leave any major content changes up to the editors there. I do not like the idea of us deciding its best to simply consider outside the UK as foreign or simply say everyone is foreign if they are outside Scotland which would mean someone has to then go through every single year to check for Irish players and add them to the list or Welsh and English too, which would take a long time. The problem is at the moment it says Great Britain and Ireland, but we are also talking about the IOM and CI because they play for England. This list is basically a list of players from outside the British Isles not ie.(outside GB and I) as it says currently BritishWatcher (talk) 16:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
No it's not. If that was the case, players from outside the British Isles but who are eligible to play for E/NI/S/W would also need to be added to the list. That is why using geographic regions is just silly. As I've suggest previously, the easiest solution to this would be to simply change point 2 to read Are considered foreign, determined by the following: --HighKing (talk) 16:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
If they are eligible for call up to the English or other national team then they are not "foreign" or outside the British Isles. They may not of been born within the British Isles or GB+Ireland but it does not mention being born there. We are stating a geographic area and then detailing about eligibility to national teams within the British isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
LoL. That's *two* definitions. Either you're *not* from the British Isles like, say, John Barnes, or you are. Also, either you're eligible to play for England, like say John Barnes, or you're not. It makes no sense to say "not from the British Isles, determined by whether they're eligible to play for X". None whatsoever. That's why using geographical regions here simply don't make sense. --HighKing (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It says "outside of Great Britain and Ireland" or it would say "outside of the British Isles. I do not get how we can not mention a geographical area. You could talk about foreign players (outside Europe). Nothing in that sentence mentions where you are born, we are talking about foreigners not eligible to play for our national teams, so that would not include someone born in Israel now living within the British isles and a citizen within the BI (be it Irish or British) . If you do not want it to say that sentence and you would rather no geographical area stated at all there, then how would you feel about it saying British Isles when describing the "5 FAs within the British Isles"? It just seems very odd to me that we would have a list including the ROI, unless its based on geography, with us all being in the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Earlier you said it referred to "People from outside of X". Being "from" somewhere has zero bearing on eligibility, and you're also now guilty of mixing apples and oranges - geographic areas and political boundaries. You have yet to explain the relevance of British Isles in determining eligibility. The article is plain wrong to say "People from outside of British Isles" since it would exclude footballers who are *from* somewhere else but are eligible to play for whatever reason. Your example about the player from Israel makes the point perfectly. They are not *from* the British Isles, they are *from* Israel. Even if they are eligible to play for Scotland, it doesn't change where they are *from*. Being *from* somewhere, and being eligible, are two completely different criteria - even if they overlap much of the time. --HighKing (talk) 18:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
Is there any reason we couldn't just list the FAs involved (FA, SFA, WFA, IFA) instead of specifying a geographical region? TFOWR16:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
An editor found an incorrect use of GB+Ireland and tried to change it to BI. We should not just get rid of the sentence so we do not have to change the term. To me it does not really make sense to talk about foreign players whilst treating ROI citizens the same way as EWSNI, unless we are doing so because its a geographical area. Like (players from outside of Europe). This article is talking about the British Isles, theres no reason why it could not say something like "the four FAs within the British Isles" or something like that, but wed have to mention the IOM+CI are covered by it. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think I'd be happy with that. Am I correct in saying that IFA covers both NI and Ireland? (I'd also add that IOM + CI could be covered in a note - "CI and IoM fall under English FA", something like that. TFOWR16:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, not sure it matters anyway, I'm just trying to educate meself.
I think I said a while back, when I marked this as "unresolved", that I was inclined towards "British Isles" here. I'm still not really seeing any reason why BI isn't OK. I do still have concerns about the sourcing in the article, but that's really outside our scope here (and I can address it in the time-honoured fashion, by plonking lots of tags on it). TFOWR17:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed on the sources. I can understand the view that the article should include ROI citizens, or that it should include EWNI players too and treat them all as "foreign", doing that would take a lot of work though and massively change the list consider its over a 12 year period. But i see no reason why BI can not be mentioned when it clearly covers people from GB+I+IOM+CI which makes up the British Isles. Anyway i will wait a while on this one before posting comments again so others can comment, i think ive spent a couple of hours on this case today lol. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
@TFWOR, Can you please explain how you've leaning towards that conclusion? I don't believe you properly understand the difference between eligibility and geographic locations. Neither have anything to do with each other. If you state "someone from outside the British Isles", that would exclude all the players you were born elsewhere but who still qualify to play. In fact, using any kind of "from outside X" qualifier is totally wrong since that has no bearing on eligibility. For example, John Barnes (footballer) was born in Jamaica but played for England. --HighKing (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
But the wording does not mention born within Great Britain and Ireland. Theres a difference between being foreign and being foreign born. If you remove the mention of the geographical area, then there is less justification for a list that treats ROI players like people from EWSNI. It would be like having a list of foreign players outside of Germany and France, what would be the point? Where as a list of foreign players in the UEFA league from outside of Europe would be justified, in the same way talking about the location of the BI is. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
If this John Barnes guy travels abroad, is he not allowed to say he is "from England"? does he have to say he is from Jamaica at all times because he was originally born there? BritishWatcher (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
@BW Simply removing "i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, " from the 2nd point makes absolutely no difference to the article, since the real criteria being used has to do with eligibility to play for a national team, and not where someone is *from*. John Barnes isn't *from* England even though he played for the national side. --HighKing (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
As I understand it, eligibility is decided for each FA? (i.e. a player is deemed eligible to play for England, Ireland, etc). So phrasing it as "the FAs of the British Isles" seems to me to be the most concise way to handle it. Apologies for terse response, my Internet connection seems OK but Wikipedia is very slow. TFOWR18:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Correct - eligibility is decided by each FA using their own criteria although most are fairly similar. Phrasing is as "the FAs of the British Isles" is only as correct as using the existing phrase of GB&I since "the FAs of GB & I" namely E/NI/S/W and RoI are all part of GB&I. So why would we change it? It's not making anything more accurate, and it's simply not required in any case. Simply removing "i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, " from the 2nd point makes absolutely no difference to the article, since the real criteria being used has to do with eligibility to play for a national team. --HighKing (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It's more concise, and seems - to me - to be more accurate. Why mention two islands (implicitly excluding IoM and CI) when we can say BI which implicitly includes IoM and CI? (Still terse posting, but connection seems better...) TFOWR18:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It would be more concise to delete the phrase. It adds nothing and the next line provides the correct qualification and rules for eligibility. And the danger is that now we're changing the article so that instead of "players *from* outside X", we're now using eligibility based on national association criteria and saying "FAs of the X" while is already dealt with. --HighKing (talk) 18:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It should state both the geographic area the article is talking about (or saying are not listed) and then it goes into more detail explaining the eligibility to national teams within the British Isles. As for this "from" business, there is a difference between being foreign and being foreign born. I i was born in one city and spend the rest of my life living in another, do i always have to say i was "from" that city? The eligibility description that follows mention of GB + I at present is there to explain things in more detail. Just saying foreign is anyone not able to play for EWSNI and I makes little sense because of the point raised below by Snowded. If we are not going to change the criteria for what the list includes, then making it clearly about the area is a way of justifying the list. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Wrong. The article does not talk about a geographic area and has nothing to do with a geographic area. That's the entire point! Eligibility has nothing to do with the British Isles. The football associations are aligned politically according to nations in the UK&I - again nothing to do with British Isles. It's really very simple but being made into something far more complicated that it actually is. @TFWOR, you've implicitly acknowledged above that the *from* critera is incorrect by using the eligibility argument instead. So why not simply remove the phrase? --HighKing (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
If players born in Ireland are eligible to play for Scotland then (with a note to explain this) its OK to use British Isles, although Home Nations might be better, there is a whole article which explains the complications there. If they are not then there should be a section for Irish and BI should not be used. The normal definition of "foreign" relates to citizenship, so without some proof of an exception for the citizens of the Republic that should surely stand. Now I know that in Rugby the position is very clear and anyone from England would be "foreign" in Scotland and that is covered by IRB regulations. There must be an equivalent rule or regulation somewhere in FIFA.--SnowdedTALK18:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Irish citizens would not be eligible to play for Scotland. They would be deemed "foreign". Some sources appear to suggest EWNI would also be considered foreign, at the very least home grown players in England and Wales are treated differently in the English premier league than Scottish and NI players according to the article. This is the reason why i think its important we make clear its about a geographical location (the British Isles), otherwise it makes little sense to have Irish treated the same way as English. The only thing EWSNI and I have in common on this matter is they are part of the British Isles and of course use to be part of the same country. An article on foreign players from outside Europe would make sense but an article on foreign players from outside of France and Germany or two sovereign states makes little sense, unless its about a geographical area. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Well please tell me how an article about Players in Scotland outside of the British Isles makes any sense? One on Foreign players may do --SnowdedTALK19:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I did not make the list and the same applies to the English one which operates the same criteria, and several other sources talk about foreign players from outside of the British Isles. Talking about players from outside a geographical location is reasonable, like the example of Europe above. The trouble with changing the criteria for the list is it would involve a huge amount of work for some editors, and we should not change things so radically because of our dispute here. Changing the wording and description, whilst keeping the criteria the same seemed the simplest solution. Highking does not appear to have a problem with Irish players being treated like English or Scottish players though, its all about the wording. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realise that the amount work for editors determined questions of notability of fact here. The British Isles has never had a football team, not has it been a collective known for a group of football teams. Are lists of players outside of geographical areas present elsewhere on wikipedia? It seems to me that there are two credible altrnatives
Make the collective phrase Home Nations which has a strong history of use in Football and its doubtful anyone using the list would not know that, if not its explained on the page which is what pipelinks are for.
Use British Citizenship as the definition and add a section for Ireland and mark it as requiring some work.
Home Nations excludes the FAI, as far as I can see? So both proposals would require handling of Ireland. It comes back to - what is the actual definition used (and where are the sources to support the definition the article claims). If Irish players are regarded as non-foreign (and again, no sources, grumble, grumble) then "British Isles" still seems to me the most appropriate term. TFOWR20:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Historically Home Nations included the whole of Ireland, and it Rugby the term continued post 1922. What BW says above is that Irish Players are regarded as foreign. I share your grumble about sources. Also TFOW, are you starting to become one of the players here? --SnowdedTALK20:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd hope not, but I'm keen to wrap this issue up if we can, and I thought I saw an opportunity. I think we can definitely rule out the old phrase - "Great Britain and Ireland" - but I'm still not convinced I'd be happy marking this as resolved (which I suspect you'll all be glad to hear!) It's also curiosity on my part - this is one thing I probably should know about, so I don't look an arse down the pub ;-) TFOWR20:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I am too, but I have seen a few good admins get sucked into the debate here and on Ayn Rand pages and then had to opt out of the critical referee role --SnowdedTALK21:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The fact Home nations use to mean the whole of Ireland and now is usually just used for ESWNI is another reason why saying British Isles is better than "home nations". The whole of Ireland has always been part of the British Isles. Ive been googling for explanations, all i come across is articles, most of which i have linked here. I have yet to find anything that says ROI players are not deemed foreign regarding the rest of the UK. Ive seen things which suggest they would be ineligible to play considering there is a dispute between NI and ROI about their own players there. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Irish players would be considered foreign, but it appears so can EWSNI, considering the home grown rule mentioned below. To change the article criteria to mean we must list English, Welsh and Irish players on that list would radically change the list and it would be a huge amount of work because editors would have to go through every single year, for over a decade. The same would have to be done for the English premier league article, which covers the same area. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
We should not make a change because of our dispute which requires other editors to do a lot of work simply because we have decided something we can not agree to simply refer to the British Isles. Other sources have talked about "players from outside the British Isles". [24] , BBC [[25], this Daily mail article [26] mentions about the new home grown rule that "Liverpool initially believed it applied to footballers from across the whole of the British Isles, but their interest has now cooled after it emerged only youngsters brought through at English and Welsh clubs will qualify." So the British Isles as a geographical location in sport is justified. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually the citations demonstrate that British Isles is no longer relevant for football clubs. The Telegraph article uses Home Nations as well by the way. This further shows that Foreign for Scotland is anything outseide Scotland. We really do need to focus on notability and fact not convenience. --SnowdedTALK20:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not going to support an option that requires someone else to go through the history books of every single year these leagues have been in existence looking for English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Irish players to add them to the list, especially as the same would have to be done for the English premier league, which will have had a hell of alot of Scottish and Irish players and potentially Welsh players, if we are not using their current "Home grown" view. Just so we do not have to mention the British Isles.
Others have created that list, we raised it on the WP, no one suggested we must change it to just talk about people outside scotland rather than outside Britain and Ireland or the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, at this point is it fair to say that there are two options: (1) foreign = not Scottish, or (2) foreign = "something else"? I'm inclined to agree with BW that WP:FOOTY broadly supported (2), and didn't mention (1). Unless there are new sources to change my mind... TFOWR20:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The English article List of foreign Premier League players was created in 6 August 2007. It originally stated in the introduction only people not capped for England would be included however the actual list did not mention anyone from Wales, Scotland or Ireland. On 29 of August 2007 the original article creator changed the introduction to say anyone not capped for British and Irish national teams. A debate that started at the time and had a few comments over a couple of years can be found here. The Scotland article was created in January 2009 again just stating people from outside of Great Britain and Ireland. I do not see why us here, who clearly have no clue about these matters should dictate the criteria for inclusion on these lists must be changed. It would be far better to reword it, and if we are to reword it there is no reason not to say British Isles, because that is clearly an area we are talking about. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Stalemate & moving forwards
OK this is a minor article and its consuming too much time, lets try and look for a different solution. We currently have for the second paragraph:
Are considered foreign, i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland, determined by the following: A player is considered foreign if he is not eligible to play for the national teams of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland.
How about something which helps people understand the wider context. For example:
Are considered foreign. In this context foreign has meant that they were not British or Irish citizens. More recently it has come to mean any player not qualified to play for the national team of Scotland.
'That would prevent any need for historical changes, but would allow new players to be inserted in a new section post 2010 (or maybe some other date if we can find the reference. It also makes the point that this is an issue of legal citizenship its not a geography article --SnowdedTALK21:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that would complicate matters even more with basically two definitions of foreign even though we are not entirely sure what the correct definition is. If this is down to legal citizenship then there would be no point treating ROI like British citizens, but if we make clear its about outside of the British Isles, we have a reason for the present criteria, even if officially ROI players are "foreign" along with English Welsh and Northern Irish. The British Isles is a geographical entity, describing players from outside of it is not a problem. These lists have been here for years. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Well there are two parts to the proposal. The first is to use the concept of Citizenship which is better than a geographical terms. A french player born in the UK would after all be foreign. The second issue is that the references you have found make it very clear that the definition of foreign has changed, so that should be made clear. --SnowdedTALK21:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
They do not say the definition has changed, there seems to be several different definitions and its complicated to nail it down. My suggestion below about just saying this list excludes players eligible for teams within the British Isles, would avoid us having to clearly state they are excluded because they are not considered foreign. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
How about if we just said something like.. "This list only includes players that are not eligible to play for the national teams in the British Isles". Then a second sentence on England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and ROI and how they are defined as foreign or explaining the confusing nature of it. As well as moving some of the notes which are at the bottom of the article to the top, there is no reason for them to be down there. The intro can include the whole explanation. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Well a lot of this is a matter of accuracy and trying to find the best way of dealing with a very messy situation. British Isles as a term is hardly used in football. In Rugby it was but has now changed to Britain and Ireland in respect of the Lions (and no one worries about the Isle of Mann). As I said the list could easily include people born in the British Isles as a geographical area, but who were not citizens of the two states contained therein. Let me try again:
Historically Scottish Teams, like those from the other Home Nations have not considered players from the geographical area of the British Isles as foreign and this list follows that convention. However the position has grown increasingly ambiguous from the creation of separate teams for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland following Irish Independence in 1922. More recently any player not qualified for Scotland should be considered foreign.
We then add in sections for Ireland and other UK with a from 2010 tag
I reserve the right to fall back to citizenship which I think is better, but I'm running this one up the flag pole to see the reaction --SnowdedTALK22:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I would be prepared to support something like that if we had a clear source to back it up, but i dont think there is one, i am not seeing a clear change in the definition, just different definitions by different people. Also it seems pretty odd to follow an old convention which has become increasingly ambiguous since 1922 when the list only starts from about a decade ago. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Or we simply mention British Isles in another sentence when talking about the fact IOM and CI players are eligible to play for England, after mentioning the list excludes those eligible to play for IEWSNI in the first sentence. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Just stop now, please. I've never seen such bollocks as I've just seen written above. You lot have no clue about football, yet you are trying to re-write history. It's fucking perverse. The concept of a player foreign to the SPL/EPL has FUCK ALL to do with FIFA/UEFA, the leagues have absolutely no official need to know who is and isn't foreign player apart from work permit issues, and even less since the common market. The concept has even less to do with the failed home grown player bullshit, which is very much a 21st century idea. If you lot have no idea why the concept was important in the first place, stop fucking around pretending you know anything about it now. There is no official definition of a foreign player, just like there is no official definition of what a sedan car is, but it is still widely understood by the people who know, so just stop fucking about in areas you have no idea about. The idea of a foreign player has existed for over a hundred years. What you are about to do is class Roy Keane as one of the foreign hoardes that swamped the leagues in the 1990s - this is absolue bullshit, as anyone who knows football will tell you. This definition was true in 1900, it was true in 1950, it was true in 2000. Stop trying to rewrite history. Stop trying to abuse Wikipedia. Just stop. MickMacNee (talk) 23:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Swear less, cite more Mick then you might get listened to. It would genuinely help if there was some material to support this and I simply don't believe there are no regulations relating to who can play for a national team for example. --SnowdedTALK23:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
You have no idea what you are talking about. Yes there are regulations governing who can play for what national team, but that is IRRELEVANT to the leagues, and the concept of who is 'foreign' or not. If you have no idea what the difference is between playing for club sides playing in a league, and playing for your national team, then seriously, wtf are you even doing in this discussion? I refuse to give you cites for this shit, because it would give this poxy BISE page legitimacy it frankly does not deserve. I would much rather see it fuck pages up out of pure POV pushing ignorance, and then have the changes traced back to the people named on the page, than waste my time indulging you in your abuse. This is all that is left to those who are trying to fight this blatant abuse of the pedia, seeing as we are not allowed to complicate discussions with issues of 'motive', and how people can be card carrying POV pushers, whether they bring references, or even a goddam clue, to the debate or not. MickMacNee (talk) 23:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I certainly have no idea what I'm talking about. Knowing nothing about football I'd love it if the article told me stuff. Even a reference or two would help me understand better.
Mick, if you don't feel this page has legitimacy, if you feel it's a waste of time, if you feel you can't be arsed helping, if you feel you'd rather whinge about not being allowed to pursue your campaign of outing POV pushers — why are you posting here? Seriously - help, or don't help, but hindering is no longer an option. ArbCom might be interested, maybe some other venue. But not here. TFOWR23:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
You got me. Way back when, a few days ago, I made the mistake of thinking that if I pointed out that this discussion was about to make a monumental fuckup, as I've seen this venue do before in the name of 'CONsensus', things might take a turn for the better, and people might take outside input. HighKing/Snowded et al have even had the brass balls to chastise me for not participating before. Still, lesson learned. Do not interrupt the workings of this page with common sense or actual topic specific knowledge - it is not appreciated. WP:CIVIL indeed-eeo. I've repeated that relevant clause at least twice, for no point it seems. I fucking implored you to ask the people who had a clue, and as far as I can see, you've fucked them over royally. You can barely make out what they even said anymore, it's like a small dot to you lot as you fuck about indulging each other's nonsense like you have a clue. Like I said, I will fucking love it if this page mangles a concept/list that has been understood by generations, just because some people ... well, I'm not even allowed to complete this sentence am I? MickMacNee (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I do not think you were allowed to say quite a few things you just did. But none of that is going to help. If there is any source which backs up foreign being outside of the BI or treating British/Irish the same way then provide it please so we can move on to another topic and get this article changed to say it. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Look BW, I really don't think you really realise how stupid a request for sourcing this fact really is. You really might as well be asking for a reference that, say, football has always been a working man's sport. Everybody knows it, but if there is some person out there who denies it, not least fervently denies it for political reasons, then no source will ever be good enough for him, as they will likely always be able to pull some other source out of their ass to dispute it, such as showing how the modern day Premier League is supported by the middle classes due to the high ticket prices. This is the very art of disreputable POV pushing. You can disprove anything with a source when you aren't dealing with black and white concepts, and it is usually the common sense view that gets shit all over in that case, because who is going to be daft enough to waste their time on such pointless errands? Infact, who is even left in this discussion who might remotely qualify as a normal editor? They pissed off ages ago, as usual. Like I said, I'd rather see the article get fucked over and ruined, and have it properly pinned on those responsible, than play this game over and over and over. MickMacNee (talk) 01:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Not so hard that one - football as a working mans sport. FWIW, I'd class myself as knowledgeable about football. I agree with most of the points you've made, but you've made mistakes with others - although since I've had to wade through your wandering posts three times to extract sense, I can't be sure if I understand all you're saying and I really can't be bothered trying another time. Like you say The concept of a player foreign to the SPL/EPL has FUCK ALL to do with FIFA/UEFA - that's not right - see the Bosman ruling. You say that the concept of "foreign" in the leagues is well understood (in that it's irrelevant) and that historically it was down to work permits. Mostly accurate, but England's Premier league uses the definition of "Home Grown" today, and it is down to individual leagues to decide how they want to run their leagues. The German's have different rules than the French, who have different rules to the Irish. But then you state The idea of a foreign player has existed for over a hundred years. and This definition was true in 1900, it was true in 1950, it was true in 2000. Crap. The idea of "foreign" has changed drastically over that period, and so has the idea of a foreign player. I can still remember the booing of black English players on teams, bananas being thrown, and being told to "F*ck of home where you belong" even though they were English! 100 years ago, Ireland only had one team and we were part of the UK. --HighKing (talk) 12:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This is where you are going wrong. The concept of a foreign player has not changed in that period. Bosman reinforced players rights under EU law, but it did not redefine who is and is not a foreign player. For the purposes of this list, Roy Keane et al were not foreign players before Bosman, and they still aren't after it. And French players did not suddenly become non-foreign post-Bosman. Infact, it is the whole consequences of Bosman that is the main reason why there is such a plethora of analysis out there of the number of foreign players in the EPL/SPL in the pre-and post-Bosman eras. This could hardly have been possible if the people in here insisting that the definition has changed, or has not been commonly understood all along, were even remotely right. Even before Bosman, there were foreign players in the leagues - their various presence was governed by rules that have always been in alignment with the current defintion, and have always been about work permit/immigration issues, not sporting issues - the concept of their 'foreigness' has never changed. Walter Bowman was a foreign player of the 1890s. Bert Trautmann was a foreign player of the 50s. Ossie Ardiles was a foreign player of the 70s. At no point in that time, have Irish players been similarly considered foreign in the way those two were. And to labour the point, the EPL 'home grown' rule has nothing, not one single thing, to do with the well understood concept of who is or isn't a foreign player. Infact, it only exists precisely because the only time FIFA, for sporting reasons and therefore by necessity tied to national team eligibility, as opposed to the FA/SFA, for reasons of work permit and foreign employment type issues, has ever attempted to bring the concept of foreigness into the EPL/SPL's rules, was a spectacular failure, and now those rules take no account of foreigness in the traditional and still well understood way whatsoever. We can discuss your proposal for including black English players of the 70s and 80s if you want, but I'm not sure it will get very far. MickMacNee (talk) 13:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
You stated that UEFA/FIFA has nothing to do with "foreign" players - I merely brought up the Bosman ruling to point out that originally UEFA (and not FIFA - different organizations) imposed quotas on "foreigners" (or non-nationals). I raised the point of black English players to highlight how the concept of "foreigness" has changed in the past 100 years. Perhaps it was a little too tongue-in-cheek. I totally agree with what you say about work permits and freedom of movement between UK and Ireland, and how this has contributed enormously to the special links between the two countries. But I do not go along with concluding that in some way this results in Irish footballers being considered "not foreign" or "domestic", or as you've implied that there's different grades of "foreign" along the lines of one for "Irish", one for "European", etc. --HighKing (talk) 14:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Looking back over this discussion, some good questions asked, but some poor answers given and some really badly informed statements made. There's two problems with the article.
Foreign players
It's now obvious and accepted by everyone that there is no official definition of "foreign" either from clubs or UEFA or FIFA or at a national level. BW has provided published references that includes RoI, but with a little more looking he could equally have provided the references I showed that contain lots of other combinations. Excluding RoI, or excluding anybody but Scottish, etc.
While historically, Ireland had one team, and was part of the UKoGB&I, that was nearly 100 years ago. Ireland is no longer part of the UK. Today the republic is as "foreign" to the UK as France, and this is as true for Football as for everything else.
Terminology
The article has (inadvertently in my opinion) tried to use *two* definitions of foreign without realizing that they're different. One states that "foreign" is a player who is "considered foreign" i.e. outside a geographic region of "Great Britain and Ireland". The other uses eligibility of national teams of E/NI/RoI/S/W.
First off, I'll say that defining "foreign" in the context of a geographic area is extremely flawed and downright wrong. The concept of "foreign" is related to political boundaries and sovereign nations. "Ireland" is a "foreign nation" to the "United Kingdom". Ireland has a British embassy, the UK has an Irish embassy.
Defining "foreign" in terms of eligibility of national teams is (as pointed out by Mick) only relevant for national teams, and has no relevancy to leagues. Even the new "Home Grown" rule would mean that a "foreign" player like Cesc Fàbregas and who plays for the Spanish national team, would be considered "Home Grown".
I believe the original intention of this article was to list all players not considered "British" or "Irish", and they used national eligibility criteria to determine this. By our own reckoning, there's lots wrong with the article, mostly to do with content and definitions, and mixing geographic regions with countries. My summary of the suggested fixes are:
Change point two to read "i.e., outside the British Isles," in point 2" This doesn't address attempting to define "foreign" in terms of geographic regions.
Change to read as the Four FAs within the British Isles. Doing this implicitly acknowledges and accepts that "foreign" can't be defined in terms of a geographic region, and it fixes one problem by removing one of the definitions. The article will then solely rely on national team eligibility criteria. The footnote already correctly lists the individual FAs, and the statement "the four FAs within the British Isles" is incorrect anyway because there's 7 including the Isle of Man Football Association, the Guernsey Football Association and the Jersey Football Association.
Change to read as Are considered foreign. In this context foreign has meant that they were not British or Irish citizens. More recently it has come to mean any player not qualified to play for the national team of Scotland.. Using this mechanism means we are simply replacing one definition of "foreign" based on geographic region, with a new definition based on citizenship. This is pretty close to the eligibility criteria, since player eligibility for national teams is based on citizenship laws (players who hold the nationality of the country). For example, here's a recent UEFA doc for the European Tournament that defines eligibility in this way. But why not just leave the eligibility criteria.
Delete "i.e., outside Great Britain and Ireland," from point 2". This is the simplest change. It removes the mechanism of defining "foreign" in terms of a geographic area, and leaves the content and title intact.
I would also suggest that we bounce some of these issues back to the article Talk page or to WP:FOOTY, especially for any questions surrounding the notability of this article, and the relevance of this definition of inclusion/exclusion from a list. --HighKing (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Simply deleting "outside of Great Britain and Ireland" or British Isles does not address the problem of how we define foreign. The list is saying people are considered foreign if they are not eligible to play for the Irish or British national teams. There has to be a clear reason for having these grouped together, At one point it was all part of the United Kingdom, but that is no longer the case. The only thing that is the case is the people excluded from the list are all within the British Isles. We should state clearly the list does not include players eligible to play for national teams within the British Isles. Lets take away the "foreign player" definition issue, and just clearly for practical reasons say it excludes them. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
No way. Still mixing political and geographic. Should be "National teams of UK and Republic of Ireland". Smallest relevant area. 62.40.32.24 (talk) 19:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
If we say national teams of the UK and Republic of Ireland there, then theres no reason not to say British isles when mentioning the fact this includes people from IOM / CIs because they are eligible to play for England. I still think its strange just to state it considers people foreign if they are not British or Irish. It would make more sense to say the list excludes players eligible to play for the national teams within the British Isles. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Avoid saying GB+I nationals are not foreign
As the definition of foreign has still yet to be made. The present article is inaccurate for just mentioning GB + Ireland but also for saying people eligible to play for those teams are not considered foreign, something we do not know if we lack the sources.
There for we should remove the suggestion that only people not able to play for GB+I teams are foreign. Simply say players from the national teams of the British Isles are not included in the list. Make it clear that its not FIFA or another bodies definition of foreign, it is simply our list leaving off players from the British Isles for practical reasons.
Doing that would make the page correct, even if there is a debate about if its right or wrong to leave players off for being English or Welsh or Irish. At present people could think this foreign is the official definition. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree the article is inaccurate because it is trying to use Geographical locations to denote nationality, which is a result of political boundaries and citizenship laws. Using "national teams of the British Isles" is offensive to some Irish people, as it is using a geographic term to avoid mentioning the name of the independent state of Ireland. A better solution is to either use the correct names of each constituent country capable of denoting citizenship as in "national teams of Ireland and the United Kingdom", or to list each national team as the article currently does. There's no need to change this article is the 5 words "from Great Britain and Ireland" are simply deleted. --HighKing (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
This "Debate" now runs to over 160k now - for an article that is a little over 40k and been going on for over 3.5 weeks - and as I see it we are no closer to a resolution now than we were at the start, it is time to bring this to an end one way or another, even if it is by the toss of a coin or by drawing of lots !!! Codf1977 (talk) 16:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm with HK but then I have always suggested deleting the BI &/or GB + I terms and leaving just the list of national teams. Very simple solution. I'm also with Codf1977 in that we need to move on. Bjmullan (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok i flipped a coin and they won. Someone make the article accurate without changing the criteria for the list so others do not have to add lots of additional names. Make clear the list simply excludes those eligible for the national teams and avoid us incorrectly informing people "foreign" are considered non British / Irish. It must be clear that is just for the purposes of the list. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, that's the whole point. In terms of football, it is not 'incorrect'. It has been defined this way for a 100 years. I may have stopped responding, growing tired as I did with Highking's continual blind restatement, and innaccurate summarisation of 'the debate so far', but do not confuse that with me not still wholly disputing his arguments. The same goes for all the other independent people who gave their opinion way back when. He has not countered their arguments, he has barely even shown he even saw them frankly. The concept of 'foreign player' in the EPL/SPL has less than nothing to do with national teams tbh, the leagues have nothing to do with national football whatsoever. That eligiblity qualifier is there for a vanishingly small amount of cases, and is not the essence of the definition, which is very simply put - of/from outside the British Isles. This is a socio-goegraphic concept, whether people want to push their POV on that score or not, because the fact remains, the UK has no national team, and neither does "Ireland". You are not making anything clearer for anybody by simply giving in to this endless campaign, you are just distorting the facts for the general reader, [Comment on other editors snipped. TFOWR 18:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)]. MickMacNee (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
[Comment on another editor snipped. TFOWR 18:32, 20 August 2010 (UTC)] Geographic boundaries have absolutely nothing to do with either the concept of foreign, or eligibility for football. And I didn't write the article, or decide on the initial qualification for inclusion, which, btw, was based on a geographic location and a eligibility of a national team, or decide to put the word "foreign" in the title. There's so much wrong with this article, that you'd be hard pressed to find a more made up subject and made up criteria for a list. --HighKing (talk) 23:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Snowded, learn to keep your nose out of other people's business and stop nanny them.
They are grownups, you're not daddy around here and it does not help. -- ☠✠TritonRocker
Triton, there were three options here. Delete the entry as a WP:NPA violation, request action by an Admin or more simply ask Mick to withdraw. As you have been told by many people there are basic rules of behaviour that apply to Wikipedia and editors are expected to abide by them. Grownups who want to edit here learn to abide by the reasonable, and fairly lax rules that govern behavior --SnowdedTALK06:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
There are unlimited options --- open your mind to them.
The fourth is simply as I said, that you learn to keep your nose out of other people's business and stop winding situations up. Did your nanny never tell you, "least said, soonest mended".
Generally it works. Try it. It might cause you less stress too. -- ☠✠TritonRocker
I'm not remotely stressed Triton and a world in which children are brought up by Nannies is not one with which I am familiar. Wikipedia and the behaviour of its editors is the business of all of those involved. Its pretty normal for other editors to intervene when someone else is subject to the sort of attack you see above. --SnowdedTALK06:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Defining the essence of the current issues (again)
Snip rant ... but at the end of the day, what Mick is saying is true. One starts by taking the High King of Ireland's statement above ---
"(I think) using British Isles is offensive ... as it is using a geographic term to avoid mentioning the name of the independent state of Ireland."
Therefore ---
"'(My intention is) mentioning the name of the independent state of Ireland (at all times).'"
A logic backed up by his editing record of removing the accurate one (British Isles) for the other generally erroneous one (Great Britain and Ireland or even "Ireland and Great Britain").
Now, let's put a aside just what kind of person runs around "being offended" all the time --- and the value of such objections --- the failure of that position is the failure in the understanding of the term by the individuals who are "offended" by it.
One has to ask the honest question, 'who' is going to be offended by 'what'? It can only be a particular type of Irish nationalist (not all) against, ultimately, the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom, "the Troubles" and so on (not the British). Who --- or what state of mind --- is going to going out of their way to perceive the use of the term British Isles as a "deliberate avoidance of mentioning the word 'Ireland'"?
The failure in comprehension is the failure to understand and accept that the word "British" in "British Isles" has nothing to do the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its inarguable history of oppression in Ireland (I agree that it and its Church did oppress some Irish people in the past but it has nothing to do with me).
Unfortunately, academically and legally, the words or concepts are entirely different. He has to accept that. The "British" in British Isles has nothing to do the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom, or even its people. That monarchy did not invent the term. It does not own it. Nor the use of it.
Therefore, what are we left with?
Either it is a political campaign to redefine the term within the public realm (which I think it is), or it is a personal psychological problem for the individuals involved. Literally, a phobia or obsession. Which one is it?
To illustrate, it is like someone who does not like Negroes telling us that we cannot use the word "black" to describe a black dog, because the word "black" means Negroes. Yes, it does --- but it also means just black. What the individual is really expressing is that they have some kind of psychological problem attached to the word. In this case, swop Negro for British. "British = Irish oppression = must suppress". I am sorry but, no, I does not mean that. End of story.
Now, there has to come a point in "collegial" discussions where if a personal cannot 'get' that they just have a problem and that they are projecting out onto the rest of us --- and that, actually, the real world and authorities does not see it like them --- progress can only be made by removing them or the forum for debate. How long must Wikipedia space-time be bent around the black hole of one person's obsession? And why should volunteers time and energy be used up by it?
It is fact that British Isles is a controversial term (references on the page). It is a fact that it is a valid geographical term and is properly applied on many articles. It is a fact that in several cases it has been used inappropriately and removed or changed by consensus. The issues will be resolved on a case by case basis and/or by agreeing general principles. It will not be resolved by attacking other editors or making indirect accusations. If you want to suggest that editors are removed then raise an RFC or report at ANI which are the appropriate places. This talk page is not. However be aware that your own behaviour would be examined in those places if you raise the issue. --SnowdedTALK06:30, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The problem is, that it is not being resolved - this process is being used as a talking shop with no action, unless editors with entrenched positions accept that the term is as you point out a valid geographical term and accept that it does have a place in articles otherwise this process is not fit for purpose.Codf1977 (talk)
A lot of issues have been resolved so I think your first statement is not true - check the records. We have had a long period of time in which people wanting to remove BI got frustrated at the pace, now we have a group of editors trying to insert it and getting similarly frustrated. Despite that we are ticking items off and the more fact based the conversations the better, the fewer personal attacks the better etc. etc. Looking back over the last year or so, simple cases get resolved quickly. The problems come when there are options, all of which are valid and that takes time. --SnowdedTALK06:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I am saying nothing has been resolved, just that over the last few weeks things seem to end up turning into all talk no action - this section is a case in point - the length of the discussion is out of all proportion to article's length or significance. Codf1977 (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Fully agree with you on this section. The main issue to me is that no one seems to be able to find a source to define foreign. If we had that it would be easy. --SnowdedTALK07:00, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Resolved
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Unresolved
Done here. TFOWR 15:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
