Talk:2013 Mid Ulster by-election

Date of by-election

Has a date been set for the by-election? I have seen sources that say McGuinness intends to step down and trigger a by-election, but none that have confirmed that he has done so. The only way I am aware of to resign a Westminster seat is to accept an office of profit under the Crown. Would a Sinn Fein MP be willing to do that or will he just wait until the next general election? Alternatively is there another way for him to resign as he never took the oath of office? Road Wizard (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The Belfast West by-election, 2011 article explains what happens the last time a Sinn Fein MP resigned. Basically, when he says he's resigning, he'll just get appointed to an office of profit under the Crown, whether he wants it or not, as the mechanism by which you resign. Bondegezou (talk) 17:22, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Gerry Adams chose to just write to the Speaker (as is the way in the Northern Ireland Assembly) and that was that. He refused to accept the process of applying for an office of profit and didn't accept that he had been appointed there when he was. I suspect we may go through this again with Martin McGuinness. What I might suggest - if you are so minded - is a redirect for this article to the main constituency article until we get a date? doktorb _words^deeds 18:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Given no further word on this (I even tried e-mailing McGuinness's office), I agree with the redoubtable Doktorbuk and I am going to re-direct this article to the main constituency article (allowing easy re-creation should a by-election actually appear). Bondegezou (talk) 15:22, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Given SF have now announced a candidate, I've re-created the article and moved it to 'Mid Ulster by-election, 2013'. Bondegezou (talk) 21:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

UKIP Press Release

This source is not a reliable source, since we can't find a reliable source, we should remove it and instead say nothing! I could have written that on my computer, not a reliable source! Therefore removed!81.149.185.174 (talk) 17:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

If it is to stay on can you please put the website link on here, when I click on the existing link I get a typed document which isn't even on headed paper and doesn't have a link to the website213.120.148.60 (talk) 17:55, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

You can see the URL in the edit view. The article is linked to from http://www.davidmcnarry.com/ (scroll down to 29 Jan news item). It is very, very, very, very, very clearly an official press release. Bondegezou (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

OK thankyou, that is sufficient, it is clear that that is an official press statement from David McNarry's official website.213.120.148.60 (talk) 23:55, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Resignation section

On reading this article for the first time today, I cam across this text in the resignation section:

On 11 June 2012, the sitting MP Martin McGuinness announced his intention to resign from the House of Commons to concentrate on his position as Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly and avoid so-called 'double jobbing', by which members of the Assembly sometimes also work as councillors or MPs.[2][3] McGuinness later stated that he would resign before Christmas 2012 and had not done so earlier to prevent the by-election being held in the winter.[4]

MPs cannot resign in form; instead a Member of Parliament wishing to vacate his seat is appointed to one of two legal fiction posts which are regarded as offices of profit under the Crown. Sinn Féin have objected to this process. As a result, the previous time a Sinn Féin MP wished to resign, Gerry Adams simply wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons announcing his resignation in January 2011. The Speaker forwarded the letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer who appointed him as Steward of the Manor of Northstead without his knowledge or consent; Adams described the process as "bizarre and antiquated".[5] On 30 December 2012, McGuinness told RTÉ News that he had resigned.[6] He was formally appointed as Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead on 2 January 2013.[7][8]

Sinn Féin have said they would prefer that the vacancy be filled by co-option (as used for other elected bodies in Northern Ireland) to save on the cost of a by-election, but this is not allowed.[9]

I thought that this was a ridiculously long and convoluted collection of text, in a section which only needs to detail the pertinent facts of when and why he resigned. The information about the precise process, while interesting, is of zero relevance to the actual by-election, and is surely already covered elsewhere in many other more relevant places (note that at this time this section has more information on the resignation than even the resignation section on McGuinness' own article!) Therefore, I editted it to this breifer version:

On 11 June 2012, the sitting MP Martin McGuinness announced his intention to resign from the House of Commons to concentrate on his position as Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly and avoid so-called 'double jobbing', by which members of the Assembly sometimes also work as councillors or MPs. McGuinness didn't ultimately resign until the Christmas recess, clarifying that he hadn't done so earlier to prevent the by-election being held in the winter. Sinn Féin have said they would prefer that the vacancy be filled by co-option (as used for other elected bodies in Northern Ireland) to save on the cost of a by-election, but this is not allowed.

The C of E objected to this change and reversed it, although for the life me I cannot understand why. His reasons can be seen on my talk page, but frankly, they don't hold water, and I explained why. It was at that point that The C of E just clammed up, but is continuing to object anyway even after I attempted another version which included a link to the Manor of Northstead to assuage his concerns and aid those who might possibly be interested. He just seems determined to keep it as it is, no matter what. So, in the presumed absence of any further arguments from him as to why readers need to be subjected to the long version, would anyone else like to offer a reason why my version would be a detriment to readers wanting to know the pertinent facts of this by-election? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gruesome Foursome (talk • contribs) 21:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The fact is that that new proposal is inaccurate as it misleads people into thinking that resignation is possible from the HOC when it is not. I would be prepared to have something included in the proposed addition, along the lines of "McGuinness announced his resignation on 2 January 2013. Since resignation from the House of Commons is not permitted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed McGuinness as the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, an office of profit that permitted the seat to be vacated." The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

It is not innacurate at all. Resignation is possible in the meaning of the word in normal speech - to give up the post. He left the post, the election is the result. The fact he cannot actually resign, but he has to blah-blah-blah, has not one single impact on the substantive topic of this article - a by-election. The actual word 'resign' can be avoided altogether if you really want to insist it's necessary, it can just say he vacated the seat (with appropriate links), the effect is the same. This political trivia does not need to be inserted into every and any place on Wikipedia where it is being mentioned that an MP resigned - otherwise, why do we even have the article - Resignation from the British House of Commons? (which, surprise surprise, is apparently where that section came from, a word for word copy paste job!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gruesome Foursome (talk • contribs) 22:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it is inaccurate to suggest that he can do something that is legally impossible. It does have an impact as it was the action that vacated the seat, thus making it necessary to have a by-election. If you mean the proposal I made, I think you'll find that it is not a copy and paste job, just a way to condense that paragraph into a couple of sentences so it is made briefer and yet still retains the important information. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I was talking about the original paragraph, obviously. It's been lifted directly from the SF section of the resignation article. As for "resign" being wrong, the BBC don't have a problem with it [1]. Do you have an explanation for their clear choice to both use the word "resign" as well as to completely omit this procedural information, that fits with your assertion that it's such an important detail it must be mentioned in every place that Wikipedia says an MP resigned? Other than just repeating the assertion that it's important, will you at any point actually be explaining precisely what relevance it has to this specific article, beyond being a trivial factoid of process that Wikipedia already explains elsewhere (trivia: "Adjective - Of little value or importance"). Gruesome Foursome (talk) 12:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

As ever, we should take our lead from reliable source coverage. They noted this issue around resignation not being technically possible and SF's objection to the mechanism used, so I suggest so should we. Bondegezou (talk) 08:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the BBC not a reliable source then? This [2] is their 11 June report about McGunness resigning. Do you have a good reason why this is not the sort of example Wikipedia should be working from for its own "Resignation of McGuinness" section in their 2013 Mid-Ulster by-election article? Is there some reason why their editorial decision not to talk about the political trivia about Stewards and Baillifs etc, that has no actual bearing on the actual election, should be ignored by Wikipedia? Especially when Wikipedia has the technical ability to link to articles like Resignation from the British House of Commons, where the information currently in this article is duplicated. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 12:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There has been a lot of coverage of this election. Each individual source may focus on one aspect of it. This article should then cover all the relevant issues. So, that you have one RS source that doesn't cover the resignation issue doesn't prove anything: the question is whether there are some RS sources that do cover it, and there are, and they are cited. That's standard Wikipedia policy.

Wikipedia does have the technical ability to link to other relevant articles. It also has the technical ability to have a long article here covering multiple different issues under different subheadings. I don't see any particular need, or any particular Wikipedia policy, that means we need to shorten the article as it currently is. We can readily encompass the detail. Bondegezou (talk) 13:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It's exlusion from that BBC source, which was solely about the event of his resignation, is pretty cast iron proof that it's not as relevant to the event of him resigning as either of you are claiming. I'm quite sure that there will be something somewhere in Wikipedia that says duplicating information across multiple articles is not a good idea, precisely because it has the technical ability to consolidate and inter-link. Ditto about not including every scrap of trivia that can be found in some sources in every page, just because it can be technically done, without some sort of further critical analysis as to whether it is relevant to the specific page. So, if you have a policy that says otherwise, can I please see the precise wording that supports you? Until then, well, you're personal preference to keep it doesn't invalidate my argument that the need arises from the fact it is distracting, disrupts the flow, and dilutes the pertinent information. That BBC source shows that it can be safely considered irrelevant to the by-election (if a simple common sense view on the whole concept of legal fictions isn't good enough in that regard), and while you've said some sources talked about it as a way of implying it is relevant, you've not shown any wording in these sources that would prove that they considered it anything other than a nice little factoid. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 14:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

But the BBC article is correct for its context, which is very different from a Wikipedia article. doktorb _words^deeds 08:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's try to step away from the flames here and focus on the damage. As happened with Belfast West and Gerry Adams - for which, inter alia, I was hauled up in front of the administrators for breaking a rule I didn't know existed about the Northern Ireland project - there's plenty of context which needs to be added to the article to allow for a general audience to understand the background of/cause for the by-election. In this case, which took months to go from declaration to resignation, the context is important. Maybe not integral, but important. I understand what Gruesome Foursome is saying, because the last thing anyone wants is to support lazy and complacent copy-pastes of information in lieu of research. The big "but" you can see signposted is this; if we assume that Mid Ulster is close enough to Belfast West so as to not require the full resignation details, we're in danger of treating our general audience with disdain. I'd rather include more information which can be chopped down to size, than include nothing at all and then face a wall of resistance against adding to it. doktorb _words^deeds 15:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

In case I ever make the same error, I've gotta ask: what is the rule you didn't know existed?

As for the article, I have no inherent objection to it being made more concise, but I remain of the opinion that the question of resignation-without-resigning is pertinent. I also agree with Doktorbuk that the text needs to be sufficiently explanatory for a general audience without prior familiarity of Northern Irish or British politics, something we often fail to do.

Discussion is, indeed, becoming rather heated. I realise the election is very soon, but we should look to the long-term. Let's keep cool and maybe re-visit this issue after all the post-result editing is out of the way. Bondegezou (talk) 16:03, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

(this was orignally drafted in reply to DB, but the substance is not really affected by Bondegezou's intermediate comment so I'm just posting it as was, with a P.S) I'm not assuming the reader knows anything about Belfast West. I'm assuming that a general reader wouldn't be in the least bit interested in reading about the process wonkery involved in McGuiness' resignation, based on the fact it is undeniably total and utter trivia that had zero impact on the important points that that section should be presenting - the when and the why of his resignation. A link to the resignation article is fine for any reader who might want to know more about the wonkery or about Belfast West if it's on their mind, but the assumption that each and every visitor to this article needs to know this stuff, and so you will force them to read it by mixing it right into the text like this, is just so patently wrong on both the interlinking model Wikipedia supposedly uses, as well as just common sense, that I am gob-smacked I'm even having this argument. Speaking as a reader, you are wasting people's valuable time by forcing them to read this irrelevance in this article, especially as before getting here they may have also read it multiple times on other articles. You are presenting them with a flawed article that makes people like me think Wikipedia is amateurish and/or uneditted when they realise 75% of the paragraph they just read, didn't even matter to the subject of the article! I would have hoped that the people who are more familiar with Wikipedia than I am, would be bothered about such things, and welcome efforts to improve these instances of poor information delivery/presentation. Apparently not. If people care so much about duplicating this trivia everywhere, in every by-election triggered by a resignation (oops, sorry, Wikipedia can't say that, it's "illegal"!!1!?!?1wtf) then why not create a suitably titled separate sub-section in each article that could be separate from the dates and reasons for the resignation, so that ordinary readers could quickly realise it didn't involve anything important about the election and so skip on to the important bits? Honestly, the nonsense I've had to go through to justify what is a reasonable view of this matter that any professional writer would recognise in an instant, is unreal. And it still isn't fixed! Seriously, you expect people to do this for free? Sod that, I'm off. Good luck explaining to future readers why they needed to read that trivia, when all they really wanted to know was why McGuinuess resigned (they could of course just read his own article, which mercifully only relays this trivia as one sentence, although ironically with no link to the general page about resigning or any explanation that this wasn't some special thing that only he had to do). Honestly, this aspiration of a 'free encyclopoedia that anyone can edit' is in reality just a total basket-case if you ask me. /feedback P.S, wait until after the election? Seriously? I was only reading this article because it was in the news as it was imminent and I wanted to know more (hello, yes, knock, knock, general reader here!)......Wikipedia - the perfect encyclopoedia for reading about stuff that's already happened! How did printed encyclopoedia's ever go extinct if that's the philosphy of this site? Gruesome Foursome (talk) 16:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Gruesome Foursome, you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. We are here to ensure information is clear, truthful and can be citated. If this article is the only one which people read, they need to know the full details, or at least need to be satisfied that the information is here for them. You're right, we could direct them to another article, and with consensus maybe that will be done after the election. The nature of the project does not disallow copy-pastes, so I can't fully understand your objection to text being duplicated in this way. doktorb _words^deeds 16:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Where do you get off telling anyone they "misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia"? Your arrogance is astounding. Your assumption that Wikipedia works on the basis that this might be the only article anyone would read is obviously false. Wikipedia avoids duplication by using links to related articles, that's the whole purpose of the links. If you're claiming that people must be "disallowed" from doing such obviously stupid things like copy-pasting information from article to article on the ridiculous basis that readers won't click the links between them, then it's pretty obvious who out of the two of us is the one who "doesn't understand the purpose of Wikipedia". Gruesome Foursome (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I've looked again at the article. It's one paragraph, six sentences, in a clearly headed sub-section. I struggle to see it as a huge drag on those readers of the article not interested in this particular issue. The description above that we are "wasting people's valuable time by forcing them to read this irrelevance in this article" strikes me as being, just maybe, hyperbole. As for whether there is any urgency to change this article right now, I would refer all to the experience at Talk:Rotherham by-election, 2012. Bondegezou (talk) 17:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

So, even though you've just made it clear that you've not even bothered to read my posts, you still want to insist that the fact you see no issue, is somehow significant? To repeat for your benefit, I could not "ignore" the section - the information I was seeking was actually within it. I came here to find out the reason why McGuinness resigned, and if you look carefully it is in there, but it was buried within all that irrelevant trivia (six sentences is not an insignificant amount of text, especially when it is mostly trivia). People like me had no choice but to read it, not least when we are prevented from improving it. The issue was not merely time, although that is important to me even if it isn't to you, but rather one of quality. If this were a high quality article, it would simply not include that trivia over and above a simple link, because it is trivia, something that was neither directly relevant to the by-election or had any impact on it. You've done nothing to refute this, nothing except waste my time by meandering around the issue or as it seems ignore my arguments completely, apparently in a bid to just buy time in the hope I would just leave in frustration at the idiocy of the entire process. Which I did, so well done for that. Which leads me to the issue of urgency - I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that the number of people reading this article dropped off a cliff the day after the election, so I am bemused at why you persisted in claiming that the time to improve the article was after it. Thankfully someone else at least slightly improved it on the day. But it's still poor even now. Presumably you've already forgotten about this issue and are just messing someone else around now, perhaps also telling them that you personally see no issue for the general reader even though they just told you as a general reader that it exists and is real, but if necessary it should be looked later, once it no longer matters. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The article should include information that is relevant to the topic; in this case that includes the process by which McGuinness was deemed to have resigned. It should not, however, veer off into a separate article on the process of resignation. I have edited the paragraph to include the important information without it intruding on the narrative. Note that "his own resignation" Manor of Northstead links to the Resignation from the British House of Commons article, so the reader is easily guided to the detailed information if he or she wishes to see it. Scolaire (talk) 11:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

PS: This article is different to the Belfast West article in that Adams's objection to Cameron's statement on the occasion of his resignation was a story in itself, and therefore merited coverage in that article. The Belfast Telegraph article notwithstanding, McGuinness's appointment to the post has not been controversial, so for the purposes of this article it is not an inherently notable fact. Scolaire (talk) 12:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, you've actually removed something that was actually factual and relevant to the resignation - the point about him timing the announcement so as to avoid a winter election. So that's bizarre. Also, your placement of the link to the resignation article as a reference to Adams is not helpful - I can imagine people not clicking that because they're not interested in when Adams resigned, while still wondering about the reasons why McGuinness had to be procedurally formally appointed to the Manor of Muggles etc (a link to the list of the Stewards of Hogwarts is hardly enticing in that regard either). But the simple fact is, even when trimmed to a single sentence, the process wonkery information is unnecessary and totally distracting. The inclusion of Adam's view as a run on to that is also totally pointless - it simply begs the question, why is it relevant? On the face of it it's not, without any further explanation or context (thereby reversing the improvement made here). And it merely draws attention to the fact that if Adams' view has a place on this article, it should be in reference to something more important or on something that affected the election such as a campaign issue (the lack of any such information only shows how bizarre it is for people to be arguing above that this article is comprehensive because it includes trivia like the Muggles stuff). Anyway, old ground, covered, etc. Let's cut to the chase. Scolaire, in light of your remarks above, imagine you got this question on an exam paper:

1. Explain the impact, importance and relevance of "the process by which McGuinness was deemed to have resigned" on the 2013 Mid Ulster by-election.

What could you possibly write as an answer? Absolutely nothing in my view. The C of E, doktorb and Bondegezou all skirted around this core issue, in favour of vague unsubstantiated claims about policy, random personal opinions, or just total illogic. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 01:00, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The C of E, doktorb, Bondegezou, you and I, between us established a consensus. Yes, you as well, because I took your views fully into account and my edit favoured your views propably more than The C of E's. You wait over two weeks, and then come back and post, not one, but three rants. That is an abuse of the talk page.

You had your discussion. The "issue", such as it was, was resolved. Get over it. Scolaire (talk) 12:14, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Being completely and totally ignored is not my idea of having my views taken into account. If I am abusing the talk page by asking you questions that you either can't or won't answer because apparently two weeks is too long for you to remember what was behind your reasoning, then I'll simply stop using it and try again to improve this article beyond the state it's still in. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 14:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

May I suggest that all editors step back from the current edit war over what are some fairly minor changes. Remember WP:3RR policy. Bondegezou (talk) 22:57, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Let's recap: The wording that was reverted by GF was agreed by consensus that was agreed by the majority of people involved. As mentioned above, doktorb, Bondegezou, Scolaire, GF and I had the discussion and the consensus that came out was that the wording that was just reverted would be the version that would be accepted. GF since came back from a block over this and has since started reverting it ignoring the consensus. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 12:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• Why are you such a liar The C of E? The discussion above, if it can be called that, didn't agree on any wording. The state the article ended up in before the latest edit war, was the one I editted into it, and which apparently nobody objected to enough to start messing with further. Only after that, for reasons that have NEVER been discussed on this page, did you decide to break the link to Resignation from the British House of Commons into two, to include a link to Manor of Northstead, and Bondegezou decided to tack on "a procedural device that Sinn Féin oppose" on the end of a sentence. I removed both of those changes, because frankly they added nothing to the version that this article ended up in, and they're nonsense - there's no point linking directly to Resignation from the British House of Commons and Manor of Northstead side by side in that sentence because the reader can learn nothing from the second if they've not even clicked on the first, and unless or until he says otherwise, there is and remains no logical reason to tell the reader of THIS ARTICLE that in a previous by-election someone in SF said something about this trivial procedure that ultimately had NO EFFECT OR IMPORTANCE on THIS ELECTION whatsoever. I am willing to discuss these further changes here if you really want (although these claims that you do are getting a bit hollow), but I am not going to if you're just going lie like this. In that case I'll just continue to operate as both of you seem to do - ignore the other person, edit war yourselves, and then complain when your edit warring produces more edit warring. Bondegezou's claim that we should all 'step back' lasted only as long as it took him to return and try and reinstate these changes through edit warring. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 13:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

To further mitigate any future lies by The C of E, here is the current state of the dispute as I understand it:

The article was stable, with the Manor issue detailed in just a single sentence:

• Having delayed the announcement in part to avoid a winter election, McGuinness confirmed he had resigned on 30 December 2012, with the formal process of being appointed Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead occurring on 2 January 2013.

The current edit war was started by the following changes:

• Bondegezou wants to add ", a procedural device that Sinn Féin oppose" to the end of the sentence.
• The C of E wants to change the link formal process of being appointed Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead by splitting it in two, thus: formal process of being appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead

Both of these changes are frankly stupid for the reasons given directly above, but more importanly as regards the lies beig told about me "ignoring" consensus, neither of them have been proposed/discussed/debated on this talk page at all. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 13:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• I recommend you read WP:NPA and the discussion above. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, I read WP:NPA and I re-read the discussion. I saw nothing of relevance in the NPA page, and I fail to see why you wanted me to re-read the discussion again. So now what? More edit warring from you? Gruesome Foursome (talk) 14:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Accusing someone of lying is a PA. I wanted you to re-read the discussion because I wanted you to notice Scolaire's last comment. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I doubt it. See the part that says talking about claims someone made is not a personal attack. You claimed a discussion had occured and I was ignoring it, when it hadn't and I wasn't. So that was a lie, ergo you are a liar. On the second point, didn't the fact that I had actually replied to Scolaire's comment not tip you off to the fact I probably had read it? Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

You realize you've undermined yourself a little bit there. You say that a discussion hadn't occurred, then what's this section all about then? Also the fact you said that you replied to Scolaire's comment on the discussion shows that you did know that there was a discussion going on. But aside of that, can we just hang on and let someone else make a comment on this? A 3rd opinion maybe The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't have been more clearer than I have been above about what I consider has and has not been discussed and when. If you want a third opinion, fine, but I am going to restore the page to the state it was in before the current edit war was started, otherwise it's pretty clear that you would profit from engaging the exact same behavour you keep warning me about if that opinion never comes. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:43, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

GF, I am unclear why you are arguing so vigorously over such a minor change. I can but suggest you reflect on WP:OWN. Your time will also be well spent if you consider WP:NPA and WP:3RR. These are all community rules that have proven to work effectively. Bondegezou (talk) 08:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you're unclear because out of the two of us, I'm the only one smart enough to realise that this edit does not add anything to the article, and infact introduces questions in the readers mind that are not answered. Perhaps the difference between us is that I care when articles are low quality, whereas you apparently don't. Your lectures about effective policy are hypocritical at best, at best - you have edit warred over this ceaselessly, and your claims of consensus for this edit is nothing but a lie, which are both disgraceful and dispicable tactics that no policy supports. I'm going to separate the two issues that your lies have unfortunately conflated in your baseless claims of consensus and the resulting tag team edit warring between you and The C of E, let's see if your respect for policy extends to ignoring those as well. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 12:59, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I am a volunteer at the Third Opinion project. The request made there for a third opinion has been removed because of the number of editors involved in this dispute. 3O is for disputes involving two editors. If dispute resolution is still required, please consider the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard or a Request for Comments. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

References

This article does not need the words "a procedural device that Sinn Féin oppose"

Despite the lies being told about how I'm "ignoring consensus", in the discussion above about the resignation section, there was clearly NEVER any agreement that supported this edit which tacked onto the end of a sentence the phrase "a procedural device that Sinn Féin oppose", referring to the link to Resignation from the British House of Commons (not least because it was never even proposed here first). The only reason this addition has persisted is due to the edit warring conducted by Bondegezou and The C of E to keep it in - [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] - and the only discussion about it on this talk page has been me explaining above why it doesn't belong. They are deliberately ignoring this, instead apparently working on the assumption that if two people have given no argument but still edit war against the one person who has, then this is consensus. Obviously, that's a 100% distortion of how Wikipedia is is supposed to operate, so I'm going to repeat here in a dedicated section why this information does not belong, and if they persist in their disreputable tactics, I will seek further redress. I am not going to be bullied off of this article by shamelessly hypocritical charges of 'ownership'.

Now, to the argument. The addition does not belong because it has no material relevance on the topic of this article, which as the title makes clear, is not about the resignation process, or the Belfast West by-election, or Sinn Fein's general views of the British political system. It doesn't even really make sense, how does one "oppose" a procedural device exactly? Surely the only opposition possible is to not allow it to happen, yet clearly it did happen. At its least, it rather deceitfully implies that this opposition somehow manifested itself during this election, which when the reader eventually finds out by clicking related articles, is false. Is it the intention of Bondegezou to add this factoid to every future by-election triggered by an SF resignation? If so, why? In the absence of these sort of justifications, the only thing this addition seems to do, is confuse readers, because once they encounter it, it makes them waste time on a fools errand - trying to figure out why somebody thought that this nugget was important enough to tell them in the context of this article. Their time will be wasted because, as can be seen, SF's opposition in the context of this election was neither here nor there. It serves as much use as encyclopedic information as it would if SF's views on free school milk were also included, or anything else that never was an issue for this actual by-election. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 13:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The resignation process is part of the by-election. There is only a by-election because of the resignation. Why, and indeed how, the former MP resigned is a relevant part of the article; the comparison with SF's views on free school milk do not hold. Sinn Fein's views of the process were reported at the time by reliable sources, e.g. [12]. If reliable sources think the matter is relevant, then we should reflect that. Bondegezou (talk) 13:39, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Please confine your comments to the issue that you were edit warring over. Your first, second, and third sentences does not relate to the issue at all, as they clearly do not represent a reason for including this sentence fragment. As to the last, while it's an attempted justification, it is simply a logical fallacy. This article does not, will not, and never would, contain everything that was reported by sources during this election. Something simply being reported at the time is clearly not an adequate measure of relevance on its own. Doubly so when quite obvsiously, it probably represents but 1% of the amount of words printed about the election. Yet this is your only justification for the ceaseless edit warring to include it. It's a weak, if not totally pointless observation. Which only looks even more bizarre when you consider that at the present time, this article hasn't got a single sentence about what SF thinks about anything else, not least any of the election issues!. Quite ridiculous. And if anyone needed any more proof that your argument is baseless, let's examine the very source you linked in support of it. The piece begins, "Once an IRA member...". By your logic, its presence in coverage, and indeed its placement there at the very beginning, means that Wikipedia should include it here, as it's evidently very relevant to the election. And yet, I hope, it is self-evidently ridiculous even to you, that Wikipedia would even consider including that information this in this article (it is where it belongs, in his biography, just like SF's view on the resignation procedure is already covered where it belongs, in the article on the resignation procedure). Gruesome Foursome (talk) 14:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I've added an RFC tag, seeing as how you appear to be more interested in settling this dispute by getting me banned [13] rather than debating it here (I know you're online, you've made a bunch of edits today, including one to this very article). To be clear, if you don't participate further, I am going to assume you concede the point that your argument about sources is weak, if not totally irrelevant, to the actual issue at hand. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:45, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

This article does not need two links where one suffices

Similar to the above section (many of the themes are the same, so the text will be too), despite the lies being told about how I'm "ignoring consensus", in the discussion above about the resignation section, there was clearly NEVER any agreement that supported this edit which transformed this sentence fragment, "formal process of being appointed Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead" from a single link to Resignation from the British House of Commons to a double link to that and the Manor of Northstead article (not least because it was never even proposed here first). The only reason this change has persisted is due to the edit warring conducted by Bondegezou and The C of E to keep it in - [14][15][16][17][18][19] - and the only discussion about it on this talk page has been me explaining above why it doesn't belong. They are deliberately ignoring this, instead apparently working on the assumption that if two people have given no argument but still edit war against the one person who has, then this is consensus. Obviously, that's a 100% distortion of how Wikipedia is is supposed to operate, so I'm going to repeat here in a dedicated section why this use of two links to do the job of one is ridiculous and does not belong, and if they persist in their disreputable tactics, I will seek further redress. I am not going to be bullied off of this article by shamelessly hypocritical charges of 'ownership'.

Now, to the argument. The change simply makes no sense at all, it is simply very poor practice. The Manor of Northstead article is effectively a sub-article of the Resignation from the British House of Commons one. Since it has previously been claimed that the link to the resignation article is being provided in this article for the benefit of the reader who knows absolutely nothing about this particular quirk of British politics, there is absolutely no conceivable way that a reader who has not yet read the main resignation article, would have any way of knowing the significance of the 'Manor of Northstead', so why on Earth would they need to click on it at the same time as the resignation link? The change is not only pointless, it goes beyond that, into territory which I would hope nobody wants - deliberate confusion. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 13:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

How can you know for sure that readers will have gone straight to the "resignation" article? That its not possible to assume that it will not happen so it is much better to keep a precaution. I think they would click on it to find out about the title and it's history rather than just the "Resignation" article which is general whereas the MON article is specific to this issue as the holder of the seat receive the honour of the title in order to disqualify him from the house. The reason for the by-election is important and as such the MON article link should remain. To the 1st paragraph, I recommend you re-read WP:NPA. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 14:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I can know for sure that readers will have gone to the resignation article first, because until your change, it was the only article linked in the place where someone would click if they were intrigued by the idea that the formal process of resignation as an MP involves some formal appointment to something called the Manor of Northstead. So, that covers the mechanics. Now for the logic. The reason for the resignation is important to the by-election (I never said it wasn't). That is why it deserves to be found within one click. The history of the title is not important to the by-election. Therefore it does not need a direct link. There is nothing you can say about how interesting you personally find the history of the title that goes against these very simple, logical facts about the different topics and how a reader will absorb them. Your 'precaution' goes against all the principles that underpin linking on this site. Apart from anything else, someone jumping directly from here to the Manor article never even learns about the Chiltern Hundreds, which is frankly utterly stupid when you consider why you claim the link is needed here. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The Chiltern Hundreds are irrelevant to this because that was not the position McGuinness was appointed to. The title is the relevant part and since it is named in the article, it is reasonable that it should be linked so that people can find out what the title is about. Again, the title is important to the by-election as it was by holding that title, McGuinness was disqualified from the House and his seat was vacated leading to the necessity of a by-election having to be called. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:19, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why you keep repeating the procedure, I do know what happened. But, in order to justify this specific linkage, what actual definition of "important" are you using? Because it's none that I recognise. You do actually realise that whether he was given the title of Northstead or Chiltern Hundreds is a matter of complete chance? Total and utter random chance. Or are you saying he timed it so he could be apponited to one, and not the other? Of course not, I hope, but I really can't tell with this stuff you're coming out with about importance. I really don't know if you get this at all, but just to be sure, can you confirm that you know that these actual posts only exist on paper? And, aside from being the way that MPs resign, are completely meaningless in every other respect. Given all that, you have to employ some pretty perverse logic to insist that directly linking this article to Northstead is "important" so readers can find all about the history etc, but telling people about the Chiltern Hundreds (or directing people to the resignation article first), is apparently not "important", even though in reality, in normal senses of the word, they are both equally relevant to this article or the topic of MP resignation. It makes no sense whatsoever, your insistence on linking to this one title. It's like writing an article about a lottery winner, and then insisting that you must link to the pages about the specific numbers they won on as they were "important", while pretty much ignoring any linkage to the lottery or any kind of statistical pages. It's nonsense. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 17:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it is not random chance there are alternating positions. I did not claim that he did it on purpose to specifically get that title. While the Chiltern Hundreds may be relevant to "resignation" of an MP as a whole, it is not relevant to this MP's "resignation" as he was given the MON title which caused the by-election. I do not understand why you are missing the point that it was through McGuinness obtaining this title which caused him to vacate the seat which lead to the by-election. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

What you clearly don't appreciate is that if he is not timing his announcement to get one or the other, then whether he gets one or the other is completely random, even if they are alternated (which I knew already, obviously). I am not missing the point at all, and for the second time, stop telling me what the procedure is, I already know what happened. If you do this for a third time, I will have to assume it's being done to intentionally annoy me or avoid the real issue. I want you to give a proper explanation, one that actually considers the reader, why they would ever need to go directly from here to Northstead, given that they obviosuly didn't come to this article with an intention to find out about Northstead, and would only be interested in it as part of a wider interest in the resignation peculiars in general. If he resigned a couple of months either way, we'd be arguing about a direct link to the Chiltern Hundreds, and ignoring Northstead, so it makes no sense for you to be claiming readers need one or the other in this manner. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 18:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Because they would want to find out what it is. Since resignation is not possible, people might be interested in knowing about the office of profit that caused McGuinness to be disqualified from sitting as an MP. Of course they wouldn't have come here wanting to know about Northstead but they still might want to if they see it and don't know about it. It is much easier for them to be able to click the link rather than start a new line of search. Again, you're missing that we have to assume that people don't know about it when they read the article. The WP:RKN essay should assist. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 18:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

No, your theory about what people want is not credible at all. Not someone starting at this article, which is about a by-election, not the history of parliamentary procedure. We're back to the original post - nobody would ever look at that sentence and want to immediately learn about Northstead before clicking the resignation link. Nobody would have to copy it either because it was never plain text - it was clear from the arrangement you destroyed that a link to Northstead would be found in the page behind the link that mentions it. WP:RKN doesn't support you in any way, you've obviously never read it recently. Infact, it says "Wikipedia does not exist for people to indulge in their favorite topics and subjects". Yet the double linkage looks precisely like it was written by someone obsessed about parliamentary procedure, trying to stuff as many links about it as they can whether they make sense on a cold reading or not, rather than someone who is trying to introduce it to a reader as a first time topic. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 18:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

But it also says "Wikipedia's purpose (as any encyclopedia's purpose) exists to educate people that know nothing about a certain subject." clearly we are not going to agree on this, so why not just take it to WP:RFC? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I've added the politics RFC tag. I'll also do that to the section above. Just to be clear, I am taking your silence in the section above, and Bondegezou's silence in here, as indication that you're not interested in those respective disputes any more (noting that all your previous edit warring simply conflated the two edits, an issue I pointed out but that both of you ignored while you carried on edit warring and making your various claims about how I was ignoring discussions and edit warring). Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:32, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Given all the discussion above from you, me, C of E and others, it seems to me apparent that there is no current consensus for the changes you suggest and, thus, no reason to change the article. However, I welcome the RFC tags and comments from others, which may lead to a new consensus. Bondegezou (talk) 15:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, your claims that the two specific edits now in question were ever discussed above, is a lie. These two sections are the only discussion on those edits. Given that there are no "others" commenting in either of these two section yet either, this is also another lie. Any attempt to transplant any consensus from an out of date discussion that predates subsequent changes to the content, not least the two edits now subject to RFCs, is clearly an attempt to subvert the principles of the very consensus process you claim to support in words (but clearly, with the 9 reverts since you tried to make this edit, before even coming here to comment in a discussion started by me, you don't support in deeds). Gruesome Foursome (talk) 15:57, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

• RFC Comment: Hey guys, please cool down a bit. On the merits this doesn't seem to be an enormously divisive issue, so finding a consensus solution certainly ought to be achievable. My take on this is that I don't see a real need to include a link to Manor of Northstead in this text, since while the sinecure provides a delightful bureaucratic procedure, it's more relevant to the Resignation from the British House of Commons article. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Gruesome Foursome has since been indefinitely blocked for incivility elsewhere. Bondegezou (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

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