Talk:November 1992 Irish constitutional referendums

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Merge

The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1992, Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland and Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland were each proposed amendments to the same clause of the constitution. The articles currently contain a certain amount of overlap. Merging them to this page would show their common background and context, and the similarities and difference in result more clearly. Albeit with three different ballots, in other senses they were a single event in Irish politics. This can be distinguished from, for example, 1998 Irish constitutional referendums; both the Amsterdam Treaty and the Good Friday Agreement amended Article 29, but the background context was clearly different.

This is being proposed in parallel to a similar proposal on Talk:1968 Irish constitutional referendums and arising from a discussion on WT:IE in relation to the upcoming referendums. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 10:42, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Each of the amendments satisfies GNG. There is additional coverage that is not yet cited in the article. In fact, there is not just additional coverage of the amendments, there is actually coverage of some of the coverage: [1]. There is no overlap between the amendments themselves. It is not apparent that stuffing the amendments into a single article will make for improved presentation, as opposed to merely creating a smaller number of larger articles. James500 (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Comment: I'm not sure how that reference assists, as it too discusses the three amendments together. It does of course specify that there were separate amendments, as indeed would any merger. They would not be stuffed together, as your put it, but clearly distinguished while noting their interactions. While of course the amendments don't overlap in that they added different clauses (to the same subsection), the background context and aftermath does overlap: the Eighth Amendment, the X Case, a PMB that presaged the 13th and 14th, and their later removal in 2018.

  It's relevant context to this proposal that it arose in the context of the upcoming referendums, where there was a clear consensus that the 39th and 40th should be treated together, and a comment from SeoR that the same considerations should apply in the case of the 1992 referendums. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:03, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  (1) There is, amongst other coverage, massive newspaper coverage of each of the three amendments. The amendments satisfy WP:GNG. There is no way that the 1992 referenda are going to fit in a single article. If we do not have standalone articles for the amendments, we will have to find another way to WP:SPLIT this article, because the sheer volume of coverage is just not going to fit in this article. (2) It might be reasonable to put the 39th and 40th amendments together because the March 2024 referendum is a current event that is immediately about to happen next month, the content about that event is immediately going to expand and change enormously and rapidly out of all recognition in March, and it might be desirable to have a single article because it will be easier to control a single article while the referendum is actually happening in March. That logic cannot be applied to events that took place in the 1990s. The 1992 referenda articles are not facing an spree of lots of inept edits from lots of clueless newbies that is certain to happen in March. (3) You should not be sending selective notifications to SeoR because you think he will agree with you. See WP:CANVASS. James500 (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  From a purely procedural point of view, I don't think my notification here counts as canvassing, where the suggestion itself was prompted by a comment from SeoR, and where they have indicated their agreement to this specific proposal elsewhere after the discussion above has started. It's more a case of consolidating discussion than canvassing. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 13:01, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  To return to the substantive question, while there is a lot more coverage of these amendments than is included in the articles so far that could be added, most of the coverage would surely discuss them together, rather than as separately. For that reason, it's more coherent for them to be within a single article. The three currently have around 1,800 words each, so combined would still not reach the levels suggested at WP:SIZERULE. Yes, there would be three results tables, but that's not unusual for election results pages. For example, 1990 Irish presidential election has two tables, one for the first count, one for the second. Incidentally, that article is a good example of the level of detail we might expect for a political event in the 1990s, if more work was done on these referendums combined.

  Back to the procedural point, I had posted a notice of this discussion on WT:IE, so I do think that allegations of canvassing are an overreach. There was even another user in that discussion who proposed merging these three amendment articles, which is useful in determining consensus on this. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:51, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

  (1) "Most of the coverage would surely discuss them together" is an assumption that happens to be irrelevant, even if it was not mistaken. GNG is a test of the absolute quantity of coverage, not the relative proportion of coverage. If a particular amendment satisfies GNG, it does not matter whether another topic has more coverage. (2) The present page size of any or all of the four articles is also irrelevant. What matters is whether the amendments satisfy GNG. If they satisfy GNG, they get an article. And they do satisfy GNG. The point is that there is so much coverage that these articles could be expanded to an enormous size. One of the purposes of GNG is prevent us from wasting time and energy merging topics only to end up re-splitting later. (3) Further, for example, between the 18 November and 2 December 1992 alone, 13 issues of the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, The Examiner and The Irish Press alone published well in excess of a hundred articles on this. That does not even include other newspapers or articles published outside that 13 day window (of which there are plenty). That volume of coverage is never going to fit in a single article. If you do not want it split to articles on the three amendments, you would have to propose an alternative split. (4) You need to actually read the newspaper coverage before proposing a merger or split. James500 (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support but no big issues if they remain separate. It just seems a tidier solution, for things that are closely intertwined. James500, thanks for taking part, as the discussion has not exactly excited the WikiProject Ireland or broader community, and with all respect to a fellow experienced editor, I would suggest that a mere ping that a discussion is now "live" on a second page, to someone who has already participated, does not constitute any form of canvassing. On the main question, I fear there is some confusion here about the basis of article existence. GNG is permissive, not prescriptive - it absolutely does not mandate that every topic which reaches its threshold must have an article; that would be impractical, as millions of topics now mentioned in passing in articles on other topics could have articles. Speaking as someone who believes we should have many more articles in general, I still think it is important to clarify that "If they satisfy GNG, they get an article." is simply not policy. But I agree that if separation is likely, we should avoid merge-and-demerge cycles. On the other issue, I would not agree that article existence necessarily has any link to the number of articles on a topic in newspapers - there are dozens of articles every day in papers round the world on characters in soap operas, telenovelas, etc., but we're not creating articles on these. Many of the articles on the referenda are repetitive or mere opinion, and add nothing to the knowledge of the world. And what also matters is how these related topics are addressed in academic texts, documentaries, etc. In the end, we should not spend too much time on the debate, but on the articles, so perhaps we should also consider with an alternative proposal, which seems aligned to some comments above - keep the 2024 referenda merged, and leave the 1992 apart, subject to further consideration. I still think the 1992 ones would be more useful in one article, but it's not a critical point. SeoR (talk) 14:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  I had originally approached this question from the other point of view, starting the discussion on WT:IE with the intention of splitting the discussion on March 2024 Irish constitutional referendums into the separate amendment articles. It was two other users who in that discussion suggested that actually far from the current approach of one Wikipedia article t one amendment being continued as a rule, the November 1992 ones would likely benefit from a merger. But whatever the interest in a discussion on the current referendums, it all prompted much less discussion on the historic ones.

  Fundamentally, my approach would be to look at this from a practical point, what is more useful to the reader, rather than following GNG rigidly (as the initials state, it is both general and a guideline; and guidelines have their limits. We should apply apply our knowledge of the events of Irish political history, these being three amendments proposed together on the same set of issues, and I cannot see that it would is better for the reader for it to be in three separate articles than a coherent and well structured article that covers all three well. The current size of the articles is a relevant consideration, as it is speculative to suggest that they are going to expand to such an extent that article size guidelines would suggest they should be split. FWIW, I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect a Wikipedia editor to actually read the newspaper coverage before proposing a merger or split. While I certainly have added the odd historical newspaper reference to an article (something that might be worthy of an academic thesis), reading coverage not already linked here is an unreasonable barrier to a discussion on a proposal like this.

  All that said, as noted, this conversation hasn't sparked much debate, so unless any other issues are raised, I don't have much more to say on this, and can accept that this is likely to be assessed as there being no consensus. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:50, 18 February 2024 (UTC)