Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (United Kingdom-related articles)

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Contents 1 Agree/Disagree 2 Disagree with this guideline 3 Settlements 3.1 Northern Ireland 4 Very Very Strongly Disagree 5 Rejected 6 1603-1707 7 Agree 8 Strongly Disagree 9 An out of date proposal by an English man 10 Wider Attention 11 Scope 12 Inevitably … Ireland 13 Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements 14 An alternative proposal 15 Softening the Britishness 16 Deacon's Suggestion 17 Nationality 18 Removed Scottish comments 19 Woods and trees 20 Settlements again 20.1 England 20.2 Wales 20.3 Scotland 20.4 Northern Ireland 21 OK, lets try something radical 22 Verifiability 23 Back to Basics 24 What "Nationality" means 25 Place, Nation, UK 26 A conclusion: there is no conclusion 27 Opinion from someone on the other side of the Channel 28 Call: Will you answer? 29 Why is British, a dirty word?

[edit] Agree/Disagree

I strongly, strongly disagree with this in every possible way. I think it's solving a problem that doesn't exist. -81.178.104.145 02:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I entirely disagree. The problem is very much in existence and has caused numerous edit war and wasted a lot of time that editors could be devoting to real subjects. --Breadandcheese 06:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I am in support of the measure generally, however I'd make one exception: considering the right of persons born in NI to citizenship of Ireland, I think we should note those who obviously do not self-identify as British (eg, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness), yet not denounced their British citizenship or residency/activty in that part of the UK, as both British and Irish on equal terms. --Breadandcheese 06:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that's probably a worthwhile addition. Readro 09:42, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It is a cheap political jab. --MacRusgail 15:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

What is? --Breadandcheese 16:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I too strongly disagree. Even if we forget Northern Ireland for a moment, the brush is far too broad. But crucially, if there were to be a UK MOS, I don't think NI should be excluded. Yes, there may be conflicts with the Ireland MOS, but surely the current constitutional arrangement should be respected. As for the general discussion on nationality and citizenship, they are different things and it is a generally complex issue. I think, however, that in most cases the current arragements suffice. NotMuchToSay 18:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disagree with this guideline

I think this guideline is completely unnecessary, goes against current practice in many areas and as stated above solves (and creates) a problem that does not exist.

As stated above nationalists in Northern Ireland create a particular problem as they do not identify as being British. If you try and change the Gerry Adams article to read Irish and British as suggested above this would create a permament edit war and magnet for users to delete the British as he himself (and his party etc.) would never describe themselves as British.

Equally Scottish and Welsh Nationalist politicians identify themselves with Scotland and Wales and it surely makes more sense to say 'so and so is a Scottish politician' as this is how they are described in other sources and as is current practice - for instance in all the articles I checked in Category:Scottish National Party (SNP) politicians.

Also sports players where there are different national sides such as Scotland national football team it makes far more sense to identify them as Scottish (or English or Welsh as appropriate) again as is current practice as per the articles in Category:Scottish footballers for instance.

As the Scotland article says 'Scotland is a nation in northwest Europe and one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom.' Therefore to describe everyone from Scotland as British when talking about their nationality is bound to just create problems and edit wars especially with articles about people who do not regard themselves as primarily British but primarily Scottish, Welsh or English.

There are many times when describing someone as British is the sensible decision (e.g. Tony Blair) but a broad rule that syas this must always be the case seems wrong.

It is better not to have a guideline on this at all but instead let it be decided on a case by case basis depending on how the individual person the article is about describes themselves, how other sources regard them and just whatever the authors of the article agree on. Having this guideline will create far more disputes than it would solve. Davewild 21:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No, there is already a real problem. There is extensive edit warring going on regarding the nationality of predominantly Scottish individuals. This will stop edit warring as anyone who tries to revert will be going against consensus and will be warned. At the moment there is reverting, counter-reverting, and no one is in the wrong. Without a guideline then this will continue. There should at least be consistency throughout Wikipedia, and as people from the United Kingdom are legally British and nothing else, then that is what Wikipedia should adopt. You say "whatever the authors of the article agree on." Well, they can't agree, and that is why this guideline has been proposed. Readro 21:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) Do we know Gerry Adams' nationality, in terms of what passport(s) he holds? If he holds a British passport, I find it incredible that we should list him purely as 'Irish'. If he does indeed only hold an Irish passport - as he would be entitled to - then it is correct to list him as Irish, and this proposal shouldn't - in its finished form - change that. Bear in mind that this proposal is far from finished.

As for Scottish and Welsh nationality: many people may want there to be such a sovereign state as 'Scotland', but I don't think they'd deny that currently there isn't. The whole point of this proposal is to remove the element of editor's opinion that currently exists, by stating that nationality should be given in terms of the sovereign state - the passport the person holds - rather than editors having to decide whether to present someone as British, or to pick one of the constituent nations to identify them with.

Sports teams are a separate issue; many are entitled to play in a national team who would not normally be considered to hold that nationality (Tony Cascarino, for example), and in addition many sports teams exist that correspond to no recognised country (Curtly Ambrose's nationality is not "West Indies"). It's fine to use flags corresponding to their national teams, where it is clear that that is what is being represented, but this shouldn't be confused with the person's nationality. TSP 21:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

But there are many instances where authors have agreed - Category:Scottish footballers as per the articles in this category, I could not see any articles that start 'is a British footballer' while many start 'is a Scottish footballer'. Changing this will not benefit the reader and would completly overturn what looks to me like a current consensus.

As to Scottish and Welsh nationality the point is how they are described and describe themselves, we should not do original research and start describing people primarily as British if that is not how they are described elsewhere. My fundamental point is that we should go by how people are primarily described, perhaps a default to British, but if there is a case for using Scottish or Welsh etc. then we should not advise against it. Davewild 21:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No way. People from Scotland, for example, 80% of the time describe themselves as "Scottish", not "British". The way it works now is that it is done on a case by case basis depending on the editors who edit the page. Now and then I suppose there are disputes about whether to describe someone as "Scottish" or "British", but something like this isn't going to change any of that. This looks like an excuse for people on the one side to quote wiki guidelines during one of those revert wars in order to help their own cause. This guideline page appears as a bad faith attempt at an ideological coup on this matter. It simply won't be accepted, whether Readro wants it to be or not. At the very least, those proposed guidelines are so far from the reality of the way wikipedia actually works on this matter that I don't believe it can be described as anything but POV-pushing. Yes, proposed guideline needs serious revision, though the idea of a guideline is not terrible in principle. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

This is something a wee bit different. There is no British football league as such, and nationality aside, this could refer to people who played in the SFA leagues. --MacRusgail 14:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I primarily describe myself as a human being. One does not operate to the exclusion of the other - they are all equal parts of my identity. The point I am making here is that identity is one thing - one which we can at best speculate on. Nationality and citizenship is fact, and is what is used by default in almost every non-UK article. Peddling bad faith is not a valid form of objection to the proposal. --Breadandcheese 13:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This guideline is totally necessary! Modern romanticism has led to people claiming they are Scottish or English or Welsh but this is outrageous, people often say, "but they identify with being English" that shouldnt matter. If a person identifies themselves as being a Martian they would never get the right to have their article declare them so. Mazzini might have declared himself an Italian but before the unification he was Piedmontese, whether he liked it or not. It is the same in this case, Alex Salmond can call himself Scottish, but legally as his passport clearly states he is a British citizen.Gavin Scott 22:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"Outrageous"? Strong language. In fact, this is wrong, most people in the UK have always identified themselves as either "Scottish", "Irish", "Welsh" or "English", and use of all four of these "nationalities", identities which have existed since the 10th century (and in fact earlier, since at least the 7th with tiny tweaks). Nothing to do with Romanticism. It just happens to be the case that United Kingdom identity has never managed to supplant (or even compete with) these identities, and while you are entitled to your belief that the "sooner it dies out the better."[1], you can't say things like that and then expect people to regard you as neutral. In fact, such wording implies that your goal on this page is to increase the chances of eliminating English, Scottish and Welsh identity, not help wikipedia.

Anyways, Looking on the village pump and the JK Rowling articles, the argument for the British only proposal is something along the lines of

1) "Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland are not sovereign states, the sovereign state is the United Kingdom, people is the United Kingdom are called British, therefore all people from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland should be described as British"

along with

2) "British is their only official nationality".

The problem with 1) is that the missing premise, i.e. "people should be described by sovereign state only" is prescriptive, it's POV, and not something the majority of relevant users believe. People in much of the world do identity themselves with the arbitrary or ancient sovereign state in which they live, but people in say, Scotland, do not. That is simply fact. It is not in wiki's business to change the world, and to change the way British people see themselves for the sake the principle that "thy sovereign states shall monopolize thy national identity". Now, 2), is just as problematic because a) nationality is not simply defined by officialdom, it is a word in common use that predates the creation of official British nationality in 1949, and was and is used for Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish, because these peoples see themselves as nations; b) there is no reason I can see why officially defined nationality is to be a defining characteristic of people; wikipedia articles should just identify people the way the are best to be described. I doubt many people want to go into let alone prioritize the exact wording on someone's passport. All these arguments aside, some wiki users can try to set this set of guidelines up, but the reality is that it simply will not be followed. The guidelines need seriously toned down if they are to have any hope of mirroring reality. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, this proposal is not about suggesting anyone has a British identity, but rather where standardisation is required, that it should fall on the side of consistent fact. If I was to self-identify with my own proclaimed community of Giraffistan, I very much doubt many Wikipedians would put it as my nationality in an infobox alone with a little flag I made up. A person's identity should be clearly explained if it is relevant, of course. The present situation creates huge double-standards (for example, what about the treatment of Cornish people, or those from Yorkshire, with very strong identities - do they get their Yorkshire as their nationality in an infobox?) --Breadandcheese 13:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yorkshire identity in infobox? Well, this doesn't really seem to be an issue. As far as I know no-one has claimed that they desire Yorkshire, or Moray, Carmarthenshire, or County Derry flags to be put in the infobox. Maybe you should wait until they do, since otherwise this just looks like an attempted Straw man. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I should perhaps declare my interest in this. I don't really care which way UK-related articles get standardised, what matters to me is that they are treated uniformly across the whole of Wikipedia. What concerns me most is the high level of nationalism I have experienced when editing non-English UK articles, particularly when contrasted with the exact opposite behaviour on English articles. The example I've previously given is that it seems to be a crime to list a Scottish settlement as being in the UK and yet if you attempt to assert that J.K. Rowling is English you get flamed into next week. In addition there seems to be a trend amongst some editors to claim patently English notable persons as being not English, again the perfect example is J.K. Rowling with many editors wishing to assert that she's somehow Scottish because she not lives in Edinburgh despit being born in England to English parents. I'm quite persuaded by the arguments previously presented at the Village Pump for standardising to UK and British as the UK is the only sovereign, nation-state and therefore the most encyclopaedic way of presenting the information. But given my previous concerns it also seems to be the only way to defuse the many heated edit-wars which start of something which is actually quite lame. Aula^TPN 23:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

However lame edit-warring over Ms Rowling's nationality may be (English, surely), creating a MOS page to enforce a non-existent consensus is lamer by far. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

This page hasn't been created 'to enforce a non-existant consensus'. It has been created as a proposal to attempt to form a consensus. Your actions in unilaterally rejecting this proposal before debate has even really started are not helpful at all and it's hard to take them as good faith. Please wait for the debate to mature - the whole point is not to say 'this is how we want to do it so live with it until it's ratified'. The editors involved here are attempting to let the community decide how UK articles should be handled. So please let them do that. Aula^TPN 23:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

JK Rowling is English, and by extension British; you can't have guidelines which eliminate stupidity. Nor in the case of substantive nationality disputes, will guidelines such as this eliminate the disputes. You just have to accept the reality that wordings will be determined by editors on particular pages, or when there is a dispute there, the balance of power between the two groups of editors who have the page on their watchlist; this will be the case whether we have these guidelines or not, and all these guidelines as they stand do is attempt to push the balance of power in favour of one ideological position. How that could "defuse edit wars" is beyond me. If what you say is happening about double standards is true, then I sympathize. I can agree that with people like, say, Tony Blair, British is clearly the best was to describe him since, although he clearly regards himself as primarily English, he is both Scottish and English. People will work out on their own where the term British is clearly more appropriate, but I'd have no problem with a guideline which guided people to use the term "British" where their constituent nationality is in dispute (between England and Scotland, England and Wales, and Scotland and Wales for people born after 1707). That would just be common sense. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Quote: "Alex Salmond can call himself Scottish, but legally as his passport clearly states he is a British citizen." But WP is not a legal document - it is an encyclopaedia and its purpose is to inform. To call Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist, British, and put a union flag beside his name, is misleading - it informs badly; it misinforms. Since Parnell was chosen as one of the five examples on the project page, you would have to conclude that the whole tendency of the proposed policy is to misinform. Scolaire 08:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Inform, indeed - he was factually British. His identity and his politics can easily be discussed within the context of the article. To call certain people 'Scottish' just because they were born in Scotland however is factually wrong. We wouldn't put a Union Flag beside his name in the standard scheme of things, that much has been worked out in WP:FLAGS. To state it is misleading is effectively an endorsement of dumbing-down Wikipedia rather than stating facts objectively, and discuss views objectively, for the reader to decide upon himself. --Breadandcheese 13:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I added Parnell as an example, but the proposal as written insists upon his Britishness. Angus McLellan (Talk) 08:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Not his Britishness - that implies British identity. Rather his British nationality, which is of course very real. --Breadandcheese 13:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So work to build consensus for changing the proposal. Aula^TPN 08:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Have to say, I find the example a clear illumination of a flaw in the proposal. Neither Parnell nor the majority of others from Ireland in that period did or would have described themselves as British - the Irish identity was alive and well. He and many others would have accepted that they were citizens of The UK of Britain and Ireland (whatever they might have wished to be part of) but that entity did not have a unified nationality of "British" - that related / relates to the island of Great Britain. As a member for some months, I have seen some bitter disputes around such matters, but this does seem to be a case of an unnecessary complication, trouble looking for a cause. And the JK Rowling case does not justify anything - that was an absurdity from beginning to end, as the lady is clearly both English and British. SeoR 12:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Settlements

I've added a section regarding settlements for your comments. I think we were agreed from the Village Pump discussion that the full settlement name should include the county, if applicable, and the UK but I don't recall any consensus being reached regarding adding the member-country as well. I think it's valid to add it as it is correct from a geographical, political, legislatory (is that a word?) and ceremonial point of view - being in England puts you under a very different jurisdiction from being in Scotland for example. However I'd obviously appreciate all comments.

One thing I'm not particularly sure about is flags. Do we want all locations to display the Union Flag, country flag, county flag, local governmental authority flag etc? My first instinct is that it's more appropriate for the country flag as that's what would be flown in RealLife^TM. It is not permitted for non-governmental buildings to fly the Union Flag so you would see schools, churces, organisations, homes etc flying the St George's Cross in England etc. What concerns me is that it is inconsistent with the approach taken for nationality in biographical articles but as it is only legally possible to be a British citizen then maybe the inconsistency is somehow appropriate? Aula^TPN 22:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That's entirely factually inaccurate. The Union flag is a national flag - it is not simply a flag of the government. It is certainly permitted to fly it from any building you fancy. Most schools would fly the Union flag, even in Scotland (I've attended four Scottish secondary schools - two had a flag pole, one flew the Union flag on special occasions, the other flew the school flag except on public holidays where the Union flag was raised). Churches are a special case for obvious reasons, although plenty of churches do fly the Union flag on holidays. Up until quite recently, seeing a St George's Cross in England was a rarity. --Breadandcheese 15:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think probably both the consistituent country and the national flags should be used. This seems analagous to the usual practice with US settlements, displaying the state and US flags side by side. Certainly I think the Union flag should be included. Mostly this is from consistency; if I were to display this flag: , would the average Briton instantly know where was meant? Probably not; yet that is an English-speaking territory larger and more populous than Scotland or Wales. (As it happens, it's New South Wales in Australia). I don't actually know if the average American or Australian would recognise the flags of our constituent nations; but for consistency, we shouldn't expect them to if we're not going to recognise theirs. I realise that we consider our constituent nations to have a special status that theirs don't; but they may not agree. TSP 10:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent suggestion and will update the proposal to reflect that. I'll place the Union Flag second as that would follow the patter of the address but I'm sure there'll be a debate about which should come first! Aula^TPN 10:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with flag placement here. In universal practice, the state flag goes to the left, and the subdivision to the right. The only reason a Union flag would be flown to the right of a Scottish flag is if it was centred in a display, and even that is technically inaccurate unless the flagpole is raised. --Breadandcheese 15:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There's already a style guideline for UK settlements at WP:UKCITIES. It has been discussed a lot at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography. It was agreed that both the country and the nation are not required (i.e. Someplace, Scotland, UK) as it reads too much like an address. After debating whether it should be "Someplace, Scotland" or "Someplace, UK" for some time, the former gained consensus. The proposal here does not reflect the existing guideline, and it should. Waggers 14:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that I am stunned that none of the other editors involved in this long discussion has either discovered this page or seen fit to mention it here. I have to question whether this page has the right level of visibility, my gut reaction would be no. I'd propose then that the page be either moved/merged into whatever MOSUK page falls out of this discussion or that the resulting MOSUK page make explicit reference to this guide when dealing with settlements. For reasons of visibility, I'd prefer the former. Aula^TPN 14:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland

The flag cruft proposal for settlements hits the buffers when applied to Northern Ireland, which hasn't had an official flag since the 1970s. --Red King 19:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

A consensus is emerging at Talk:Northern Ireland that Northern Ireland has a de facto flag.Traditional unionist 22:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No there isn't a consensus can't be reached that breachs WP:OR and WP:POV.--padraig 22:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Traditional, as a person supporting that "consensus", that is certainly not what I am arguing. NI has no de facto flag. So long as Ikea can only fly the Swedish flag outside their Belfast stores then its quite clear that the Swedish flag has greater de facto status than any flag in Northern Ireland. --sony-youth^pléigh 08:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Very Very Strongly Disagree

Looks to me like an attempt to generate a guideline that allows a whitewash to any opposition - a very bad idea - the Policy of consensus must not be overruled by a small group of editors who have a "guideline" that they can use in edit wars. I see no discussions here, just the rationale for this guideline being "This will stop edit warring as anyone who tries to revert will be going against consensus and will be warned. - User:Readro (proposed guideline creator)" yet absolutely no consensus is displayed, nor is it likely to be because attempting to force content decisions on thousands of articles by decree is unacceptable. Very worried by these developments - this is not how guidelines on wikipedia should be created. SFC9394 22:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

This issue has been well discussed at the Village Pump (policy) page. Aula^TPN 22:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion is now here, Aula. It is here that some users are trying to push new guidelines. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejected

Based on discussion here, never mind elsewhere, this proposal has no chance of acceptance. Accordingly, I've tagged it with {{rejected}}. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes and you really shouldn't have done so. You can't unilaterally declare this policy proposal a failure before debate has even matured. Instead of attempting to shoot this proposal down, why not try and work within the system to make it more acceptable to you? Aula^TPN 23:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It was labelled a proposal, the proposal as it stands should be rejected, since it will never get consensus. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Surely the whole point of the proposal is that it's here to attract as wide an informed debate as possible? Surely the point of that debate is to arrive at a consensus whereby the proposal undergoes a series of alterations until it is acceptable? Going through an incremental series of rejected then slightly modified proposals is not helpful as the debate from one iteration will almost certainly not get cleanly copied over to the next. Surely it's more informative to keep debating and refining the proposal here until it is accepted? Aula^TPN 07:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1603-1707

What about someone between 1603 and 1707, when England and Scotland were distinct entities but monarchies in personal union, and if I understand rightly foreign policy at least tended to go the same way during those years.

Whatever is decided, this manual of style sounds like a good idea to me. Nyttend 00:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

While following the 1603 personal union there was a 'King of Great Britain' and there was some form of governmental unity in certain matters at times, there was very much still a Scottish state in existence. Ergo, they'd be Scottish. --Breadandcheese 13:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not accurate. Although there was a personal union (as there was between England and Hanover, England and Normandy etc etc)- up until 1653 when the union of the crowns was abolished by Cromwell (since there was no crown), and this was picked up again after the commonwealth... the foreign policies often did go different ways - this was part of the reasoning behind the 1707 anschluss, sorry union of parliaments. Look up the Darien scheme for starters - this caused a great deal of friction. --MacRusgail 14:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that what I said? Although in some ways, government was shared, divergence was common and the states were separate? Equally, there was no Union of the Crowns under Cromwell, however in the period of the Commonwealth Scotland and England were part of one state - Cromwell brought about his own full Union. --Breadandcheese 17:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, the union of the crowns was abolished under Cromwell, and in legal terms would not apply afterwards. Contrast this with the Hanoverian situation, in which a state surrounded by powerful German principalities dissolved a union. --MacRusgail 20:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agree

My family have lived in Scotland since 1056 - yes, a decade before William the Conqueror arrived in England. Like all those other foreigners, the Bruces, the Stewards etc., who swanned into Scotland, we regard ourselves as Scottish. But we also accept that we are first and foremost British and a constituent part of Great Britain or the United Kingdom. Our monarchies have been intermarried intermittantly and most intelligent Scots realise that when James 1st inherited the English throne and united it in His Person it was the beginning of the end for the endless strife, murders, feuds, famines, and poverty of Scotland. With the Union in 1707 Scotland went from strength to strength and never looked back. Dalrymple declared that Scotland before the Union was "the poorest nation in Europe". Well its not now and that is because of the Union. This is a small island, and we are all British first and foremost. That does not detract from the fact that some of us are Scots or English or Welsh or Ulstermen. The arguments here are crystalised in the present and most recent British Prime Ministers. It should not matter what part of our island one is born in. Trying to reverse history via supporters of the neanderthal SNP or by Wikipedia 'consensus' does not do Wikipedia any credit whatsoever. I support the resolution. David Lauder 08:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with this summary also.--Counter-revolutionary 09:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree also Astrotrain 17:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

A fine speech indeed, but this proposal does not deal with the naming of people things on "our island". The ambitions of the framers extend to mandating particular forms of reference to people and place within the various incarnations of the United Kingdom, only one of which, and that the shortest-lived, was restricted to the largest of the various islands in North-West Europe. The other variants included part or all of the second-largest island. Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Iceland? --sony-youth^pléigh 14:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a small island, and we are all British first and foremost. That does not detract from the fact that some of us are Scots or English or Welsh or Ulstermen. Are you saying everyone from Northern Ireland is British, and should be classed as such, because they are not.--padraig 15:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Far from "reversing history", it's going with the flow of history. The British empire is unravelling the way it came together. Scotland will be first, then Wales... maybe even the Channel Islands and Isle of Man will go off completely - actually, that's already happening. Guernsey has been discussing full independence and Manx politicians are pushing for it. --MacRusgail 16:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We really are not in need of poor political commentary. This is an encyclopaedia, we deal in facts. [unsigned anonymous comment]

Yes, but I am afraid the facts are against you. The UK is coming apart. Look at polls, election results, devolution, academic studies etc etc. --MacRusgail 18:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Quote - "it was the beginning of the end for the endless strife, murders, feuds, famines, and poverty of Scotland. With the Union in 1707 Scotland went from strength to strength and never looked back."

Are you living on the same planet as me? The 17th and 18th centuries were amongst the most violent in Scottish history. The only thing that cooled the thing down was when they started transporting folk to Australia for asking for democracy... In fact, the Darien economic disaster was partly because of the united monarchy, not in spite of it. Of course Scotland didn't look back, because if it had, it would see Scottish troops always got sent into British wars first, taken out last, and took ridiculously high casualties.

Besides which it is idiotic to use the "small island" geographic argument, (besides the fact that it is one of the biggest islands in the world) - wouldn't that make the Falklands Argentine, or Gibraltar Spanish? Geographic sense like that was never applied to Berwick upon Tweed, the Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Bermuda etc etc --MacRusgail 15:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC) p.s. I'm sorry to break it to you, David, but the disgusting British empire is dead, and good riddance. We can stop pretending to be what we're not. Scotland becoming increasingly independent is part of the same process that got Australia, India and part of Ireland independence - it's the direction this country's been going in for over a hundred years.

Gerry Adams holds an Irish Passport, an although he may be a Northern Ireland MP and MLA he is not British, I would suggest yous read the Good Friday Agreement would recognises that those born in Northern Ireland can be Irish, British or hold duel Nationality, I was born in Northern Ireland, I have never been or regarded myself as British, I also hold an Irish Passport. Also what is this northern Irish nonsense everyone in Northern Ireland is Irish first there are only British if they choose to be, just as anyone born in England is English first or Scotland is Scottish or Scottish first.--padraig 16:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I can sympathise. I am Scottish, and stopped considering myself "British" as soon as I was old enough to be able to make an informed choice. By the way, this is not merely a "nationalist" argument - Gordon Brown considers himself Scottish, and so would many other unionist politicians. You'd probably be surprised at how many consider themselves "more Scottish than British" despite their political position. People like David Lauder are in a time warp, and I always expect them to talk about the Raj next...--MacRusgail 16:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You are still a British subject whether you like it or not. Astrotrain 17:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

What makes you think I am? I am applying for Irish citizenship as I speak, because I'd rather be Scottish with an Irish passport, than Scottish with a passport which doesn't recognise our right to self-determination. The UK did sign the UN charter, even if it does not stick to it. Again I am not "British". --MacRusgail 14:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You are still a British citizen until you renounce that status. If you become an Irish passport holder then you are free to do so. As for 'self-determination' - despite it being off topic, I'd suggest you read a basic textbook on international law before putting yourself forwards as an authority on the matter. --Breadandcheese 15:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You can regard yourself British, if you wish I have never been anything other then Irish.--padraig 17:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You say that like there is something wrong with being British? Astrotrain 17:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say there was anything wrong with being British, I said I am not nor ever have been British, I was Born in Ireland and I have a Irish passport.--padraig 15:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Plenty - like being an identity whcih is tied up with empire. Britishness was created to get the Scots into the Empire, which many of them did. It's no more progressive than calling yourself "Austro-Hungarian" or "Soviet" --MacRusgail 14:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That way of thinking would be a bit like a German thinking "German nationality is tied up with Nazism, I'll renounce it." Yes, the empire happened, but it is in the past. Modern Britain does not represent that. If we start looking at disdain those who take nationalities which were responsible for something bad in the past, them we'll end up hating everyone. Readro 15:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually Readro, it's not like calling a German a Nazi, but like calling an Austrian a German. But maybe you don't get the reference... Modern Britishness represents the nostalgia of empire (remember the Falklands?) and clawing it back through the USA, and the Union Jack which reflects the suppression of Scotland and Ireland, and the invisibility of Wales. Hence we get geographic arguments like "we're on the same island" from people who simulataneously recognise the right of Gibraltar and the Falklands to self-determination. --MacRusgail 18:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment I could smell the ideology on this page before I even visited it. The whole page smells of it, but here, in this section, it positively stinks. We all have our political and ideological beliefs, but can we all try to remember we are editors of an encyclopedia which at least nominally aspires to neutrality?! Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't think that the UK, England, Scotland... original debate that led to this page was primarily ideological. It's a shame that it's become so. TSP 17:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The main point of contention in most bio articles is the nationality field people seem to be equating nationality with citizenship even thought they are different for example I am a British citizen but I would never describle myself as such as my nationality is Scottish. --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 21:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

And having read the debate you pointed to, I don't think the arguments were fundementally different to the arguments here. And why should we not deal with ideology, anyway? Scolaire 21:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Padraig's comments are insulting and ill informed. As it happens I do regard myself as irish, but I am British first. Padraig's opinions on that have no relevance to my identity. Also, Gerry Adams is a British MP and Martin McGuinness is a British Minister, thats what the Belfast Agreement, which Padraig references, states. I agree with the proposal.Traditional unionist 22:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

However, you do have the choice to take out Irish citizenship if you want to. --MacRusgail 14:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Traditional Unionist how is my comment insulting, if you wish be regard yourself as British/Irish or Duel nationality that is up to you. But yourself and I along with everyone else from Northern Ireland have the same rights, and that means we can choose our own nationality, a right that the GFA re-affirms, As for Gerry Adams he is an Irish MP to a British Parliament, McGuinness is a Irish MLA and Minster to a Northern Ireland Assembly set up by Westminster, that dosen't make them British.--padraig 15:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strongly Disagree

Wikipedia is not a political platform. If someone identifies themselves as primarily being Scottish/English/Welsh/Irish etc. they should be referred to as such. If someone identifies as British, they should be referred to as such. Most people in the UK tend to identify themselves as belonging to the constituent nation first and Britain second. Doing differently would seem like going against standard practice for political reasons (because of WP:FAITH I'll remain silent on the motivation for introducing this policy in the first place). Lurker (said · done) 09:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That last comment only serves to indicate a lack of good faith. I can assure you that the supporters of this style guideline have genuine reasons for wanting this. See the archive at WT:MOTOR. As I undterstand it, the essence of this proposal is that we should follow the example of articles such as Jackie Stewart, which correctly reports his nationality in the infobox and describes him as a Scottish racing driver. This example is not in isolation and it has a lot of prior support. Adrian M. H. 10:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not anti-Scottish, anti-Welsh or anything, I just feel that there should be consistency throughout Wikipedia and this seemed to be the consensus that came up when it was discussed at the Village Pump. I don't appreciate you inferring bad faith with your last comment. Readro 10:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that this debate is suffering from missing the majority of the previous debate. This page has been built upon two debates on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): UK, England, Scotland... and Nationality. Would it be worth copying those here?

One point made repeatedly is that it's absolutely find to mention someone's Scottish birth, Scottish residence, that they self-define as Scottish; and, guardedly, if all these apply, to describe them as 'Scottish'; but in infoboxes, or when a flag is used, for consistency it should be the Union flag. TSP 10:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

If it is simply about our legal nationality, then it is British. Some of the tribalists might not like it but thats what is on our passports. David Lauder 10:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This debate is becoming exceptionally POV and political and the motivations behind the proposal were neither. It is simply unencyclopaedic to describe someone's nationality in an infobox as Scottish or English or Welsh as no such thing currently exists - you can only currently be a citizen of the United Kingdom. Now I think it's perfectly correct in the article itself to describe someone as a 'Scottish racing driver' as cited above and I think we could continue to do that. If we arrived at that consensus then someone could simply add that criterion to the proposal. Obviously when we're talking about people who lived before the various forms of union then their infoboxes would detail whatever nationality was legally apropriate for that era and the proposal already draws this distinction. Aula^TPN 10:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Surely all debates must by their very nature consist of personal opinions?David Lauder 12:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This proposal is sweeping, and runs far beyond Blair, Rowling, or Conolly. Parnell's "legal nationality" was British, as indeed was that of Michael Collins, who was killed before the nationality provisions of the Free State constitution took effect. All Irish people living between 1801 and 1922 will at some time have had British nationality, and those who died before December 1922 generally had no other. I'm too lazy to check the details, but I'm fairly sure that Canadian, Australian, etc, nationalities are, legally, post-WWII creations. Was Ned Kelly a British outlaw? Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Ned Kelly was a British outlaw. His crimes were committed in a colony which did not get independence untl 1901. This should not be about personal opinions and 'consensus' but writing up the facts. Otherwise Wiki will become a collection of agreed personal opinions which do not accord with the truth. David Lauder 12:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Angus. By definition, this proposal would apply to all Irish nationalists from 1801-1922. Parnell, Michael Collins, Daniel O'Connell, et al - describing them as British will simply result in endless edit wars every time a new editor comes across a page describing them as British. Furthermore, there are many individuals that just scream 'Scottish' or 'Welsh' when you think of them - Billy Connolly, Sean Connery, Tom Jones... describing them first and foremost as 'British' just seems... odd. Lastly, what's with all the flags? Bastun^{BaStun not BaTsun} 11:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is verifiability. "Just screams 'Scottish' when you think of them" is not a verifiable standard; which leaves it as a matter of the editor's opinion which designation to use, something which we tend to try to avoid in Wikipedia.

Personally I was only really thinking of this policy in terms of infoboxes, flags and so on. In prose it's possible to express more nuanced differences - "Scottish-born", "identifies himself as Scottish", and so on. Some of the same issues exist there, though. TSP 11:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

David Ben-Gurion was a Palestinian politician? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet writer? Michael Collins was a British military commander? Where is the common sense? Scolaire 11:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No. Ben-Gurion was a Jewish politician in a new state called Israel. Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer - he lived in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which was an artifical creation and name and forced upon the populance, like it or not. How can that be a reasonable comparison? Michael Collins is a slightly more ambiguous individual who was legally British first, Irish second (like it or not). We are not talking about people of his ilk, but people today, particularly those in the public eye and representing Great Britain in their various fields. There is nothing wrong with saying where they were born or that they are (or largely are) of Scottish extraction. But to try and exclude Britain and British is following a highly political devolutionist route. David Lauder 12:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ben-Gurion was a politician in Palestine before the state of Israel existed. Solzhenitsyn was a writer in the USSR, a state that was repesented on the UN Security council. Of course the comparison is reasonable!

"...an artifical creation and name and forced upon the populance, like it or not" - you sound like an Irish republican. Scolaire 15:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the use of a nation's name in a collocation often doesn't imply nationality - as we have seen above, you can be an 'Irish footballer' - one who plays on the Irish national team - without actually being Irish by any normal measure. Similarly, 'British military commander' implies a commander in the British military. Often by nationality won't be the best way to identify someone; all that this is trying to establish is that, if a nationality is given, it should be that of the sovereign state. As it happens that would be Israel for Ben-Gurion and Russia for Solzhenitsyn, as I think it's usual to take the last nationality; but yes, Collins' nationality was of the United Kingdom; if Irish nationality had existed within his lifetime, he wouldn't have had to fight. TSP 12:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ignoring everything else, "nationality" in this legal state state sense should not be back-dated. Few people before the 19th, or even before the 20th, defined their "nationality" by the style of the monarch they lived under, and it is simply wrong to look at the world then in this way. Mozart was from the Archbishopric of Salzburg, part of the Holy Roman Empire, and like all German-speakers in central Europe, regarded his "nationality" as German, but in 21st century terms his land happens to fall in the state of Austria, which is now mutually exclusive with the state of Germany, and since most sovereign states aspire or try to pretend they are nation-states (which 90% of them certainly aren't), and legal speaking, claim to be nation-states, "nationality" has become distorted and ambiguous in meaning. Hence it should be no surprise to learn that the Mozart article was the scene of some realist versus anachronist revert wars and fighting. In Scotland, if you ask someone their nationality, most (though not all) will tell you they are "Scottish" (but this is not a polarized issue: according to polls, only about 25% of people reject British nationality entirely [2]). The idea that Britain is a "nation-state" is one that is under debate, it is not accepted. They aren't responding with their knowledge of statutory law, and many if not most of these people are content with the existence of the United Kingdom, this is just how "nationality" gets defined in practice in Scotland. And 99% of the time, it doesn't get up anyone's goat. Robert Louis Stevenson would be defined by almost every published work as a "Scottish writer"; that he is British is true by extension, and likewise I've never come across anyone being pissed off by describing him as "Scottish". Such issues, the vast majority of articles, are not going to be subject to edit wars unless self-righteous ideologues start going in changing nationalities. Now many here insist that "thy sovereign states shall monopolize thy national identity", but this is intellectually immature and does not correspond with reality. It is a state, but not in everyone's or even most people's eyes necessarily a nation. Some of course want it to be or to portray it as a nation-state, some want it gone. These are private issues for the wikipedians and people concerned. Wikipedia has to, and in fact will, reflect reality, not the prescriptions of a few ideologues. I doubt many people want to go into let alone prioritize the exact wording on someone's passport. All these arguments aside, some wiki users can try to set this set of guidelines up, but the reality is that it simply will not be followed. The guidelines need seriously toned down if they are to have any hope of mirroring reality. You just have to accept the reality that wordings will be determined by editors on particular pages, or when there is a dispute there, the balance of power between the two groups of editors who have the page on their watchlist; this will be the case whether we have these guidelines or not, and all these guidelines as they stand do is attempt to push the balance of power in favour of one ideological position.Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this objection is that is impossible in many cases to surmise someone's identity. In this case, we should not be inaccurate and make suppositions, but rather demonstrate what is well documented. --Breadandcheese 13:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose - not only a political gesture, but one at a time when Britishness is in sharp decline. There is nothing any more wrong in identifying someone as Scottish, Welsh, Cornish (put that last one down in your notebook [3]! Not all Cornish consider themselves English See Constitutional status of Cornwall and Cornish people), or English, than describing the Canadian province, or US state they come from. As for Breadandcheese's assertion, where someone is difficult to "surmise", then British may be the answer - in other cases, e.g. Tony Blair (born in Scotland, considers himself English), and Wendy Wood & Stuart Adamson (both born in England, but quite definitely considering themselves Scottish), the answer is to have the flag of the country they were born in in the infobox (St George or St Andrew) and their nationality down as they have chosen it.--MacRusgail 15:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC

Britishness in the context we are discussing is not in any decline at all - in fact, the number of people who are British is growing year on year. As for your point about when it is difficult to surmise, should the presence of new information suggest we should remove factually accurate information because...? Most people certainly never choose their nationality - if someone outright rejects his British identity, then fair enough, discuss that - but it's certainly not a problem with the policy generally --Breadandcheese 16:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Britishness IS in decline. You're not naive enough to think that the increasing votes of Plaid and the SNP are merely tactical are you? Why do you think that Gordon Brown has ordered the Union Jack to be run up? Answer: he's running scared. The Union Jack used to be everywhere in Scotland, now it's mostly football bigots who fly it - and it's heading that way in Wales - "Welsh identity growing" (Times Education Supplement: 04 May 2007) "New recruits demonstrate shift towards `Welshness' and bilingualism, says teaching council Most new teachers regard themselves as Welsh rather than British, new figures reveal." ("Britain wants UK break up, poll shows" Sunday Telegraph27/11/2006) "A clear majority of people in both England and Scotland are in favour of full independence for Scotland, an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone."--MacRusgail 16:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Desire for independence is not the same as independence. Wikipedia is not the UK. You cannot form Wikipedia consensus based on a poll by one newspaper amongst a minority of English people. Readro 16:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It is however, an example of how "Britishness" is in decline. I am afraid Readro, that the three examples I provided are not isolated. Many English people have never been able to disentangle Britain from England anyway, although I am sure they will be able to soon. --MacRusgail 14:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

They might not be isolated, but again I'll state, you cannot form Wikipedia consensus based on a poll by one newspaper amongst a minority of English people. Readro 15:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to say it's "one newspaper" like you imagine, but it's not. Thirty years ago, England football fans waved the Union Jack, now what do most of them fly? It's part of an historical process - the UK is not going to fetishise WWII forever, and pretend to be a world power. --MacRusgail 18:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One secure in his position does not tend to go around pontificating it to everyone despite the fact that they simply don't care. This is not relevant to anything, can you please refrain from cluttering up the page with your rather extremist political opinions.--Breadandcheese 18:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Back at you, Breadandcheese. You've summed it up beautifully! Scolaire 19:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm rather tiring of the 'reverse back' argument-for-argument's-sake process here. As observed below, I've not once put forward my political beliefs, I believe doing so would be incompatible with participating objectively on Wikipedia, which is also why I've only reluctantly discussed my national identity when I thought it would be particularly good at illustrating a point. I think you're being deliberately obtuse and it's not getting anybody anywhere. With that in mind, I shall be withdrawing myself from this discussion for a few hours with the hope something more constructive develops in time. --Breadandcheese 19:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You've put forward your political beliefs all over this page. At least I'm honest enough to recognise when I do it. You certainly are every time you discuss the British issue. --MacRusgail 19:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, "one doesn't". Five million might though, and it is their right to choose. They've already chosen devolution. I consider your opinions offensive and reactionary. I don't seek to impose my identity on you, so who are you to tell us what to be? That's a reasonable request not an "extreme one". Oh, and by the way, can you and your friends stop deleting all the bits and pieces in this discussion which don't agree with your position please? --MacRusgail 19:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I have never given any of my political views here, something you just can't seem to keep to yourself. As for identity imposition - that's exactly what this proposal seeks to avoid. I am not imposing a British or Home Nations identity on anybody who does it, however it is an objective fact that if you are born in Scotland then you are a British citizen until you renounce that citizenship. That's why, if someone is to be labelled, the objective fact should be included rather than the wild conjecture.

As for not deleting, I don't know who 'my friends' are - but I've not removed anything that wasn't entirely irrelevant to the discussion and completely objectionable (and I don't think I've removed anything of yours to the best of my memory). However this is a talk page for the matter at hand, not a discussion forum, and anything off topic, insulting, rude, abusive and so forth should be removed. --Breadandcheese 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

MacRusgail may have been thinking about the time when you said "I could easily find myself labelled Scottish (I was born in, educated un, grew up un, live in, Scotland etc) however I am deeply uncomfortable with that label as representative of my identity and while I do have a certain Scottish identity, if asked my nationality I would reply British." It may be just a coincidence that you are pushing a bunch of wild and misguided arguments which just happen to lead to the suggestions that British be used everywhere, but maybe MacRusgail has made a connection, and presumes that your own politically-related desire to be described as British is related to your desire that everyone else should be. I mean, I'm just guessing here. I'm sure you'll tell me my guess is wrong. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, this is "a discussion forum". I am challenging your assumption that we should all be labelled British, by trying to delete any reference to "submerged nationalities" (for want of a better term). I stand by it, and will resist any attempts to stymie this debate. As I have said repeatedly, plenty of unionists consider themselves more Scottish/Welsh/Irish/English than British anyway. --MacRusgail 19:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing remotely political about having an identity - in fact, I have not even stated that I have any identity short of a slight Scottish one. The presumption that I somehow see myself as particularly British is based on a lot of presumption; presumption I do not welcome. I don't particularly want to be 'described' as British, however I acknowledge that I am a British citizen and it would be the most objective way of classifying me. Wild? I hardly thing the suggestion that Nationality should = citizenship rather than airy-fairy supposition is remotely wild, in fact it's accepted practice throughout most of Wikipedia.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Breadandcheese (talk • contribs)

As stated in many places, this proposal does not attempt to delete mention of national identities, simply put them in their proper place and enable a clearer discussion of something which is by no means concrete. As for what people consider themselves, I don't really mind what people think; how you classify them in an encyclopaedia is what is relevant. --Breadandcheese 19:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course "identity is political". Ever spoken to a feminist? --MacRusgail 19:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC) p.s. people rarely appreciate being "put in their proper place" as you put it.

Your "wild" arguments consists of arguing that citizenship should equal nationality and that government defined nationality is "more objective" than actual more objective (i.e. more popular) definitions of nationality, and using such bogus arguments to insist that the less common "British" replace more common "Scottish" designation in spite of the fact that it is not what is typically done either on wiki or elsewhere, it is not desired by most people, and that in your own definition Scottish, English etc mean British by extension. This is ignoring the fact that the bulk of people covered by the proposed guidelines (people living before 1949) weren't even legally British nationality. You may insist that citizenship ought to monopolize the definition of nationality, but in the English language, it simply does not. I'm afraid if you want to retain any grip on reality, you will have to acknowledge that first off. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An out of date proposal by an English man

The idea behind this proposal is primarily to stop edit wars - well, we have an administrative procedure to sort out edit wars on this and lots of other far more contentious issues. What I think the proposer misses (because he's sat where he only has two votes - councils and Westminster) is that those of sat in the "regions" have been encouraged to become locally national - we have another level of voting, and are happily engaged with our "nationalism." We could even extend this to "nationalism" in London - I assume that other edit wars must exist on articles where people and even towns were parts of Kent, Middlesex and Surrey, and what is now London. I can't imagine if we accept this proposal, that the proposer would accept he was British over Yorkshire, seeing as he refers to himself being born in "God's own country" with a white rose emblem! This is a quite ridiculous proposal, and must have other agenda issues associated for anyone who is connected or aware of modern society in all the regions to have considered suggesting. (NB: comments written by an English born, Irish surnamed, Scots heritaged Welsh resident) Rgds, - Trident13 12:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The proposer is nothing of the sort. This is complete rubbish. First and foremost I am from Essex, not Yorkshire. I have never said I was born in "God's own country", for I am not religious. I am from what is known as England, but consider myself British. This proposal is to do with Wikipedia-wide consistency, not for any other reason. I have no other agenda besides a desire to improve Wikipedia. I strongly suggest that in the future you do not make up any more lies like these in order to try and discredit a proposal. Finally, this page is for discussion of the proposal, not the proposer. Readro 13:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with Trident's comment at all and I am not English. People across Britain have always voted in all their local and nation elections. If he told anyone where I lived that they were "happily engaged in their nationalism" they'd ask if he were part of the community care programme. The proposal to hand recognises the legal truth - that until the cave-men finally destroy the United Kingdom we are all British. David Lauder 13:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I feel like I should break out the NPA tags all over Trident's comment. Firstly I believe Trident is referring to me, as he is apparently mocking my user page, which is absurd as I didn't even propose this policy, merely the section on settlements. Secondly, not that it should matter one iota of a damn, but where have I ever said I was English? This is exactly typical of the nonsense nationalism that I have been seeing crop up all over Wikipedia. People born in the UK are granted British citizenship, nothing more and nothing less. The fact that I now feel I have to defend my choice of userboxes is utterly insane but if you must know then yes I was born in Yorkshire and no I don't particularly feel myself to be from "God's own country" - that's simply the userbox I found for that particular category. Further, if you had even bothered to read my user page you'd see that I've spent at least a third of my life living all over the world and when asked I have *always* identified myself first and formost as British. If it actually matters a flying fig, and it certainly shouldn't, I am of mixed English and Scottish descent and very proud of both ancestries. It's high time people stopped pushing these ridiculous POVs and started striving for content which was factually correct and encyclopaedic. <very annoyed> Aula^TPN 13:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We have policy to prevent edit wars, yes, but edit wars are usually indicative of a failing in our policies in relation to the matter in dispute. This is not to prevent edit wars directly, but to correct the flaw which is causing so many of them. I am Scottish and fully support this policy - which I find very disturbing in having to affirm. The one thing this policy does is remove the need to wonder as to someone's identity - whether it is Welsh, Yorkshirish or whatever else - unless it's relevant to an encyclopaedia. --Breadandcheese 13:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ask yourself a question, and look at some of these answers - birth and nationalsim is a definition of fact and personal perspective/choice. Do we assume that this is a "UK only" problem? What about the former Russian federation, or the Basque issue in France/Spain: or a more live issue, that of the seperate regions of Iraq? If we accept this proposal, do we also remove the county levels categories for identifying birth, or why not everything - "its just all part of Great Britain." If fully extended to other areas, trying telling the Texans the Alamo is in the United States and not primarily Texan! This proposal doesn't accept the idea that proud regionalism and nationalism exists, or will grow in light of Westminster policy. Some see their birth as one thing (ie - regional level) and some as another (ie - country level): I even know some who call themselves Europeans, why don't we implement that as a proposal? What happens if we have someone who proudly states his birth as Welsh, and that's the only references we can find? What about someone who defines themselves as a Welsh Yorkshireman (I know a few of those!). This whole proposal is ill thought out and argued, and is an administrative tool which will create far larger edit wars than those currently being experienced - the harsh differential debate here is just a micro-cosum of the larger war that will inevitably occur, because people have such strong feeelings about themselves, and where they originate. This is best kept as is and debated on a per article basis, than trying to find an administrative solution to a "problem" which will continue to exist. NB: I also don't think the proposer has though through the media or political exposure such a proposal if adopted would create. If this daft administrative proposal goes any further, the Wiki board should be fully briefed and fully agree - it will, for instance, cost them a fortune explaining why Owain Glyndwr is a British born hero - and we better mortgage the dBase to explain why some Scot's hero's would be categorised in the same way!!! Rgds, - Trident13 17:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this proposal was ever, in its current state, meant to go this far. It's a first draft based on a debate; it was never meant to be leapt on as something to debate in its current form. TSP 17:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

In answer to Trident13's comments, outer London (note the small "o") is a bit more of a mess when it comes to identity (the Post Office is to blame!) - many in Romford think of themselves as Essex men, in Bexley as Men of Kent/Kentish Men (whichever it is for the west of Kent), I've had many an argument with a Sutton resident over whether or not he comes from Surrey (as I do by every single definition of the county) or London and so forth.

But more generally I do think the wood is being missed for the trees. There is a lot of inconsistency on UK articles. For example with some Scottish universities there have recently been ongoing wars about whether or not "United Kingdom" or "Scotland" goes in the country field in the infobox (not helped by the infobox only having the location fields "city", "state", "province" and "country") with a lot of people citing different consensuses for changing it one way or another. Or when the individual regional university templates were replaced with Template:Universities in the United Kingdom (not least because a number of the universities straddle regions awkwardly) it was only the Scottish university articles that kept having it reverted (and the Scottish only template is still surviving in some places). And it does get worse when it comes to individuals - for national team games a consensus to use the team a person plays for works (although given the way some national teams go talent scouting through ancestral charts I do have to wonder if some of these people shold be identified just by the nation they played for, particularly if they're also notable in other fields - athlete Menzies Campbell captained the Scottish team in a Commonwealth Games, but otherwise generally ran for Britain and is now the UK wide leader of a UK political party) but when players generally play as individuals it gets messy - look for instance at Andy Murray and Tim Henman. (And I don't even want to think about Greg Rusedski. Apparently in an unofficial England-Scotland tennis tournament he was on the English side, adding yet another possible nationality to Canadian, British, Polish, Ukranian...)

Frankly individual edit wars cannot be easily resolved without some overall guidelines. Especially when existing parts of the MoS that get cited assume rather less ambiguity over such basic terms as "nationality" and "country" than we're dealing with here. Leaving it to local solutions will prove messy, especially on articles which fall within the domain of multiple overlaps. Timrollpickering 00:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wider Attention

I've removed the 'Wider Attention' label. At the moment this page is largely attracting people saying "Agree!" and "Disagree!", which is totally unhelpful, as the proposal is, in my view, far from completed. Yes, the issues are more complex than this; but we haven't had time to expand on them all. If you're coming here, please read these two debates on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): UK, England, Scotland... and Nationality; these outline what this proposal is intended, when completed, to say. I don't think that more input here is helpful, though, until those involved in the original debate have hammered out what we intended this proposal to say. At the moment those involved in the original debate are spending all our time answering questions from people who didn't read that debate, rather than actually completing the proposal so there's something here worth reading. TSP 12:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not people read the debates on the village pump is surely irrelevant. This is the talk page for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (United Kingdom-related articles), not anything else. We should debate the policy presented to us. And I think restricting the amount of participants in a debate in a community like Wikipedia is very rarely a good idea Lurker (said · done) 12:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

But I don't think this was intended to be a policy presented to anyone. "I have created the page Wikipedia:Manual of Style (United Kingdom-related articles) so that the proposal can be developed and discussed. Readro 19:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)" At the moment it isn't receiving much development or discussion; it's receiving a lot of "Disagree!" Disagreeing with something that isn't finished doesn't get anyone anywhere. I'm not attempting to restrict debate; I'm attempting to say that the best time to debate will be when there is something to debate. Encouraging everyone to leap in on a first draft, which hasn't even been edited by most of the people who originally proposed it should exist, just kills the idea before anyone has a chance to see what the idea was meant to be.

I'm not saying that this page should be marked with "no-one else should come and read this"; I'm just saying that I don't think it's ready to be specially marked with "here is something that is ready for the wider community to consider"; because I don't think it is yet. TSP 12:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of this idea of stopping inviting people to take part in a Wikipedia discussion because it's "not ready" for wider discussion. To the best of my knowledge, this is against all Wikipedia precedents. Lurker (said · done) 12:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's even being suggested. I believe what is meant is that it would be more beneficial if people discussed ways in which to amend or improve the content of the proposal before immediately announcing their disapproval of it. Also, note that in the template at the top of the page it states "The proposal may still be in development". Readro 12:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Whereas I'm not sure that I've ever been in a debate in which people have been "invited" in this fashion. I note that the template and category in question are both up for deletion. As I say, of course no-one should be banned from coming here; I just don't think it's ready for being specially marked as needing wider attention. All that is doing is bringing in people unaware of the context, who read an unfinished proposal as if it's a finished one and oppose it. Possibly this should be moved to a sandbox if that is necessary to make people realise the context it should be read in. TSP 12:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope

From some of the discussion here and elsewhere, it seems that the purpose of the proposed guideline is to standardise terminology in summaries, such as infoboxes and the like. However, the wording elsewhere seems much more general. I think it would be worth clarifying how far this guideline is expected to reach. Prescribing that someone's nationality be given as [[United Kingdom|British]] in an infobox is one thing, but proscribing describing someone as "Angus McSurname is a Scottish…" or "Taffy Jones is a Welsh…" is something quite different and quite undesirable. Even in infoboxes, one would need to be careful. For international sportspeople competing in certain sports (notably football and rugby), Welshness, Scottishness and Englishness are of greater importance than Britishness (British Lions and the Baa-baas notwithstanding). I would also suggest that defaulting to passport "nationality" (which is actually citizenship, not nationality) should only occur where it cannot otherwise be agreed how best to describe someone's nationality. --Stemonitis 13:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My passport quite clearly states Nationality: British, not citizenship. If you want I can take a picture of the appropriate section. Readro 13:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You miss the point, and the intentions of the guideline remain unclear. Is it to standardise summary information, or to insist on widespread re-description of Welsh, English and Scottish topics as "British"? The former might be feasible after an extended period of careful polite discussion; the other is doomed to failure, as the number of people already determined to reject the guideline will demonstrate. --Stemonitis 13:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Primarily the former, I think. However, it is also the case that descriptions of someone as 'English', 'Scottish' or 'Welsh' will often be controversial or matters of opinion, and perhaps this guideline (when finished) should consider those as well. Personally I think that it is best to stick to verifiable facts - "Scottish-born", "resident in Scotland", "identifies as Scottish", "of Scottish ancestry"; though where all of those are true it is probably uncontroversial to identify someone as "Scottish". TSP 13:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, it is the former, hence why I stated in the proposal that it was OK to describe someone as Scottish because that is factual and important for cultural identity, but when nationality is explicitly referred to then it should be British. What amendments to the wording would you suggest? Readro 13:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Surely the whole point of the proposal is that, with informed consensus, it can be expanded to set guidelines for all eventualities? What would be the problem in having one section for summaries, where you would probably want to list someone's nationality as British, and another section governing how to correctly describe a Briton in the main text of an article, where you probably would want something more granular such as Scottish? Aula^TPN 13:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For each type of article covered by the proposal (Biographies, Settlements, etc) I'd recommend splitting into two subsections - one for summaries and infoboxes and one for main article content. Aula^TPN 13:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

In the latter instance (or subsection), "nationality" will depend very much on how the subject identifies himself or herself, and how he or she will is perceived by the public. Some people are clearly Scottish or Welsh or English, while others have vaguer associations. In a complicated field like this, I think it would be better to leave it up to the usual policies of verifiability and forbidding original research. Where a person is consistently referred to as Scottish, we should too; where a person is more generally referred to as British, we should follow suit. That is more or less what the existing guidelines say, so I don't think anything needs to be added. I look forward, however, to seeing a revised text which would apply exclusively to summary information in international contexts (or however it is thought best to word it). --Stemonitis 13:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a big distinction between a [normally verifiable] fact in an infobox and a descriptive explanation of a person's situation and background. We are not trying to over-prescribe an editor's latitude with regard to what they write; we are simply trying to develop a style guideline that recommends the best approach to this information and how it is presented. A quick scan of the Billy Connolly article did not reveal whether he still resides in Scotland, but either way, he could hardly be any more Scottish. However, since he is officially a British citizen with U.K. nationality, that infobox is incorrect. If it said "Decent: Scottish" or something similar, that would be correct. Listing his official nationality, as recognised not just by the United Kingdom but also by the rest of the world (as far as I am aware), does not in any way undermine his Scottishness or the article's coverage of it. It merely states a fact, which is what this whole project is about, is it not? Adrian M. H. 13:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that the text itself will not fall into this guideline's scope, and it will also benefit the proponents to restrict themselves to infoboxes and the like. As to Billy Connolly being "decent" [sic], that is probably beyond Wikipedia's remit :-), but yes, he's Scottish and thus British. Both are true; both are facts. To insist that they are incompatible is foolish at best. It seems that the key distinction here may be what information the infobox is trying to convey. We can argue about whether it's more important to state which of the Home Nations someone is from (more informative for a British readership but less informative for many others) or which of the world's sovereign states (less informative to the British, but more informative to many others), and in which contexts, but to insist that one's nationality cannot be Scottish or Welsh or English under any circumstances is not feasible. To some people the distinction is more or less irrelevant, but other people feel very strongly that they are one or the other. We should not attempt to whitewash over this possibility. --Stemonitis 14:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from nitpicking at typing errors. That is not the right way to approach a discussion. Adrian M. H. 14:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It was an attempt at levity rather than nitpicking; I'm sure much of what I've typed has been accidentally mis-spelt, and I would not judge someone's arguments by their spelling. --Stemonitis 14:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The word "nationality" is of broader meaning than which state is committed to protecting you. This is a basic intellectual problem I think, but if you don't get that kind of thing through your head, there will be a serious breakdown in communication. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. Readro 14:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice try, but I'm not engaging in personal attack my friend. Please do not try to antagonize those people you regard as your opponents, and please also Assume good faith. :P. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Nonetheless, regardless of how you meant it, it strongly suggested an "I'm smarter than you" attitude, which is not conducive to civil and reasoned discussion. Adrian M. H. 14:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm restating a fact about the world, that the term "nationality" is ambiguous; I've stated this previously and it is being ignored or not grasped. It is far less conducive to reasoned discussion to ignore or fail to understand facts than to point out that facts are being ignored or not being grasped. And it is far far more detrimental to reasoned discussion to attempt to antagonize and accuse of personal attacks the people who try point out such flaws in reasoning. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Nationality is not ambigously applied on wikipedia. In any non-UK page, with the exception perhaps of disputed territories, war zones and such like, it applies to the country you live in, not its constituent parts that you choose to identify with. I remind you in Britain, people tend to have very strong affinities for their county, in the United States someone may well put the welfare of their state or a wider region (say 'the South') before that of the US generally. If we apply nationality to any culture nation we presume people belong to, then we'd be supposing far too much and probably getting it wrong on many occasions - which is likely why Wikipedians have traditionally sided with citizenship. --Breadandcheese 15:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We (or I, at least) have neither ignored nor failed to appreciate your point about the concept of nationality. A lack of direct responses to it should not suggest that a point has not been read, understood, and appreciated. Any reasoned points that are made here will be given due consideration. Adrian M. H. 16:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, Breadandcheese, nationality is ambiguously applied in wikipedia, as it is in the real world, which is why people with one view of it want these guidelines. And you are correct, people tend to have very strong affinities for their county, but in many (in Scotland most) cases that country is not the United Kingdom, but their "constituent country" (another term more popular on wiki than the real world). We really just have to face reality; you may want British to be the unambiguous national identifier of all United Kingdom people, but it simply is not. Coming up with terminological fictions such as the unambiguity of nationality (surely this is based more on the idea that legal definitions are more correct than popular ones) helps no-one, since it is a fiction. You just have to accept the reality that wordings will be determined by editors on particular pages, or when there is a dispute there, the balance of power between the two groups of editors who have the page on their watchlist; this will be the case whether we have these guidelines or not, and all these guidelines as they stand do is attempt to push the balance of power in favour of one ideological position. As a result, whether or not the proposal page ever has a {{guideline}} tag, it will never actually be consensus, and this means that they are intrinsically against the spirit of wikipedia. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you re-read my point, particularly the quoted section. I said 'county' not 'country'. "the balance of power between the two groups of editors who have the page on their watchlist" - by that I assume you mean the present situation of the loudest idiot (most often with the most extreme views) winning what is little more dignified than a street fight? Forgive me, but I find that intensely unsatisfactory. Of course people undermine consensus - but at least we can see that as vandalism and treat it accordingly; anything less and we might as well abandon the Wikipedia project altogether as it will merely amount to a statement of subjective prejudices. --Breadandcheese 16:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure the loudest idiot winning is all that common. Generally the end product is common sense. That said, you can't have guidelines which prevent idiocy. The reality of wikipedia is as I described it; life won't get any better by trying to objectivize subjective POVs and coming up with guidelines with no consensus in order to steamroller one's opponents. Such guidelines will just discredit guidelines. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

To use Scottish as a nationality is just as POV as the alternative. When it comes to verifiability, at least British nationality is specified in a passport - Scottish has no such verifiability, which makes British a better alternative in my opinion. Readro 16:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is something sensible. Choosing one over the other is of course POV, so trying to come up with guidelines prescribing one over the other is POV. No-one will deny you have every right to believe British is more important than Scottish, but it is surely against wikipedia spirit to impose partisan guidelines which have no consensus. Regarding verifiability, passports do no more than verify that the issuing government has decided that the person is of the government's "nationality" as the government itself has defined it for its own administrative purposes. That is not a verification of nationality. It may be brought into discussions of nationality of course, but it's very far from the only guide. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inevitably … Ireland

A backgrounder for those not thinking clearly: The United Kingdom was formed in 1801 with the union of the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the majority of Ireland seceded from that union. In the portion of Ireland that seceded, there is great animosity towards the period. In the part of Ireland that did not secede, there is continued and often-times violent conflict on the question of secession. This will create problems if this MOS is to cover areas such as the use of flags and emblems or question of national identity.

Some questions:

1. Is it being proposed that this MOS will cover the whole of Ireland during that period? (Somehow, I don’t imagine the 1916 rebels sitting happily in their graves knowing that they are being described on Wikipedia as being “British.” Is Oscar Wilde British? How about James Joyce?)
2. Has anyone thought about the relationship between the proposed UKMOS and the current IMOS where a conflict occurs? (Is Derry now to be described as being in the United Kingdom? If that’s the case then I presume we will soon be saying good-bye to hither-to-forth amicable agreement to use Derry for the city and Londonderry for the county.)
3. How do you propose to handle identity in Northern Ireland? (Can we expect to soon see Gerry Adams being described as a British politician, complete with Union Flag cruft? I can’t wait to read the talk page debate over whether Bobby Sands is a “British Prisoner of War” or a “British Terrorist.”)

I am surprised, but not shocked, that, even as a curtsey, no mention of this was made on the WP:IMOS or the WP:IWNB. I would suggest a rethink. How about a Great Britain MOS and a joint British-Irish MOS (that joins the GBMOS with the current IMOS)? --sony-youth^pléigh 13:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Simply as regards the matter of courtesy, this page was intended to be a place to develop some ideas coming out of a Village Pump (policy) thread; possibly this was the wrong place to do so, as so far, the original framers haven't had a chance to discuss their ideas, as it was immediately leapt upon by people who disagreed with it in its first draft form (which it has barely moved on from, so low is the ratio of productive debate to unproductive argument).

Yes, there are certainly complex issues surrounding the interactions between the various British and Irish states and various times in history, which need debating; and of course this proposed Manual of Style segment should take shape in a fashion compatible with the established IMOS. TSP 14:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

---

There is an obvious problem where the state has changed its shape, yes. I think this issue also arises for people born before 1707 in Scotland or England, but who lived thereafter. I'd say then it should be simply a matter of common sense - if someone was born in Dublin in 1900 as a British citizen but died in 1970 as an Irishman without ever having taken up a British passport following 1922, it would be safe to say he was of Irish nationality.

As for the other matters, Gerry Adams is not a British politician - he is a politician who acts solely in Northern Ireland and refuses to take up his seat in the UK Parliament. He is a Northern Irish politician. But he is still an Irish and British person. I'd expect in his page it would read 'GA is a Northern Irish politician' at the beginning and have both Irish and British in the infobox. --Breadandcheese 14:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Neglected to comment on the flags issue - it is already well dealt with in WP:FLAGS - there'd be no call for a Union Flag on Bobby Sand's page, just as there is no NI flag at present. --Breadandcheese 14:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So Daniel O'Connell is British? From his own mouth: "The people of Ireland are ready to become a portion of the Empire, provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Briton if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again." Rather pertinent, no?

WP:FLAGS is an essay, it has done nothing to relieve that debate. Please the NI page: whether NI has or has not a flag is the only matter that is discussed. From what you have described, I don't think you are entering this with your two eyes open. --sony-youth^pléigh 14:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Whereas I can't speak for the original proposer of this guideline, I had always envisaged this applying to the UK as it is currently extant, that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so Eire wouldn't be covered IMHO. Aula^TPN 14:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The current WP:IMOS cover the entire island, which puts us in an awkard position. I'll reiterate: I see huge problems ahead (they two current proposals cover touchy areas: identity and geographic descriptions), I'd propose scaling this one back to cover GB and then form a common MOS to navigate between them. --sony-youth^pléigh 14:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably sensible, as currently both would cover Northern Ireland, and historically the entire island. The issues we had considered in the Village Pump debate that lead to this proposal were almost entirely those relating to England, Scotland and Wales (and Cornwall!) - Ireland has its own issues which are already partially covered elsewhere and would probably be better dealt with separately in collaboration between the interested parties of this document and those of the Ireland MOS (although currently that document deals with rather different issues to this one). TSP 14:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"rather different issues" - mainly, I suspect, because the one's mentioned here, we wouldn't go near with a barge pole! --sony-youth^pléigh 14:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Putting the barge poles down for a minute, perhaps you could summarise the kind of guidance that you would expect to see at this location in relation to the Irish MoS guideline, where the two coincide or clash. We need to draw this up in such a way that the Irish MoS page takes precedence, I think, because of its existence prior to this proposal and because of the importance of sensitivity towards the issues involved. Adrian M. H. 14:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

First, I discussed this a while back on the England page. What I proposed then, and never-minding what I wrote before, was that I thought that the best way out would be for a British-Irish MOS. The problem is one of Venn diagrams:

• An IMOS and a UKMOS would conflict over NI.
• An IMOS and a GBMOS would leave NI outside of the rest of the UK.
• AN ROIMOS and a UKMOS would leave NI outside of the rest of Ireland, and conflict with ROI 1801-1922.

All of these cases would lead to edit warring.

I suspect also that there is a case of WP:TRUTH happening here: what I see is "nationalist POV" being combatted with an equally nationalist POV. You cannot simply demand that Billy Connolly be called British because WP:IDON'TLIKEIT when he's called Scottish. The fact is that he is Scottish and he is British. The divisive point is whether to call him Scottish or British becuase both lay claim on him being like something ("-ish") ("He's like me!" "No he's like us both!" "But I'm not like you, so he's can't be like us both!").

What I suggested before was a compromise, something along the following, but on reconsidering it I'd leave out nationalities (any word ending in "sh") all together:

• Billy Connolly  United Kingdom (Scotland)

For Ireland-related people I suspect that this is doable also:

• Charles Stewart Parnell  United Kingdom (Ireland)
• Eamon De Valera  Ireland

I would suspect that even Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley could live with that:

• Gerry Adams  United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)
• Ian Paisley  United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)

Personally, for them, all I would lose the flag cruft.

For the section: "... when nationality is explicitly referred to ... the individual shall be referred to as British." I'd dump this in its entirity, or start working it out better - it doesn't present much avenue for compromise as it stands. In relation to NI and identifing people as Northern Irish/Irish/Ulster, I would leave that entirely on a case-by-case basis.

The set-up for the listing places looks fine (i.e. Swindon, Wiltshire, England).

The apart from that the potential for conflict between the two MOS's is hypothetical - but I would be a firm supporter of a merger, for fear that things would go wrong. --sony-youth^pléigh 15:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(Oh! Additional things that would need to be covered in an BIMOS: use of term "British Isles", use of term "Republic of Ireland" vs. "Ireland", use of Ulster Banner ...). --sony-youth^pléigh 16:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Gerry Adams holds an Irish Passport, an although he may be a Northern Ireland MP and MLA he is not British, I would suggest yous read the Good Friday Agreement would recognises that those born in Northern Ireland can be Irish, British or hold duel Nationality, I was born in Northern Ireland, I have never been or regarded myself as British, I also hold an Irish Passport. Also what is this northern Irish nonsense everyone in Northern Ireland is Irish first there are only British if they choose to be, just as anyone born in England is English first or Scotland is Scottish or Scottish first.--padraig 16:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the above point, I must say. Where someone has not officially recognised their British nationality, I think we should certainly consider allowing a person who has lived following the Good Friday Agreement to effectively have one or the other (ie, to exclude British). Ireland certainly throws up problems here, but they're not insurmountable. --Breadandcheese 16:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"a person who has lived following the Good Friday Agreement"? So Bobby Sands must be British, although his colleague Gerry Adams need not be? I ask again, where is the common sense? Scolaire 16:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We should just exempt Northern Ireland altogether and say that anyone born in Northern Ireland can be recognised as Irish if there is verifiable information that that was their self-identity. Readro 16:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My situation dosen't just arrive since the GFA I have held my Passport for over 25yrs, and in any cencus carried out in Northern Ireland we have always put Irish as our Nationality, the GFA just re-confirmed our right to do so.--padraig 16:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The Belfast Agreement also cemented NI as British. That means that this proposal as it stands is valid.Traditional unionist 22:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cemented I don't think so, it recognised the Nationalist desire for a United Ireland, and it comes down to a referendum, if and when that will come about, the Unionists don't have a veto on that anymore.--padraig 22:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

All polling data says that the pro-Union vote in a referendum would be overwhelming. So actually we do.Traditional unionist 08:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with sony-youth...I think a Great Britain MOS is the way to go here. I think there are too many opportunities for conflict with a UKMOS and the IMOS. Giving the IMOS precedence is all well and good, but what if there's a disagreement between editors of the two regarding Northern Ireland? I just don't see any reason for a MOS covering the whole of the UK, when part of it is already covered by the IMOS. A GBMOS would neatly circumvent this. Martin 23:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements

Someone has just amended the Settlements section in line with the above page, which we need to co-ordinate with - it's a shame no-one in the original debate was aware of such a page existing. The effect of this page is to remove the UK, and mention only the constituent nation. I would ask, though, whether it's consistent with our approach to other parts of the world; to repeat something I said on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy):

There may be an issue here with being neutral in our treatment of different countries. Personally, I find both "Boston, Massachusetts" and "Newport, Wales" entirely clear and unambiguous. But would we say (in an internationally-focused article) "Shillong, Meghalaya" and equally expect people to know where that is? Meghalaya has a population comparable to Wales or to, say, Nevada, and English is one of its official languages. If we wouldn't expect our readers to know where Meghalaya is, should we expect them to know where Wales or Nevada are? TSP 15:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps "expect" is the wrong word. The hyperlinks mean that what one doesn't already know, one can esaily find out. I didn't know where Meghalaya was, but I do now. --Stemonitis 15:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmm... but in that case, we could say that no information needs to be stated as long as you can follow a hyperlink to find it out. I don't think that's what we normally do. We would not simply say "Bruce Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein" and expect people to follow the link to find out where that was; we'd generally give enough information for people to know where we meant - "Bruce Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, Germany". Is a constituent country, for all international readers, always enough information? Maybe it is. If so, need we be consistent in our treatment of different countries; or is it OK to say "OUR subdivisions are famous enough to be used alone, but THEIRS aren't"? TSP 15:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My point is that a lot can be achieved by the context. If a reasonable proportion of the readership would not be confused by reading that someone was from "Newport, Pembrokeshire", then the fact that some would have to click to find out might an acceptable price given the improved tightness of the prose. If a large proportion of the readership are going to have to click to find out that it's in "Wales, United Kingdom", then we should include it for clarity. However, the characteristics of the readership will vary from article to article, and while it may be acceptable in some cases to omit some geographical information, it may not in others. If an articles reads "X Y is a member of the Welsh Assembly for Islwyn", then not adding ", Wales, United Kingdom" is fine, because we've already established a Welsh-specific context, whereas writing "Catherine Zeta Jones is from the Mumbles" is clearly lacking in context, and would need further specification. --Stemonitis 15:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see - yes, true. Are we saying, though, that 'UK' need never be used in a settlement name - a constituent country is always sufficient? That seems to be the implication of the guideline as it is at present. TSP 15:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An alternative proposal

In the interests of advancing this project, and rather than just saying "I disagree", I am proposing an alternative guideline. I want to stress that this is a serious proposal, not a wind-up or a points-scoring exercise. If it is appropriate to put it on the project page, I will:

• Where it is required to state the nationality of a person from the United Kingdom, for example in an infobox, British should never be used unless (a) "Britishness" is or was an essential feature of that person, or (b) it is the best possible compromise in the absence of a definitive nationality.
• Where it is required to display a flag representing the nationality of a person from the United Kingdom, the Union Flag should be used, unless the person gave his or her allegiance to another flag (e.g. Flag of Ireland).

Scolaire 16:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this right, under your proposal, if a flag must be used in an infobox then you're suggesting that Scottish would be used? Readro 16:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think flagicons shouldn't be used as a rule in infoboxs as it will result in edit wars.--padraig 17:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - "b" is the best proposal. Where someone's identity is hazy, then I think this is appropriate.--MacRusgail 17:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Bearing in mind what Padraig says, and bearing in mind also that flagicons don't always or even usually have to be followed by text, if flagicons are required Scottish would be appropriate, as long as the person did not give their allegiance to the Scottish flag.
The proposal is that British should not be used except in the case of (a) or (b). I didn't mean for people to choose one over the other. Scolaire 17:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My primary concern has always been for verifiability; which is my reason for preferring the Union flag and 'British'. If someone holds or is entitled to hold a UK passport, they have UK citizenship and in that sense nationality, regardless of what other nationalities they may hold; that is a verifiable fact. The same verifiable standard does not exist for Scottishness, Englishness or Welshness (leaving aside the separate Irish issues for now); no-one holds a Scottish or an English passport, so it is purely a matter of opinion whether someone is Scottish or not. Using constituent countries as the usual designation of nationality seems to encourage editors to take a guess at which constituent country someone would be best identified with; which doesn't seem to meet our usual standards of verifiability and seems to me more likely to lead to conflicts. TSP 17:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. I completely agree. Readro 17:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Regarding verifiability, passports do no more than verify that the issuing government has decided that the person is of the government's "nationality" as the government itself has defined it for its own administrative purposes. That is not a verification of nationality. It may be brought into discussions of nationality of course, but it's very far from any kind of standard guide. Nationality, like all forms of human identity, is subject to complications which go beyond the understanding of your average wiki editor, and cannot be made subject to wishy-washy POV-pushing guidelines. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Legal nationality is not a subset of human identity, it is a completely independent concept. Someone's identity may well be worth mentioning, but in many cases it cannot be summed up in a word and is better gleaned from content of an article rather than an outright labelling exercise. --Breadandcheese 18:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith, even though I know others have not. Did you read the Village Pump debate? Pushing a POV is not the reason why this page was drafted. TSP 17:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please Assume the assumption of good faith. Per WP:Assume good faith, Making unwarranted accusations of bad faith (as opposed to explanations of good faith) can be inflammatory, and is often unhelpful in a dispute. If bad faith motives are alleged without clear evidence that others' editing is in fact based upon bad faith, it can also count as a form of personal attack. Per Wikipedia:Assume the assumption of good faith, The first rule of WP:AGF: Don't talk about WP:AGF. And yes I did read the village pump, and I have some nice quotes and analysis I can post for anyone. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This is why, to my mind, verifiability should not be the key factor here, but (dare I say it a third time?) common sense. Scolaire 17:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Common sense for an encyclopaedia, I believe, would be to side on what is of substance rather than what is fluid and, dare I say, airy-fairy. --Breadandcheese 18:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree. And somebody being Scottish is substance or airy-fairy? Scolaire 18:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Very airy-fairy! It's based on "I feel like a..." rather than "he is...", which - while the former may be interesting, is not an objective fact. --Breadandcheese 18:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So Billy Connolly is not Scottish, he only "feels" Scottish? Scolaire 18:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, entirely - that's what national allegiances are. You can be born in Scotland, live in Scotland, etc and still not be Scottish. Case in point: Tony Blair, who clearly doesn't self-identify as Scottish. Nations are effectively imagined communities. --Breadandcheese 18:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So Billy Connolly definitely isn't Scottish? Scolaire 18:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually prefer Sony-youth's proposal (see the Irishness section) in which -ish words are removed in favour of United Kingdom (Scotland) or Scotland (United Kingdom). Northern Ireland could/should be left on its own. Flags could be discouraged if consensus goes that way. Adrian M. H. 17:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that would help - "British" is a bit of an anomaly, if used as the national identifier for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as it clearly only really applies to one part of it.

If it was Great British, I'd agree, but it isn't. Britain has always been a flexible term and - moreover - was originally applied to the Isles rather than the island. --Breadandcheese 18:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we just have to resolve that no universal solution is possible, however. If we cannot agree that Northern Ireland may be described as part of the United Kingdom, then tying things down to verifiable standards is probably impossible.

If Common Sense is to be our guide, then no policy is necessary. On the other hand, as - unlike Verifiability - Common Sense is not provable and everyone's idea of it is different, it is also unlikely to result in unambiguous or consistent results. Possibly consistency isn't something we should seek on Wikipedia. TSP 17:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Consistency is good as long as it doesn't become a straitjacket. If there is a conflict between consistency and common sense, common sense should have priority. Scolaire 18:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not bothered if consensus goes in the direction of the "United Kingdom (Scotland)" option, but I don't understand how that is any different from "British (Scotland)" or "British (Scottish)". --Breadandcheese 18:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and for the record, I think flags are un encyclopaedic in articles. I don't support the Union Flag (or any other) being anywhere in relation to a person's identity.--Breadandcheese 18:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how many people are aware of the huge controversy that arose during the 2001 census and how many people complained about not being able to put "Welsh" as their nationality. Although I do agree that there are circumstances in which "British" is more appropriate than "English", "Scottish", etc., I do think it's risky to second-guess people's allegiances, and I don't agree with the use of the flag icon - on that I agree completely with the user above. Deb 18:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, that's more because options like "Scottish" were available. It was an anomaly. There are plenty of official forms where people have to tick British or "White UK". If allegiances aren't brought into it, nobody has any problems. --Breadandcheese 18:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The idea of the proposal was to move it entirely from being a question of allegiance, and make it purely a question of verifiable citizenship. TSP 18:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but that was then and this is now. Surely it is clear from all of the above that "verifiable citizenship" is not enough and "allegiance" is central to the question? Scolaire 18:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Allegiances and identity can typically not be summed up in a word. --Breadandcheese 18:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps; but as allegiance is pretty much intrinsically unprovable - even if someone has called themselves 'Scottish' in one place, it's in most cases impossible to prove that they have never called themselves 'British' or indeed 'English' elsewhere - that's not really something we can write a policy on. TSP 18:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's intrinsically unprovable that Billy Connolly is Scottish? Maybe it's me that's going mad! Scolaire 18:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, not to the exclusion of British, or Glaswegian, or any number of other loyalties he may hold. He, unlike many notable people, has discussed his identity in the public arena - he's a pretty easy one to label Scottish, equally he is also known for being pro-British unity. --Breadandcheese 18:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know if Billy Connolly is British ('the passport test')? Is this verifiable? --sony-youth^pléigh 18:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Meaning he would verifiably prefer to be called "British" than "Scottish"? Scolaire 18:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a clue, I'm afraid. For all I know, he might like to be called Scottish by people in the UK and British by people abroad. Again, flexible. --Breadandcheese 18:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he was born in Glasgow, a city in the United Kingdom and is thus holds UK citizenship. --Breadandcheese 18:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So we can say he was "born a British subject" (as it was then), but can we verifiably say that he is a British citizen now? --sony-youth^pléigh 18:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair point, but very few people renounce their citizenships. I'm sure it'd be fairly notable if he did so. --Breadandcheese 19:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"United Kingdom (Scotland)" sounds good to me - and 100$ support scrapping flags. --sony-youth^pléigh 18:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Do we necessarily treat as definitive what people prefer to be called? One of the things that brought on this proposal was the observation that there exist people who self-define as nationals of the Confederate States of America, or of Sealand; yet we do not generally honour those self-identifications. For others, particularly dead people, it will be impossible to establish how they self-identified; only how others have subsequently chosen to display them. I note that we call Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington "Anglo-Irish" despite his own famous and fervent (though admittedly possibly apocryphal) denial of Irish identity, "being born in a stable does not make one a horse". TSP 18:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh my, so you are equating the United Kingdom to a short-live state during a time of war? (I had never heard of Sealand before - thanks for that!) --sony-youth^pléigh 18:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No - I'm saying that people self-define as all sorts of silly things, so if we take self-definition as definitive then there's a big hole that lies THAT way as well. (Equally, I think that we'd get odd looks if we started tagging people just as 'European', even if there are people who self-define as that.) TSP 19:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Apologies - glib reply. I agree, self-identification and second-guessing self-identification are not the way to go. But neither is assuming or second-guessing non-self-identification. Just as we can't guess that all people in Scotland identify as Scottish, neither should we assume that without evidence to the contrary that they do not. (The 'passport test' doesn't really fit either and people give up their passports or become naturalized as citizens of other countries for all kind of reasons - tax, politics, migration, identity - and we can never verifiably know what passport a person holds right now.) --sony-youth^pléigh 19:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We don't "necessarily" do anything. Breadandcheese, above, said "again, flexibility." If flexibility is to be our guide, why can we not build flexibility into the guideline? Scolaire 19:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that the same as the situation we have without a guideline? In which case, perhaps we're better without one. TSP 19:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, perhaps. Scolaire 19:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I still see no reason why we are defining, say (again), Billy Connelly as Scottish in his infobox when any equivalent American comedian from the Deep South would be labelled American. I simply believe the policy seeks parity with the practice for other countries. --Breadandcheese 19:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I do know what you're saying, Breadandcheese. But it must be apparent by now that some people see it differently. Scolaire 19:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Although if we can all crystalise around some compromise like "United Kingdom (Scotland)" then something might still come out of this *shrugs*. I suspect that that may still be far one way for some and too far the other for others, though. We shall see! TSP 19:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It might help if we had a "sandbox" infox to play with so we can see what it looks like in situ. (From experience people often change their minds when they see a proposal as it actually will be on the page.) --sony-youth^pléigh 19:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Billy Connolly
Connolly in 2005
Born	24 November 1942 (1942-11-24) (age 65) Anderston, Glasgow, Scotland
Medium	Stand-up, television, film
Nationality	United Kingdom (Scotland)
Years active	1960s–present
Spouse	Iris Pressagh (1969–1981) Pamela Stephenson (1989–present)
Website	BillyConnolly.com

Well, OK - here's (one possible) Billy Connolly - without flags, as that's the current form on the page. (Hurrah, it even has a GFDL image so we can use it on talk pages!

I have to say that it does look odd to me, just gramatically, to answer "Nationality" with "Scotland"; but that may be a niggle worth putting up with. TSP 19:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Status quo for me. By saying that the UK or United Kingdom (Scotland) can be the only description for nationality is completely wrong. Those who were born in these islands are of course British, but I am also Scottish by birth (my birth certificate tells me so), body politic (I elect MSP's to the Scottish Parliament), community (I was educated according to a Scottish education system and live according to Scottish law), ethnic group and race (mostly celtic). So by these criteria, I am Scottish. So when an editor pens an article and he describes his or her's subject's nationality that subject can be English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish OR British, but not exclusively British --Bill Reid | Talk 19:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I hate to tell a man what's on his own birth certificate, but it does not say you are Scottish. It simply says you were born in Scotland (or, rather more accurately, that you were born within the area in which the General Register Office for Scotland operates, and the county), there are plenty of people born in Scotland who do not see themselves as Scottish. As for politics, any EU citizen resident in Scotland can elect MSPs. Community - you live according to the law of the state you inhabit, I'd assume, and your education is simply a fact of history. Ethnic group and race and neither here nor there, IMO. While all of these would suggest your Scottishness, and certainly show a Scottish influence to your person, they do not make you Scottish. --Breadandcheese 19:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So there's actually no such thing as being Scottish? Scolaire 19:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not remotely what I'm trying to convey. None of the aforementioned things make someone Scottish in the same way as holding British citizenship makes you British. Scottishness (and indeed, any identity) is imagined rather than solid. Not to say that lessens its value in any way, some of the most human things are imagined constructs. However if I was born in Scotland, to English parents, and lived between those two parts of the UK there'd be nothing to stop me thinking "right, I'm not Scottish anymore, I'm now an Englishman". --Breadandcheese 19:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing imagined about being Scottish. In Demography of Scotland you will see "White Scottish: 4,459,071 - 88.09%". That's four and a half million (white) Scottish people, not imaginary Scottish people. There is such a thing as Scottish. It is not a figment of anybody's imagination. Everybody the world over knows what "Scottish" is. To rely on a passport in the face of 2,000 years plus of history just makes no sense whatsoever. Scolaire 20:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't play with words. I suggest you have a look at the Wiki page on Imagined communities - it might makes you realise what I'm saying. There are people, however it is within their heads that they become Scottish. Of course there is such a thing, did I ever deny it? You clearly want me to. As for the '2,000 years plus of history' (Scotland was formed rather more recently, but I'll let it slide) that's simply an appeal to emotion and hardly worthy of a debate. --Breadandcheese 20:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't accuse me of playing with words. You have said, consistently, that people aren't Scottish just because they think they are. As for "2,000 years of history", I said nothing about when Scotland was "formed" - once again legalities seem to be the only reality for you. Scolaire 20:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

But you are doing that. I've said quite the opposite - people ARE Scottish just because they think they are. 2,000 years ago, the people of these islands could best be labeled as Britons, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Legalities are not the only reality by a long shot, but they are a solid foundation of fact. People's identities are a changing, fluid feature of their personalities. When we have to sum up a concept in a few words, we should side with the definite. --Breadandcheese 21:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a problem with all nationalities/national identities, not particularly for "British" ones. Millions of Americans likewise hold themselves to have two or more nationalities, and even have two of those sacred passports you seem to think are so important. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it is a problem with them all, which is why I advocate giving national identities a lesser status than fact and discussing them more adequately in order to establish something more factual. --Breadandcheese 20:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Anderson's imagined communities would apply with equal validity to any collection of letters that would follow the word "Nationality" in an infobox, whether that collection of letters spell Scottish, British, European or Marsian. That one person may hold a passport that also presents their particular arrangement of letters after the word "Nationality" does not make their imagined community any less imagined. Neither does the "imagined" of Anderson's communities imply an any sense of invalidity or unreality. --sony-youth^pléigh 20:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Citizenship is far more tangible than personal identity. It carries with it, for example, rights and privileges and is a status of external application which cannot be shaken off with a thought. 'Neither does the "imagined" of Anderson's communities imply an any sense of invalidity or unreality' - are you trying to imply my use of the term does despite me going somewhat overboard in countering that accusation? There is nothing less important about identity over citizenship, in fact in many cases it is more important to a person, but I still don't see why 'Nationality' when used usually to sum up citizenship - and indeed, that is its only logical application - should be treated differently in UK articles. --Breadandcheese 21:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Those things are indeed among the various things that makes one's nationality Scottish. Bill has just told you, you should listen. There's no more fixed meaning to "nationality" than there is to "Britishness", "Scottishness", "Russianess", or anything else that people all over the world call their "nationality" or "national identity". Like all words, you work out the meaning by usage, not by prescription or some convoluted normative schema that you yourself want to design. Lots of people have penises and don't regard themselves as men, still the concept of "man" and "masculinity" exist in our language and sex or gender is part of various infoboxes and internet forms. Just the real world, Bread. Departing from the real world won't make this conversation look any more sensible. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a biological definition for 'man' - just as there is a legal (as well as national identity related) definition for 'British'. If someone is male, yet considers himself a woman, the latter is worthy of discussion; ditto if I am a human being but I consider myself a goat, it is worthy of discussion too. As far as I can see, you're making my point for me. I'm not attempting to depart from the real world in the least, I'm simply pointing out that British is a far more objective way of labeling a British person than to delve into their identity. --Breadandcheese 20:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the sad thing for me. You think you're being more objective, but in fact you're just trying to objectivize the subjective bureaucratic practice of a government. The government's view may have influence in common understanding of the word "nationality", but it is still a word with ambiguity, for which most of the time most people regard Scottishness as their or a nationality. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, "holding British citizenship" does not make you British. There are over a half a million people in Northern Ireland who not so much "hold" British citizenship as have it forced upon them. That does not "make" them British and never will. Scolaire 20:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem unable to grasp the difference between "British (legal concept)" and "British (identity)" simply because they share the same term (British). Perhaps a mental disambiguation is needed? --Breadandcheese 20:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem unable to grasp the concept that you cannot make somebody British. And by the way, a legal concept is only a concept - as the Deacon says, try to come back to the real world. Scolaire 20:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't intend to make anyone anything, which is perhaps a point of contention here - I certainly do not seek to imply anyone has a certain identity or that they are of a certain cultural background without at least giving it relevant discussion. This is the real world, and in the real world people are British citizens and their identities are fluid things which are not really relevant to an encyclopaedia in many cases. --Breadandcheese 21:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

In the real world people are not British citizens any more than they are anything else. Honestly, Breadandcheese, they're not. It's just a bee in your bonnet, nothing more. You can show me your passport from now until doomsday and it won't change the reality. It's only a piece of paper. People are what they are. Deal with it. Scolaire 21:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Softening the Britishness

I have had so many edit conflicts in the last few minutes that I just had to make a new section for convenience. To address Breadandcheese's earlier query, my (and, presumably, Sony-youth's?) rationale behind Scotland (United Kingdom) would be to soften the emphasis on the concept of nationality or Britishness and strike some balance between the two identities without stamping on either of them. Perhaps if there were not so many infoboxes involved, we could do away with nationality and replace it with place of origin or something and be done with all this, but I don't think that's a practical option. Adrian M. H. 18:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. And I wouldn't even be so bother about reading "Nationality: United Kingdom (Scotland)." --sony-youth^pléigh 19:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Right-o. Sounds perfectly fine to me then. --Breadandcheese 19:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Works for me; with an inclination towards Sony-youth's version.

Are there dissenting voices, or should we go ahead and redraft with that, and see if it makes people any happier? TSP 19:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I didn't see that I had reversed it. --sony-youth^pléigh 19:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your version came first and Adrian reversed it - I don't know if that was a thought-out choice or just happenstance. TSP 19:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I reversed the initial suggestion. It was a conscious decision because it seemed more logical to have the constituent first followed by UK. I prefer that order, but I'm open to whichever order gets consensus. Just don't leave it with both choices; edit wars that way lie. Adrian M. H. 20:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It worries me a bit that this conversation is moving so quickly. Surely we could do with waiting a bit and seeing if others had any good suggestions etc? That said, the set up you suggest is eminently sensible, IMO. --Breadandcheese 19:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure; it just seemed to me that this version couldn't be objected to more than the current version; and I'm keen for the proposal to be viewed as a 'work in progress' and freely altered by anyone who thinks they can do better. TSP 19:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Not dissenting per se, just noting that the field in the infobox says nationality and two countries have been listed. Would British (Scottish) work? Readro 19:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, it looks odd to me as well; but I think that "British" has issues that "United Kingdom" doesn't. "-ish" seems to imply an identity which not all may feel; whereas citizenship is less controversial. Also "British" has its own issues when applied to Northern Ireland, which, while legally part of the UK, is not really British (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). TSP 19:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It is part of the British Isles though. I think I'd prefer "United Kingdom (Scottish)" as it sounds better. For infoboxes that display flags (hated by a lot I know), what about having the Union Flag and the flag of the constituent country together? I think we'd be more likely to get a consensus with that. Readro 19:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no flag for Northern Ireland. --Red King 19:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I still hold that neither the Union Jack or the Home Nation flags are particularly official, but as a matter of recognition to the unique problems of Northern Ireland, it'd probably be best to merely stick with the UJ or omit flags altogether if possible. What is done at the moment? --Breadandcheese 19:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't "Scotland, United Kingdom" be more appropriate and better formatted than United Kingdom (Scotland)? -81.178.104.145 19:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, yes, works for me. TSP 19:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems rather more like an address than a description of Nationality to me. I also think the UK should be emphasised as the actual state of citizenship, and to make it not too unusual when the (Whatever) is left out (as it will have to be in circumstances where 'British' alone is presently used), for the reasons gone into a lot above.--Breadandcheese 19:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It is how you'd be likely to say in real life, which is probably why it reminds you of an address. And the other suggestion would surely be seen as "unusual" when you have "Northern Ireland" and not "United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)" too? -81.178.104.145

Recap: So the choices are:

1. Scotland (United Kingdom)
2. United Kingdom (Scotland)
3. Scottish (United Kingdom)
4. Scotland (British)
5. United Kingdom (Scottish)
6. British (Scotland)
7. Scottish (British)
8. British (Scottish)

? And the forerunner are 1, 2, 3, 5? --sony-youth^pléigh 19:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My mind favours, considering the discussions that have taken place in their entirety, United Kingdom (Scotland). --Breadandcheese 20:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I personally like 3 Scottish (United Kingdom) as answering nationality with just a country looks a bit odd Davewild 20:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmm. Whereas I'd prefer that they be matched - Scottish (United Kingdom) seems to imply that the person holds Scottish but not British nationality. I don't mind apart from that. TSP 20:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, hence my earlier comment about changing the name of the field. I noted that it would be impractical at this time, but I wonder if we could include a suggested field name for future templates? Or change the existing ones? That is if we decide to use this system in one of the first few forms above. Adrian M. H. 20:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I agree with TSP that they should probably match. Adrian M. H. 20:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment on list: None of the above. Leave it to the people editing the articles. That's what's gonna happen anyway. Please, all this time trying to concoct "rules" (which aren't rules, btw, and no-one has to obey them), could be much better spent editing actual articles. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh flippin' heck, we know that they are not rules; that's why MOS is just a guideline to inform editors. Adrian M. H. 20:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree entirely, we need to advocate consistency in some way. Admittedly a lot of people are unreasonable, but I do not intend to roll over and simply accept that. Discussing in a wider context is far better than simply engaging in small-scale edit wars or such similar nonsense. --Breadandcheese 20:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines inevitably involve a small number of people trying to promote a way of doing things and then "encourage" (in practice, often attempt to force) it on the larger unwary editing community. Here these suggestions are so far from the reality of wikipedia that it looks like an extreme case of such a process in action. These kind of things in general should be avoided unless it is strictly necessary. As per this moment, I'm not inclined to believe it is necessary. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Consistancy and factual accuracy have value in themselves and we should work towards them. It's pointless crafting out your own little empires amongst pages (as I've seen users do) and appoint themselves guardians of them and their style. As for a small number, I think we've got a decent number - and it's been put out for other people to contribute. Considering the proposal has only been open for a couple of days, I hardly expected more. --Breadandcheese 20:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope you understand why I think this way at least, and I hope you will also consider the possibility that coming up with guidelines that depart significantly from the reality of wikipedia may cause more problems than it solves. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Sony! At the end of the day it looks as though your compromise is no closer to getting a consensus than the original proposal. Breadandcheese has told us that "a lot of people are unreasonable." He could be right. Scolaire 20:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

At this time you made this comment, only one person had actually objected to this suggestion. --Breadandcheese 21:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

There was not one suggestion, there were eight alternatives and four diverging views on which was right, plus one person that said none of them. To me, that looks like no consensus. Scolaire 21:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, as Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says, 90% of policies and guidelines that are proposed without already being applied in practice fail. Davewild 20:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deacon's Suggestion

1) I do not mind a guideline with some standardisation for templates. I agree that having "Scottish", "Welsh", etc, for anyone born or living after 1948 may be a little confusing to some readers. However, the term British should be avoided because of its lack of clarity and potential controversy; it is true, whether we like it or not, that the term is both ambiguous and that some people do not like it. I would have no problem with:

In some templates, there may be a row requesting information on Nationality to be entered. Enter UK (Scottish), UK (English), UK (Welsh), UK (Irish), as appropriate for 1801 onwards, and Great Britain (English), etc, for 1707 to 1801. For all English and Scottish people before 1707, enter appropriate constituent nationality; for Welsh people before 1707 or Irish people before 1801, it may be more appropriate to specify their ethnicity in relation to their constituent country if that ethnicity meant that they were strongly regarded at the time as English; for example, Anglo-Irish or Anglo-Welsh. In all other cases, enter Welsh or Irish as appropriate.

For Northern Irish people living after the independence of the Republic, there can be a seperate guide if necessary. Note this will not avoid edit disputes between claims for one nationality or the other, in which case the constituent nationality can be omitted.

Where the identity of constituent country is unclear or demonstrably unimportant, it can be omitted. Whether this is the case or not will be determined by consensus on the talk page.

This also should extend to Ireland, because it is simply unhistorical and (for those with emotions involved) unfair to distinguish the Irish in the period between 1801 and their independence from the Scots or Welsh.

2) There should be no guidelines about opening sentence specifications of nationality or national identity. This should be left to the editors. I could recommend something along the following lines:

In the opening lines of an article, it is acceptable to identify someone by their constituent nation. That a person is British follows from their constituent nationality. In some cases British might be more appropriate. The biography in question will generally make it obvious where it is more approrpriate to use which designation:

For example:

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer.

Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig was a British soldier and senior commander.

In cases in which this is disputed, it should be resolved on the talk page.

There will need to be tweaks in the phraseology perhaps, and some clarity for people born before any of the important dates, but living afterwards.

At any rate, my suggestion departs from reality only with the templates. I offer it as my positive suggestion for a compromise. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

One point I'll make is that a lot of people do not like constituent country labels either. There is a body of people who exist who rank themselves as 'British, not ___' in polls. Particularly amongst ethnic minority communities, labelling oneself as 'English' is a definite no-no. These are the multitude of problems we open up by delving into identities. --Breadandcheese 21:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The view you have on the matter, as expressed above, is not accepted by many and frankly it is pointless pushing it. In cases where a member of an ethnic minority does not regard themselves to hold one of the constituent nationalities, then that's easy. Don't put the constituent nationality there; maybe a sentence about that? I these cases, it is unlikely their nationality would say simply "United Kingdom" anyways, since they'd probably be first (or maybe second) generation minorities, and wouldn't take up even a tiny proportion of articles. Something along the following lines:

In biographies about people who are immigrants to the United Kingdom, constituent nationalities may be of less importance, and can be omitted. This should be determined by consensus on the talk page of the article concerned.

? Fell free to alter. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this a good basis for the guideline. The 2. section agrees with practice and my opinion on how things should happen. However on 1. the problem is when it is unclear which constituent nation to use - there are some people for which it is too unclear which constituent nation would be appropriate. Davewild 21:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you not think this covers it, if added to the section: Where the identity of constituent country is unclear, it can be omitted. Whether this is the case or not will be determined by consensus on the talk page.?Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

In that case the guideline would just be to put UK in infobox under nationality? Davewild 21:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. In these cases it would probably be unlikely that British would be controversial, but United Kingdom or UK would be consistent. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Deacon, I appreciate that you are trying to work towards a compromise here, but is your suggestion of UK (Irish) really meant to apply to men who died fighting for an Irish Republic? If so, it is not reasonable (and I mean in terms of logic, not of emotion). Scolaire 21:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a headache, isn't it, esp. as UK nationality didn't come about until after 1948. Do you have a suggestion for a way around this that would preserve the integrity of the guideline? In this instance, the fact if they believed the United Kingdom no longer existed for them, this may make the rules not applicable. But if they did not, I don't see any difference between them and say Lord George Murray (general) or people who died in the '45. But I do believe guidelines should mirror rather than shape reality (a way of telling newbies how things are done, often these newbies will have the same common sense assumptions as everyone else). Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Neither do I see a difference between them and Flora MacDonald (who your original comment referred to) or Lord George. Great Britain (Scottish) would be wholly inappropriate for them. Please see my own proposal here which suggests, respectfully, that UK and British not be used except where necessary. Scolaire 22:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It is intended as a concession to those who believe "nationality" is primarily about which sovereign state you are/were a part of. Not many people are generally aware of how little sense this makes or has made to people in the British Isles (esp. Ireland and Scotland). To people in the British Isles, it makes perfect sense and is as natural as trees and water to have Scottish, English and Welsh football teams, and an all-Ireland rugby team, but is often confusing to people elsewhere. This is partly because sovereign-statism is quite a recent development in world affairs, and has not been particularly relevant to people in this archipelago as compared with elsewhere. Like I said above, the whole issue is best sorted out in practice, and generally it is fine that way. I'm just trying to offer a basis for consensus given that this page already exists and there is some kind of push for guidelines. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

RE: 'those who died for Ireland': I think, in fairness, it is accurate so long as it says "Irish" ("United Kingdom" is just a matter of fact, "British" would be impossible). I like both suggestion, but would provide some "best practice" examples and the logic behind them for #2. I would leave flag images out of the info boxes - is this a part of the proposal? Also, for tidiness, is there a case for merging the this MOS and the IMOS into a British-Irish MOS. Aside from this issue, I would see a lot of benefit from it, it would also cut across attempts to ignore this style on the basis that "it doesn't apply to us" and help ease things in NI. The Irish style also currently give some sound advice on minority languages, which may be useful for Wales and Scotland (but Mann and the Channel Islands, if they could be annexed also). --sony-youth^pléigh 21:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"United Kingdom" is not just a matter of fact. The Act of Union was passed by an Irish Parliament that was not representative of the Irish people. The Irish people, whether by consitutional means or by physical force, fought that Act for 120 years. During that time there was an Irish nation, whether it was recognised by British law or not. Those are the facts. Daniel O'Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell or Pádraig Pearse can not reasonably be tagged as "United Kingdom". Once again, I am talking logic here, not emotion. Scolaire 22:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Deacon's suggestions are a step forward and would work for mainland Britain though I wonder if we are in danger of confusing those who visit en.wiki seeking information, as opposed to those here who edit. Will the visitor appreciate the nuances of: English - pre 1707; Great Britain (English) - 1707 to 1801; UK (English) - post 1801.

However, Scolaire makes a good point and this demonstrates exactly why we are getting into a minefield here. This whole proposal, probably well meaning, is going to create problems that didn't previously exist. Presumably there are blocks of people in Northern Ireland (or Ireland) who would not be content with the labels Great Britain, United Kingdom or Irish in this context. However, if a majority are intent on making these changes then the Irish dimension simply can't be diverted into a side-alley just to get the changes established. --Bill Reid | Talk 10:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One comment: Wales has never been a nation in the normal sense of the word. Before the conquest of 1282, it was just a group of principalities. What makes Welsh a nationality is that people choose it as their nationality - and, despite the lack of agreement over devolution, most Welsh people still choose it. Deb 11:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality

Much of the confusion, argument and discussion here surrounds the use of the term nationality. Is it possible to define what is meant in this context by the term nationality. Are we talking about

• the place of birth, or
• the passport held, or
• the persons identity or self

Because not only are there a minimum of 4 nations within the scope of the proposal, there are also a huge number of immigrants - social, sporting and economic - to be considered. If it is going to be suggested that people like KP, Devon Malcolm and Ed Joyce can self nominate as British or English, then why cannot Billy Connolly self nominate as Scottish. And what about George I and II and Philip. Should they seriously be put down as German and Greek? And if not, why not? There needs to be a clear definition of the intention in this section. MurphiaMan 04:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

For the home nations, would childhood home (unless there are extenuating circumstances) not suffice for most people? So, Tony Blair is English on account of having spend the larger portion of his childhood there and never having made and great claims to being scottish? The issue comes with extinuating circumstances: would Monty be Irish on account of calling himself so or Australian on account of having grown-up there?

I'm sorry, but I don't see Ed Joyce being too much of an issue - unless you want to reclasifiy all of the Ozzies playing cricket for Ireland as "Irish"? And, neither, before you ask was Tony Cascarino, Irish. (Or maybe we should make official that most glorious of titles, the "honoury Irishman"?)

As for the royals - do you really think that "Nationality" is a useful space in an infobox for a royal? (Does the queen have a passport? Does it say, Canadian or New Zealander?) --sony-youth^pléigh 08:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The Queen does not hold a passport as they are effectively all delegations of her authority under the Royal Prerogative. I wouldn't say she had a nationality as such: she refers to places like Canada as home. Indeed, her mother took it one step further and when she was asked in Canada whether she was 'English or Scotch' she replied 'I'm Canadian!'. I certainly don't think it's a useful thing to apply to Royals at all. Nor do I think it's particularly useful generally, but it is a very popular way of classifying people.--Breadandcheese 13:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ohhhhh, Sony. Home nations? You're not trying to be deliberately provocative are you :-) ? But I think you made my point for me very well. It seems obvious to me that trying to impose strict rules on nationality - in infoboxes or otherwise - is only going to distract us all from constructive editing. What is wrong with the status quo? Are the customers revolting? If not then why are we making changes ? MurphiaMan 20:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Scottish comments

The following comments were on the Scottish wikipedian's talk page, and were removed by User:Lurker

• Comment - this is an obvious cheap political move, which is being backed by a few wikipedians (who shan't be named) with a lot of time on that hands, and a hatred of all things Scottish, Welsh and Irish. --MacRusgail 14:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a shocking misrepresentation of the guidelines. They do not state that British is all that can be used, it instead states that British is the relevant nationality insofar as it is the citizenship held by people born in the UK (there are also provisions for people born in NI, considering the citizenship issues arising there). While British should be used for nationality, identity is a completely different matter and - if worthy of discussion - shall be contained within the body of the article, as can plenty of other information relating to Scottishness.

For the record, there's no one person 'pushing' the policy - it was a matter of some consensus reached at the Village Pump by many individuals, one just took the initiative to form it into a policy.--Breadandcheese 13:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This is an honest attempt to make Wikipedia better, something your flouting of guidelines seems to be pitted against. A perusal of WP:DICK might be advantageous. You're the one putting across political opinions, meanwhile you've got no idea of anybody else's. --Breadandcheese 17:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, which just happened to come immediately after the SNP and Plaid got into power in Scotland and Wales (latter in coalition). Really coincidental - I wonder what motivated you? --MacRusgail 14:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm finding it rather hard to pluck anything out of a conversation of this type. At least try to be constructive and maybe even a tad objective. Like we have said, there is no conspiracy and this was not in any way 'immediately' after any elections (those happened in May). You're pressing very close to the line in terms of personal attacks here - and as you know it is well within Wikipedia guidelines to remove them, especially when they are detracting from actual discussion in this way. --Breadandcheese 15:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for a conspiracy when there really isn't one. You're seeing only what you want to see. Could you not even consider the possiblity that this was proposed for consistency within Wikipedia so as to improve it? Readro 15:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This proposal - or rather, this first draft of a proposal, which has been leapt on before ever being finished - came out of an honest debate on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) over an honest problem. It's a shame that people have since made it political. TSP 17:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That "honest debate" at Village pump had all the stink of political ideology that its successor conversation is having. It also doesn't help that it's proposer only advertised it to people he knew wouldn't disagree. There's no "since" about it, it's political nature was there from the beginning. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

If you ask me, your side of the debate is the one asking for special treatment and I've yet to hear one decent justification for it outside of the Irish question. We're not seeking to remove any trace of Scottish identity from people's pages, but it appears you're happy removing all trace of anything British-related. We're working, compromising, trying to find solutions - and to be frank there are a lot of people who want to ruin it for political purposes. --Breadandcheese 17:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's proposer posted a message on the Village Pump policy page about it where everyone could see it. Yes, I also posted messages on the talk pages of people involved in the discussion about creating the proposal just in case they hadn't seen it, but what am I supposed to do - post a message to every user? Readro 20:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You should have at least told the relevant notice boards and projects, which I have now done for you at: Wikipedia talk:Northern Irish Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:Welsh Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:English Wikipedians' notice board and Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board. Leithp 08:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good. --Breadandcheese 13:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why these boards weren't told (sarcasm). --MacRusgail 14:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You obviously can't keep to WP:AGF and your posts here contribute nothing. If you can't be constructive, I'd really suggest you don't participate at all. I really don't know how you've managed to survive on Wikipedia this long with the sort of views you've stated on here in the past couple of days. --Breadandcheese 15:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I have made constructive arguments, and have been able to challenge all of your assumptions (since that's what they are). I also appear to know a lot more about the history of these islands than you do. To quote yourself "I'd really suggest you don't participate" in articles and discussions about Scotland, since you're obviously clueless on the subject.--MacRusgail 14:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

If by 'challenging my assumptions' you mean droning on ad nauseum about your own pet obsessions, then quite frankly my assumptions are more challenged by the Gouranga monks on sauchiehall street. Exactly what have I said that is factually wrong? In fact, I corrected you on a point very recently regarding the Union under Cromwell. What I don't want is people politicising Wikipedia and using it as a soapbox. --Breadandcheese 18:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

You didn't correct me, I merely pointed out that the union of the crowns was abolished by Cromwell, and his attempts to form a single state were illegal, and indeed resisted all over the British isles. I suggest you stop broadcasting, and telling us to be Brits. --MacRusgail 20:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC) p.s. The name of the organisation is ISKON.

I wouldn't call it any more illegal than the reign of the present monarch, which was also established by extra-legal activities (ie, the sitting of a Convention Parliament without approval at the time of the Glorious Revolution). I am not telling you to be anything, I am merely stating two facts: people who are born in the United Kingdom are automatically British citizens and that citizenship is a better (and more obvious) candidate for responding in a one-word fashion to a question of Nationality. Are you being deliberately obtuse or can you not understand this simple concept which has been repeated countless times? --Breadandcheese 20:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Because I didn't know they existed. There isn't any conspiracy here, so please stop looking for one. Readro 15:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Messages have gone missing, and relevant boards have not been notified. Which suggests either incompetence or a conspiracy. --MacRusgail 20:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Last time I checked, the majority of Wikipedia were incompetent. --Breadandcheese 20:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The proposal is inherently POV and is inherently polemic - to claim otherwise is, quite frankly, breathtaking. SFC9394 18:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, no it isn't. I'm beginning to wonder if a few members aren't trying to stifle debate simply by rather vicious slanders on others. It really is not on. --Breadandcheese 15:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup, we've got attacking statements like You obviously can't keep to WP:AGF and your posts here contribute nothing. If you can't be constructive, I'd really suggest you don't participate at all. I really don't know how you've managed to survive on Wikipedia this long with the sort of views you've stated on here in the past couple of days. Lurker (said · done) 15:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you quite serious or just having a jab there? There are some people working constructively and then some who are clearly not and simply using this discussion board for irrelevant political chatter and hurling about insults. I hardly think informing them of this fact constitutes a personal attack, although of course in the interests of actually achieving something, a moderated tone is necessary. --Breadandcheese 15:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Woods and trees

I think this page is getting bogged down with far too many claims and counter claims abotu individual motivation and it's not really helping the situation at all.

First off there have been umpteen edit wars on numerous articles about issues relating to the UK - I don't think anyone can seriously deny that. It is not helped by a lot of guidelines using the terms "country" and "nationality" as though these terms are never confused. Equally it doesn't help when people don't agree as to what the broad group of articles are to follow the style for (The Scottish ones? All the UK ones? All in the world?), with the result that edit wars arise as each side brings the article in line with the majority of those that they regard as its fellows.

It is also not helped by people accusing one position on this matter of being political POV whilst the other is held to be "fact" when there is a lot of POV flying around in all directions.

Now maybe the current proposals aren't the best. But surely having some clarity on how to handle all this would be a darnsight better than perpetual edit wars and the details on articles coming down to who has the stamina to keep changing? Timrollpickering 15:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and I'd add that these are only proposals which have been the product of (at most) a couple of days of active discussion. Hopefully something will come out of these that we can used, but I certainly don't expect it to appear in an afternoon. --Breadandcheese 15:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Settlements again

I removed the historical persons part for now, as it is clearly not only not consensus, but far from it, representative of only a minority view here. As for settlements part, that does seem to have more consensus. I should add though that something needs to be said about Scottish regions, as Scotland does not have counties, and so the section needs to be edited according. It will give me no idea of how to write, for instance, Evanton. Would it be Evanton, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland; Evanton, Ross-shire, Scotland; Evanton, Highland, Scotland; or Evanton, Ross, Scotland? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, Scotland does have counties (see: counties of Scotland). I believe it is accepted, however, when discussing UK places to use the form of '[name], [local authority area]' and only include counties etc in the text if they're relevant. This creates some problems where areas are commonly associated far more with their county than with their modern-day local authority - which happens rather often. --Breadandcheese 15:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, counties were abolished in 1975. --Bill Reid | Talk 15:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, they were no longer used for local governance from that point, true, but there was never any clear indication that they were abolished officially. One might be inclined to suggest, considering the above discussion, that if that was the case we could cite Scotland as abolished three hundred years ago! They still very much survive in popular perception and usage. --Breadandcheese 15:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

In an ideal world, people would say "I come from Strathclyde" etc, but people still identify their local idenity by traditional Scottish counties. Not by regions. --MacRusgail 14:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

I'm really not sure "local authority area" is workable. Most places tend to identify by the town and possibly then county - outside of urban metropolises very few cite local authorities, especially on articles about things in settlements - my former prep school (Downsend School) just says it is in "Leatherhead" (or later "1 Leatherhead Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8TJ, just outside of Ashtead", perhaps realising that Downsend is on the Ashtead side of the thing many would now regard as the firm Ashtead-Leatherhead border but I digress), not "Mole Valley". No-one would ever use the name of the district council to describe where it is.

I think towns and ceremonial counties (when needed) are the best way to say where somewhere is - the counties are firmer (and the ceremonial ones avoid these awkward constructions when it comes to unitary authority areas - look for instance at Rochester, Kent) whereas local authorities are often named after the largest settlement in an area and this can cause confusion between the two. Saying "East Horsley is in Guildford" will cause no end of confusion as that would imply it's a suburb of the county town Guildford, when it's a village some distance from the town but in the local authority borough called "Guildford". Saying it's in Surrey is much clearer. The article East Horsley uses "between Leatherhead and Guildford" to pinpoint its location. Timrollpickering 15:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Surrey is a local authority area, a district/community/parish/whatever council area is not. While these are sometimes synonymous with counties, it is not always the case. For instance, take the difference between the Scottish county of Renfrewshire, which was separated into three local authority areas - Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and East Renfrewshire. The latter are now almost universally used on Wikipedia. --Breadandcheese 15:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Local authority area" is usually taken to be the district/borough council area in two tier arrangements, not the administrative county. If we try putting this term (or "municipality") into a MoS then we'll just have yet another series of problems - what do we do with counties that have both county councils and unitary authority areas - is Rochester in Kent? - or where there's no county council - where's Windsor? Timrollpickering 15:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem Scotland has is that royal administration in Scotland was not like that in England, much less real, and shires had little actual existence. They did not correspond with traditional provincial identites. "Counties", in the English rather than continental sense, were just notional areas over which sheriffs may or may not have had some kind of jurisdiction and get named after towns well after previous provincial administrative systems and communities are already in place; traditional "shires" (which never really existed) in Scotland are different from historic counties; in the early cases, it is clear that the "Shire of X" corresponds only with the area around X subject to Anglo-Norman settlement. So people from, say, Kingoldrum, would have said they were from the county of Angus, not Forfarshire, from Fordun, they would have said they were from the county of Mearns, not Kincardineshire; from Scone, county of Gowrie (doesn't even have an article), not Perthshire, people from Whithorn, Farines or Galloway, not Wigtownshire; Lennox, not Dunbartonshire; Menteith, not Stirlingshire; Lochaber, not Argyllshire; Badenoch, not .... err... whatever shire is supposed to have covered it; Lothian, not Haddingtonshire, etc, etc. Here county is an area ruled or that could be ruled by a count or similar provincial lord, not a sheriff. As a result, the Counties of Scotland (anglicized sense) and all other modern administrative divisions tend to be rather meaningless, except in the few cases where the provincial identity has been retained (e.g. Angus, Moray, Buchan, etc). In essence, it's pretty unimportant emotionally to include or exclude any of the artificial modern pen-pusher inspired regional sub-divisions of Scotland. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

In which case, since I think this MoS needs to go beyond England&Northern Ireland&Scotland&Wales vs United Kingdom issues, how about having separate location guidelines for each of the four parts of the UK providing they are all constitent with each other on the "country" question? Timrollpickering 16:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I think it is just Scotland that is a problem case for this. See Subdivisions of Scotland, also Area committee and Regions and districts of Scotland, and for defunct modern divisions, Registration county, Counties of Scotland and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland. Counties of Scotland is still the way more people think about how Scotland is divided than anything, but is now legally defunct and does not correspond with any government bodies. The Subdivisions of Scotland is probably the best for government sub-divisions, but is still intuitively stupid and cringeworthy. As in ... you're going up the A9, and after driving through the Highlands for nearly an hour, in the middle of the Badenoch mountains you see the sign "Welcome to Highland". "Highland" is a term that no-one actually uses, as the terms Highlands refers to an area which takes up 1/5th of Britain's and nearly 2/3rd of Scotland's geographical landmass; the Gaelic translation of the area, Gàidhealtachd, is even more stupid, since it differs even more violently from how the word is used in practice. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay what we have at the moment:

• When detailing a settlement, such as the birthplace of a notable person or the headquarters of an organisation, the county (if applicable) and constituent country of the UK should be stated.
• In cases where there is no applicable county, such as some unitary authorities, then the county should be omitted.
• Where it is required to display a flag representing the settlement, the flag of the constituent country should follow the Union Flag in accordance with standard flag-display rules.

Leaving aside the "country" issue for other parts of the discussion, "county" is another term that cannot be used raw - are we talking administrative counties (as the comment about unitary authorities - which sort of technically are administrative counties), ceremonial counties (e.g. the Rochester article is at Rochester, Kent not Rochester, Medway), historic counties or postal counties?

I think ceremonial counties are the best to use for stating where places are in England. The problem with unitary authorities (in England at least) is that they don't have the same kind of recognition as counties but rather they're popularly seen as on a par with districts - Joe Public isn't going to care that Rochester isn't under the domain of Kent County Council but rather Medway Unitary Authority but is going to consider someone from there to be a Kentish Man. And furthermore many reorganisations of local government have conferred and removed unitary authority status - in the case of Kent, Canterbury had UA status until 1974, then became a district and Medway has had UA status since 1998. As well as clear locations (e.g. Rochester), writing anything historical or about place of birth is going to be ten times harder if we're constantly having to check the fine details of how local government services were delivered at the time in question.

Kent is one of the harder examples as it has a different set of boundaries for every single version of the counties (Lewisham is only in the historic county, Bexley is in the postal and historic, Rochester in the ceremonial, postal and historic, Ashford in the administrative, ceremonial, postal and historic), but many of the problems exist elsewhere.

So can I propose the following (changes bolded):

• When detailing a settlement, such as the birthplace of a notable person or the headquarters of an organisation, the ceremonial county (if applicable) and constituent country of the UK should be stated.
• Where it is required to display a flag representing the settlement, the flag of the constituent country should follow the Union Flag in accordance with standard flag-display rules.

Any advances? Timrollpickering 19:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so even English counties are not easy to deal with. Your phrasing looks fine to me, but I would suggest that the Constituent Country should precede the UK, because the other way is counter-intuitive ... i.e. United Kingdom, England makes United Kingdom look like part of England. If there is a possible issue of precedence, then the UK flag could ... dare I suggest ... be displayed with more pixels. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Perfick Tim MurphiaMan 20:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

With regard to Wales, I'm in several minds as to what "counties" to use. The problem is multifold.

• a) There are the 13 traditional counties that existed from the Middle Ages until 1974.
• b) There are the 8 preserved counties which exist for ceremonial purposes, based on the counties of 1974-1996, but there have been quite substantial changes in the boundaries of some of them since the administrative counties were abolished, particularly Clwyd/Gwynedd and Gwent/Mid-Glamorgan, with districts being switched from one county to another.
• c) The 22 post-1996 counties, cities, and county boroughs, which is complicated by the fact that some of the current counties share names with pre-1974 counties, but have little commonality of area - Rhyl was in Flintshire before 1974, then in Clwyd, and since 1996 has been in Denbighshire (both the county names being resurrected in 1996 but with very different borders).

So where do we put Welsh places? And to complicate the map of England, it's less than 2 weeks since the government announced that it's minded to split Cheshire in two in 2009... -- Arwel (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Cheshire won't be much of a problem for ceremonial counties. My reading of Cheshire#Politics and administration is that this is a change to the administrative county, and will be no different from the current Berkshire set-up (no county council with everywhere covered by UAs). But it doesn't look like the Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire and High Sheriff of Cheshire will be scrapped. Timrollpickering 22:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay to prevent overlap between the four, here are some sub-headers: Timrollpickering 23:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] England

• Use the ceremonial counties as a point of geography - so far everyone's agreed.

• What do we do about county boundaries in a historic context? For example putting the birthplace of someone born in Sutton in the 1910s (before a lot of the urbanisation reached there) as "Sutton, London" feels odd. Articles on settlements themselves will naturally need explanation of changing boundaries, but taking time out in other articles to explain a few words seems like overkill. Would "Sutton, Surrey (now Sutton, London)" (perhaps with "now" carrying a link to a page explaining how county boundaries have changed) be an acceptable way to handle it succinctly? Timrollpickering 23:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

  I would say the "now" is irrelevant - the article is about the person. So "Sutton, then part of Surrey" or perhaps "Sutton, Surrey" with a footnote explaining that Sutton became part of London in 1965. My preference is the former, as it avoids having to update all such articles whenever the boundaries change. Waggers 11:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• I would include ceremonial counties, and mention contemporary ones if necessary. Also include details of Cornish language or Welsh language name where appropriate (some of the Marcher towns have Welsh names). --MacRusgail 17:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wales

On 22:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC) Arwel (talk) wrote:

With regard to Wales, I'm in several minds as to what "counties" to use. The problem is multifold.

• a) There are the 13 traditional counties that existed from the Middle Ages until 1974.
• b) There are the 8 preserved counties which exist for ceremonial purposes, based on the counties of 1974-1996, but there have been quite substantial changes in the boundaries of some of them since the administrative counties were abolished, particularly Clwyd/Gwynedd and Gwent/Mid-Glamorgan, with districts being switched from one county to another.
• c) The 22 post-1996 counties, cities, and county boroughs, which is complicated by the fact that some of the current counties share names with pre-1974 counties, but have little commonality of area - Rhyl was in Flintshire before 1974, then in Clwyd, and since 1996 has been in Denbighshire (both the county names being resurrected in 1996 but with very different borders).

So where do we put Welsh places? And to complicate the map of England, it's less than 2 weeks since the government announced that it's minded to split Cheshire in two in 2009... -- Arwel (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Difficult. But what I would suggest is to prioritise the bigger cities/towns, which are probably the easiest to deal with. They can at least be included in supercats. --MacRusgail 20:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland

• Comment on Scotland. The use of "Highland" to refer to Highland region is misleading, because it leads to confusion with the Highlands. Not only are the Highlands far larger than Highland region (e.g. Argyll, Perthshire), Highland region also takes in areas which are not really in the Highlands (e.g. most of Caithness)... At the very least, care must be taken to make sure the two are not confused. --MacRusgail 14:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland

Follow WP:IMOS, which already covers Northern Ireland. Bastun^{BaStun not BaTsun} 19:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OK, lets try something radical

I proposed this because it seemed to be the consensus forming on the policy discussion page. However, it appears we have hit a few obstacles since. I don't like having United Kingdom (Scottish) or anything like that - it seems a bit odd to me. I'd rather have one viewpoint and keep it consistent rather than a mix.

What if I were to suggest the complete opposite of the guideline? We drop the whole British thing and use only the relevant constituent countries throughout Wikipedia. Would this be likely to gain consensus?

I don't have an opinion either way as to which side is taken, but my prime desire is for consistency throughout Wikipedia and I will fight for this goal. If it means we adopt constituent countries instead then as long as it is consistently applied, I am happy with that.

Would people be happier with this? Readro 15:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Will this be applied to American states, German Lander? The old provinces of France? Canada? If you're wanting consistency, you'd have to be prepared to edit them. As it stands, the UK is an anomaly. And forgive me, but I've yet to hear one good reason for it. --Breadandcheese 15:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, just the constituent countries within the UK. The UK is an anomaly, but anomalies happen. I don't believe there are edit wars going on about your other examples. There are a lot of UK-related nationality edit wars. The UK countries are the only ones that are causing inconsistencies, and I would like to fix this. Readro 16:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Why did you remove the Scottish comments? Lurker asked that they could be tranferred here --MacRusgail 18:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

My concern has always been for verifiability; which is why I latched on to the 'citizenship' definition of nationality; it will usually be verifiable what citizenship people hold, even if people don't agree that that should be the primary marker of their nationality.

An exclusive use of constituent countries don't seem to offer the same standard of verifiability. J.K. Rowling was one of the main examples that started all this. Is she English (she was born there); Welsh (she grew up there); or Scottish (she has lived there throughout her career)? Any could be argued, so any choice between them is going to be a matter of the editors' opinion. Even with Tony Blair, it is probably unfair to label him exclusively as English when he was born in Scotland to Scottish parents. Yes, it is undisputed that Billy Connolly is Scottish; but the same certainty cannot be applied to all (or even most?) people in the UK. TSP 16:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

We can lay down guidelines. Nationality could be determined by (in order of priority) -

1. What the individual self-identifies as
2. Where the individual grew up
3. Where the individual was born

If you have guidelines like this within the proposal then it can be explicitly clear what to refer to the person as. Readro 16:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I like that, it seems a lot more constructive than the original Where it is required to state the nationality of a person from the United Kingdom, for example in an infobox, British should be used. Lurker (said · done) 16:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Could do it like how addresses for the Republic of Ireland are handled on the IMOS. Write "Scottish" but link to United Kingdom e.g. Billy Connolly: Scottish. For guidelines, I've posted my comments above under "Nationality." --sony-youth^pléigh 16:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't wish to be negative here because Readro is being constructive but I'm not sure the criteria, as they presently stand anyway, will work. Again take Tony Blair, he was born in Scotland, spent most of his life in England and believes himself to be English but wiki applies a British nationality tag to him. It is still going to be subjective but then again, isn't that what it was anyway before this debate took place. --Bill Reid | Talk 16:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Do we have a source that he considers himself English? (Especially that he considers himself English over and above British?) That surprises me. That's one of the problems with the 'self-defining' definition - just because we have a source in which someone calls themselves 'English', it doesn't mean they don't also - and perhaps more so - consider themselves 'British' or even 'Scottish'.

While I respect Readro's search for consistency, I'm not sure that this proposal offers us anything over the current status quo of 'debate it per article', and I think could encourage editors to shoehorn people into one constituent nation or another on slim grounds. TSP 17:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the three steps above are objective -

1. What the individual self-identifies as (needs to be verifiable, if inconclusive, move to step 2)
2. Where the individual grew up (needs to be verifiable, if inconclusive, move on to step 3)
3. Where the individual was born (needs to be verifiable, likely to always be conclusive)

I am right in thinking that this applies to the infobox only, yeah? --sony-youth^pléigh 17:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the self-identification (which, let's admit it, will be applied in a selective way - if its something that the editor in question doesn't agree with, something more orthodox will be substituted) - that doesn't help the British situation at all. Individuals born or brought up in Scotland/England/Wales/etc are, by definition, born or brought up in the UK. While being born in the UK proves their citizenship, being brought up in Cornwall does not prove anyone's Cornishness, Englishness or Britishness. --Breadandcheese 18:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you realise how offensive that statement is to many people? Being born in the UK does not prove citizenship. It proves entitlement to citizenship. There is a huge difference. It may surprise you to find out that not everyone born in Britain chooses to be British. Nationality and citizenship can be a very personal choice for many people. And suggesting that because of an accident of birth that somehow they are a different nationality can be quite offensive. Please consider the language you use a little more carefully. MurphiaMan 19:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't see how it could be remotely offensive I'm afraid. As it happens, everyone born in the United Kingdom is automatically a British citizen - they need not apply for it or anything of the type. Citizenship is very, very rarely a considered choice, while increasing numbers of people are choosing to have dual citizenships, the numbers of people who actually go so far as to renounce their citizenship of birth when not forced to by the authorities in their new country of residence can most likely be counted on one hand. People are citizens of states largely by accident of birth, or indeed accident of position and rules laid down by the Home Office. It is nothing more, it is not anything particularly significant. As for consideration, I've given it plenty and I'm still unable to discern anything remotely offensive... perhaps you should consider that you may be being a tad over-sensitive.--Breadandcheese 21:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment Comparing England, Scotland and Wales to American and Canadian states and German Länder, or even French counties, is the height of sillyness. No-one actually thinks they are comparable, and even those who attempt to use government structures to compare them, they know themselves they aren't comparable. This is the kind of thing that will get this page absolutely no-where. In fairness, only Breadandcheese insists on this kind of thing and other pseudo-legal fictions (see postings throughout this page). Regarding Readro's point, this is generally how it is done already, so should be the starting guide. It can be changed from then on according to more specific nuances that come up. I still think it is better to describe Field Marshall Haig as British than Scottish, and I think those kind of people have to be dealt with if there are any guidelines. In general, the designation that makes the most sense, is found already on wikipedia. The main problem is that in England British and English (and lets be honest, most of the rest of the world) are in practice interchangable, so English people more often get described as "British" than Scots, Welsh or the relevant Irish, which I assume is the reason for the objections held by some English users here (certainly that was a view expressed on Talk:J. K. Rowling). This point is probably yet another one of the reasons British will be objected to by Scots and Welsh, since it both makes them appear English and is unnecessarily vague (English, Welsh and Scots are British by extension anyway) and in practice not the way most Welsh, Scots and relevant Irish are described either on wiki or elsewhere. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no fiction at all in my proposal, legal or otherwise. Citizenship is a legal fact. What you are advocating is a fiction: that all people with a link to Scotland are 'Scottish'. If I were to somehow become notable, I could easily find myself labelled Scottish (I was born in, educated un, grew up un, live in, Scotland etc) however I am deeply uncomfortable with that label as representative of my identity and while I do have a certain Scottish identity, if asked my nationality I would reply British. This, however, is unlikely to be publicly documented unless I decide to pontificate on what is essentially a private matter - which most people do not.

The conflation of British and English is very much overstated in my opinion - although in some languages, the term for British effectively means English, not that it is in any way incorrect to do that; the English are the chief national-ethnic group in Britain.

You suggest I am somehow being disingenuous when I compare the Home Nations to German Lander or Canadian provinces, I can assure I am not. While British people do like to think their subdivisions are special, I think this is merely another form of Anglocentricism, certainly something that doesn't belong here. I'd have far more time for arguments to the contrary if they didn't inevitably lead down the sophomoric route of 'that's silly because what I say is right'. It's a ridiculous double-standard and one not belonging anywhere near something which claims to be an objective source of information.

On another point, it would be perfectly possible to be Scottish without having a British identity or British citizenship - a fact you seem to deny in the above. Scottish need not imply British. --Breadandcheese 18:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It is a legal fiction to say that Scottish, Welsh and English nationalities do not exist; i.e. the law does not correspond to the reality of society and language. It is a fact that Scottish, Welsh and English are understood as nationalities, as sometimes is British. If you think any of these words have some objective meaning, you have a lot to learn about the philosophy of language. If you think legal status counts towards "superior meaning", that is just your opinion, and its a minority one. Governments can say all they want, but it doesn't make it true. As for conflation with England and Britain, it is the rule, not the exception. I did undergraduate study in the US and constantly heard British being used for English, e.g. "if you're from Britain, why do you not have a British accent" or (from a professor) "Hadrian's wall ran close to the modern border between Britain and Scotland"; informally, "British" almost always was understood as meaning English. I had pretty much the same experience when I lived in Turkey. As for other languages, check out the following British government webpage, which has the message at the top İngiltere Büyükelçiliği, Türkiye’ye Hoşgeldiniz, and then look at its English page Welcome to the British Embassy, Turkey. I have no need to tell you what İngiltere Büyükelçiliği actually means. So if the British government encourage confusion of the two, what hope is there for Scottish and Welsh linguistic prescriptivists to make people obey the "true" meaning of the word "British". If you want an "objective" meaning for any of these words, British, Scottish, English, Russian, Kurdish, etc, Ovid says it all: Quid frustra simulacra fugacia captas? Quod petis, est nusquam. Since you have knowledge of Latin advertised on your user page, I won't translate that either. Ignoring all this stuff though, your view is so far from possible consensus here, let alone reality, that you can be pretty sure your own idiosyncratic view of things is not going to be accepted. Whether you think people are right or wrong, reality will ultimately decide everything. And the reality of opinion here is that your view is not going to get anywhere. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misinterpreted the term 'legal fiction'. I actually agree to some extent though, the law does not have a monopoly over commonly understood terms and ones with a non-legal definition. Nationality is not a term of art at all, which is what makes this so difficult. Legal status is not superior in any way - I'm certainly not some dyed-in-the-wool statist, quite the opposite in fact. However the lawful definition of Nationality is a convenient, accurate and encyclopaedic method of categorisation, which is more than can be said for the amateur sociology which you're advocating.

Incidentally, I've suffered similar: "You come from Scotland, how come you don't have a Scottish accent" when they mean either a stereotypical Highland accent or some John Reidesque urban drawl. Welcome to the real world: we come with stereotypes. On the other matter, the British Government can do what it likes; as you've so eloquently pointed out above, they are not the guardians of fact. Moreover, I have no problem whatsoever with people using terms for English ethnicity to apply to the UK, it is after this country's largest pseudo-ethnic group - and that is a rather common way of describing nations whether the minorities like it or not. Anyway, to emphasise a point: the legal definition does not exclude the idea of identity from Nationality, it complements it. --Breadandcheese 21:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Possibly a more useful comparison for Scotland and Wales would be Slovenia or Azerbaijan. If you want to know where they are, there is no other way but to look them up. Twenty years ago you could have said "it's in Yugoslavia" or "it's in the Soviet Union" but now you can't. It's quite conceivable that in another twenty years the United Kingdom might be dissolved, and Scotland and Wales will be in a similar situation. So, that being said, why do we have to specify that they're in the United Kingdom today ("because they are" is not a good enough answer).
Readro, I fully support your proposition. I won't mention that I made the identical proposition 24 hours ago (Aw, heck! I will). Scolaire 18:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it's the practice used in all other wikipedia pages, chiefly. Start using more localised forms in other pages and I wouldn't complain one bit. Scotland and Wales are in no way comparible with independent sovereign states and, to be frank, predictions on their future development are enormously irrelevant (I personally think they're far more likely to become part of a federal European state, but I'm not arguing for Glasgow, EU am I? --Breadandcheese 18:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No you're not, but if you look at your passport (which the Brits here have been banging on about) it says European Union - therefore, shouldn't wikipedia be "forward looking", and put all the UK nationalities next to "the ring of stars"? (Devil's Advocate) Even people like David Steel, though unionists, would describe themselves as "Scottish". --MacRusgail 18:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I would assume a Unionist would have to be someone who recognised the identities of the Home Nations - otherwise they'd be a British nationalist rather than someone who wanted a 'union' between certain nations. Yes, most people who identify as British are happy to be considered Scottish; vice-versa is also true. However in cases, certain people do not identify in these ways.

Why shouldn't European status be recognised. Well, I'm not saying it would be incorrect to do so, but it would be contrary to international Wikipedian practice for one, and it would be an incompatible comparison for another (everyone has a sovereign state, not everyone has a supernational governmental structure, or a sub-national one for that matter). I'd certainly be happier for someone to call me a European (which I am; as a holder of European citizenship) than something I am not. --Breadandcheese 19:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Home nations", "put them in their place" - what next? You claim you've expressed no political statements, but those two quotes quite clearly demonstrate your thinking. I don't want to be "put into my place" or "know my place" - this is allegedly a democracy. As for the European stuff - I suggest you posit this elsewhere, and see the reaction from the Brits. Then you'll find us "extremists" aren't quite as extreme as you imagined. Around a third of Scots consider themselves "Scottish not British", and the ones who feel strongly about Britishness these days in Scotland are often either posh, or support Rangers/Orange Order. It's not how it was even thirty years ago. Things change, and Britishness is a dead duck - that's why Brown wants the Union Jack everywhere. --MacRusgail 19:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Home nations" is a common term used in the UK to describe England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Do you actually live here? Because to suggest there is something political about so common a statement strikes me as odd.

This discussion isn't about who feels what - it is about objective fact, and I really think you should drop the ridiculous stereotypes from your mind - which are rather daft considering the largest pro-union party in Scotland is a working class democratic socialist party. Where you feel the British national identity is going is entirely an irrelevance to me and my position, so I don't see why you continue to trumpet it like a child who's just managed to make a play-doh giraffe. It's not relevant, it's not original, it's not interesting and its not from any sort of respected source; ergo, I don't care. --Breadandcheese 22:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Home nations, if you care to read about it, has a number of different meanings most of which are in some way controversial. You say that it may be a common term in the UK, but I would suggest that the farther one gets from London the less common is the usage. Its actually quite provincial. Its rarely used in Ireland. And the fact that its usage it strikes you as odd suggests to me a failure on your part to appreciate the POV nature of the discussion and the points of contention. Simply put, there are other POV's to yours - mine included - and, ergo, yours is not necessarily a Neutral POV.

So we need to consider all the POV's in deciding what is the NPOV. MurphiaMan 04:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Do we have a source that he [Blair] considers himself English?" - Alastair Campbell, his new book - back in library so can't quote the page.

• 1. What the individual self-identifies as (needs to be verifiable, if inconclusive, move to step 2) - many people don't wear their preferred nationality on their lapel
  2. Where the individual grew up (needs to be verifiable, if inconclusive, move on to step 3) - where a person grows up I don't see has a lot to do with it. I've an acquaintance who grew up in Cyprus to Scottish parents and he plays the bagpipes.
  3. Where the individual was born (needs to be verifiable, likely to always be conclusive) - see last point and also Alastair Campbell who was born in England to Scots parents (and who does consider himself Scottish, btw). --Bill Reid | Talk 19:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Bill, pick a person then go down through the list. e.g. Blair would end at step 1: he identifies himself as English, full stop. For your fiend in Cyprus, I don't know them, but if they self identify as Scottish then I don't see what they are doing in step 2. For Alastair Campbell - what is he doing all the way down in step 3?? If he consider's himself Scottish then like Blair and your friend from Cyprus, he also would not have any need to go past step 1. For other people, who like you say "don't wear their preferred nationality on their lapel", move on to step 2. If that is inconclusive then move on to on step 3. --sony-youth^pléigh 23:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I ask where precisely Blair has said he identifies as "English" and precisely where he chooses that identity over "British" or "Scottish"? (I do concede that he is more likely to be offered the English Garter than the Scottish Thistle.) Very few people, with the exception of nationalists, tend to make explicit statements on this matter and many will give "British" or "English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/Northern Irish/Ulsterman" depending on the circumstances without seeing a contradiction or feeling the need to declare alleigance to both all the time, lest they get written up as "British (not Scottish)" or "Welsh (not British)".

Taking Northern Ireland as one example, purely because I have John Whyte's "Interpreting Northern Ireland]] on my shelf and there's a sub-chapter in it on national identity summarising several studies on national identity. Some interesting features spring out that suggest national identity is not always one single hard and fast thing. The studies have found that over time the proportions of Protestants in Northern Ireland giving their national identity as "Irish" collapsed dramatically with The Troubles - from 20% in 1968 to 3% in 1986. One 1987 study of Northern Ireland probed in depth and found that the proptions amonst Protestants varied given particular circumstances, whereas for Catholics the proportions stayed the same. Indeed there were three situations in which more Protestants chose "Irish" than "British" - "being amongst English people", "injustice and discrimination against Irish people" and "watching Ireland play rugby". Even Ian Paisley once said he would never repudiate that he was an Irishman.

If we are to go with some form of self-definition for people's national identity then it's going to be a nightmare for all bar a few (and if people start quoting offline sources then it'll be even harder to check context in edit wars). Timrollpickering 23:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Blair self-identifies as English. I've heard him call himself such. A quick dredge brings up this - "Prime Minister Tony Blair has ordered the English flag to be flown over his office on days when the team is playing World Cup matches." ("Tony Blair flies the flag for England" 2006 Financial Times Ltd.)--MacRusgail 19:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Which doesn't mean much because Blair was also on record at the time advocating that everyone in the UK should support the only team from the UK in the competition (and demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the nature of football rivalries) and Brown was also making it well known that he was cheering on England. Both cases sound like someone asserting that they're British above all else. Is there anything on record about where Blair's loyalty lay when any two Home Nations teams were playing, particularly England vs Scotland? Timrollpickering 19:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Brown supposedly celebrated when Paul Gascoigne scored against Scotland in 1996.[4] I wonder what that proves, since he is not in any way anything but Scottish? Maybe there should be a rule that anyone with political ambitions in England should be labelled British, with no reference to national identity.Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually doubt Brown did celebrate that goal at the time. I have a suspicion this is a classic case of a politician trying to make themselves look like they're in touch with popular culture when in actual fact they haven't got a clue so rely on briefings and other titbits they've picked up without realising what the context is. In some sports fans of one side will quite openly say something complementary about a supposedly "classic" point scored by the team playing against them. Football is not one of these sports. What this really proves above all else is that Brown frankly doesn't have the mentality of the average Scottish football fan (though come to think of it does every Scot care about the football?) and with this he wasn't doing a good job at repackaging himself as "English friendly" either. Timrollpickering 20:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

All of the above the above is missing the point on two counts:

1. "Self-determination" is nowhere described as a willingness to die rather than be called anything else. It simply means what the person would ordinarily say if he/she was asked what they were. In Tony Blairs case, if that can be supported by a citation (Bill Reid says it's in the Campbell book), then he considers himself English and further detective work is unnecessary.
2. English versus British is not relevant to this proposal. The proposal is that British be dropped altogether and the constituent country be determined by self-identification etc. So the 'many will give "British" or "English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/Northern Irish/Ulsterman" depending on the circumstances' argument doesn't apply here, or rather that is precisly why we are discussing this particular proposal. Scolaire 07:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to answer the Blair and England bit then that's me finished on that particular topic. As I said above the Alastair Campbell book is back in the library, but anyone can get their hands on it. Inevitably true allegiances come out when it comes down to basics - football. TB said in a phone-in in BBC Five Live "I support England very strongly, but if Scotland was playing - not England - but a game against someone else why [take the attitude] that I don't want Scotland to win when they are part of the United Kingdom?" [5] --Bill Reid | Talk 09:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

English versus British is relevant because using the constituent country is controversial, as seen on numerous edit wars. Describing Westminster level politicians who give "British", or nothing clear, as "English" or "Scottish" etc... is a POV. Currently we have Ruth Kelly described as a "British politician". Describing her as a "Northern Irish politician" would be utterly absurd. And how this is handled in other countries is relevant - Jean Charest, former PM and leader of a federal party in Canada and now provincial premier of Quebec, is described as "a Canadian lawyer and politician from the province of Quebec" not a "Quebec politician" (sp?) - and to dismiss Quebec as not being a comparable case is strange. The reason there are inconsistencies on UK articles has more due to editors inserting and warring over the descriptions (as well as the division into the Home Nations for sports and some other purposes) than objective assessment of the situations themselves. Timrollpickering 12:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't got the time to go through wiki looking for edit wars so can someone please post details of them here so I can go see what people are talking about. Don't agree that British can be dropped altogether, though and I think Tim's correct when talking about poiticians who operate in a British environment as opposed to a purely English or Scottish. A Scotsman who is a Westminster MP should be described as a British MP. If being Scottish was pertinent to the article then that should also be mentioned. In John Reid's article the opening statement is:

John Reid (born 8 May 1947) is a British politician who is the former Home Secretary and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Scottish constituency of Airdrie and Shotts in the United Kingdom.

so I don't see any problem in having British and Scottish used (in the same sentence even) in an article. --Bill Reid | Talk 15:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Bill, first of all you're absolutely right - there is no problem in having British and Scottish used, in the same sentence even. There are a number of separate issues here that have tended to be lumped together. One of these is the infobox. If the infobox asks for nationality, realistically only one answer is allowed. I, and Readro, have proposed that British not be used here. Readro has come up with a priority list to decide which constituent country should be used. In the case of Ruth Kelly, if she had not expressed a wish to be known as English or Irish, the place where she grew up would be used. That would make her English. Of course the fact that she was born in Northern Ireland would be stated, and also the fact that she is a British Member of Parliament. For examples of edit wars you could try J. K. Rowling, Tony Blair and Peter Green (musician) (in Peter Green's case the war lasted from 6 April to 25 June 2007; haven't checked the others).

Tim, the situation with Canada and Quebec is complicated by the fact that anglophone Wikipedians are in the main federalists, while francophones tend to read/edit French Wikipedia. If they were both editing the same articles in the same Wikipedia I have no doubt that Jean Charest would be the subject of serious edit wars.

Actually, since I wrote that I checked French Wikipedia and found this: "Jean Charest...est un avocat canadien et homme politique québécois et canadien." Smacks of compromise? Scolaire 20:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiability

A number of people have said that their reason for supporting the original proposal is the verifiablity of holding a British passport, or of holding British citizenship. Some have even said that this is the only fact that is truly verifiable. This has become such a truism that I suspect nobody has checked WP:V to see if it's actually correct. Here is WP:V:

• "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is."

No mention of documents issued by local or national government departments. This isn't just hair-splitting. To illustrate what I'm saying, I want to give this example (again from Irish history, but only because that is something I know a little about):

An Englishman named John Stephenson grew up believing he was Irish. He became involved in Irish organisations and was jailed for the theft of arms from an Officers Training Corps school. He later changed his name, moved to Dublin and eventually became Chief of Staff of the IRA.

Now, despite the fact that he was born in England to an English family, grew up in England and spoke with an English accent, Seán Mac Stíofáin was verifiably Irish because I can cite half a dozen authoritative books on the IRA that all contain the facts I've given you, thus satisfying WP:V. If you counter that his passport shows that he was verifiably British, you are mistaken because (a) his passport is not in the public domain and (b) it is not a source of the type listed at WP:V. I think this should be borne in mind in future discussions of verifiability. Scolaire 14:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

My point is that only a fact can possibly be verifiable. The quote above is an interesting example, in that the source chooses to describe him as 'an Englishman' and never as 'Irish'. I don't mean that this necessarily means he was English; but it's a good example of where you can have facts - that he lived in Ireland, served in the IRA, and considered himself Irish - but it remains a matter of opinion whether he was Irish, because there is no factual standard being applied of what makes someone Irish. As it happens, despite all those factors, the source you quote still chooses only to call him an Englishman.

Possibly more relevant than WP:V is this from WP:NPOV:

"Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves."

The British Passport is not the source; it is the fact. That someone holds, is entitled to hold, or does not hold a particular passport is a fact, which can at least potentially be cited. That someone "is Scottish" is an opinion. In the case of, say, Billy Connolly, it may be a completely uncontroversial opinion; but there's still no formula that can be applied to establish whether someone is Scottish, or English, or, for people during the period when there was no independent Ireland, were Irish. That someone has Scottish ancestry; was born in Scotland; grew up in Scotland; chose to live in Scotland; called themselves Scottish; all of these are facts and can potentially be cited; and if all of them are true, then probably no-one will dispute that the person was Scottish. In very many cases, though, it will be far less clear. As we've seen above, someone who was born and grew up in England may choose to consider themselves Irish, and others may or may not agree with them. Greg Rusedski, it seems, has been self-identifying as English in at least some contexts, but I think few would agree with him!

I completely accept that citizenship is not the only possible measure of nationality; but I do think that it is one of the few that can be verified, rather than remaining a matter of opinion; as your example above shows. Self-identification is another; but in relatively few cases (speaking over the whole span of history) will we have a definite self-identification; and even when we do, they have their own pitfalls. TSP 15:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

TSP, that I think was quite a contradictory response. Firstly, having a passport is one of the few facts that can't be verified, at least easily. If the person is dead (and a high proportion of the biographical articles on wiki are about dead people) how can anyone verify that the person held a passport? Equally if he's alive, unless the person himself has self-declared that he holds a passport, how is this verification going to be achieved? "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth", so the fact that anyone owns/owned a passport in 99 cases out of 100 will be unverifiable. Secondly, you say "That someone "is Scottish" is an opinion.", then you say "That someone has Scottish ancestry; was born in Scotland; grew up in Scotland; chose to live in Scotland; called themselves Scottish; all of these are facts". So one minute the nationality is an "opinion" then the next they "are facts". --Bill Reid | Talk 16:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Passports seem to have come to dominate this debate; they weren't particularly meant to. My point is citizenship. Someone's citizenship is a fact. While it may be difficult to establish in some cases, at least then we are attempting to establish a provable fact, of citizenship, rather than attempting to balance opinions, of identity. I would rather debate facts - "this source says that she was born in Australia to Australian parents, which would suggest that she would hold Australian citizenship" - than opinions - "She was born in Australia, but she grew up in Scotland, and that makes her Scottish".

I'm not sure what is confusing about the second point. That someone has Scottish ancestry; that is a fact; that someone was born in Scotland; that is a fact; that someone grew up in Scotland; that is a fact; that someone chooses to live in Scotland; that is a fact; that someone calls themselves Scottish; that is a fact. No one of these, however, is universally agreed to result in the person 'being Scottish'; so that remains, as far as I can see, an opinion on which people's views may vary. I gave a list of facts, any of which could be taken to bear on whether someone is considered Scottish; but as far as I am aware there is no definite agreement that, for example, "everyone born in Scotland has Scottish nationality". TSP 18:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been following the passport issue, only your last statement and it was you who was using it to justify nationality. You did say that being Scottish was an opinion, not a fact. Then you produced a list of factoids of how you could define being Scottish; contradictory or not? Also no-one is saying "everyone born in Scotland has Scottish nationality", in fact I've been saying that all along but good to see that you accept the concept of Scottish nationality. -Bill Reid | Talk 19:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

TSP, somehow you took a meaning from what I wrote that was the opposite of what I intended. Admittedly I started by calling him an Englishman, which is confusing - sorry about that - but my main point is not that "the source chooses to describe him as an Englishman" - that was me - but rather that he was verifiably Irish according to WP:V. Any talk of citizenship is not verifiable unless a reputable source is quoted. A legal precedent or whatever it is, if you don't want to focus on passports, is not enough. Nationality, much of the time, is far more easily verifiable - if a number of "books published by respected publishing houses" (or even one in some cases) say that a person was this or that nationality, then they were. End of story. Self-determination or anything else doesn't need to be established. "That someone holds, is entitled to hold, or does not hold a particular passport is a fact." Yes, and I would put a "fact" tag on it, asking for a citation. "That someone 'is Scottish' is an opinion." Maybe, but if it's supported by a citation, it's more verifiable under WP:V. Scolaire 19:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see - I'd misinterpreted your indent as signifying a quote. Sorry.

I intentionally took a meaning that was the opposite of what you intended; what I meant to show was that, while in your opinion those facts add up to someone being Irish, someone else might see those same facts and still conclude that the person was not Irish; because we have not established a definitive definition of what we are meaning when we say "this person is Irish"; we have left that in the realms of opinion.

As has been said by many people, there are different definitions of nationality. Even if, say the Encyclopedia Britannica calls someone Irish, all we can reliably cite from this is that "the Encyclopedia Britannica calls him Irish"; because there is no single factual definition of what 'Irish' means; the Encyclopedia Britannica could consider him Irish, while by other metrics and in other equally reliable sources he could be considered, say, English. Whereas if the Encyclopedia Britannica says someone has Irish citizenship, then that is a fact with only one possible meaning, and we can cite that "he has Irish citizenship".

I think you are misunderstanding WP:V. It says that if a fact is reported in reputable sources, then we should take it as a fact. It doesn't say that if an opinion is expressed by reputable sources, it becomes fact. WP:V goes hand in hand with WP:NPOV, which says, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves".

WP:OR is also relevant. You say that you can verify that the person is Irish, because you can verify that they served in the IRA, called themselves Irish and so on. Even if we had a source that said "Everyone agrees that someone who serves in the IRA is Irish", Wikipedia policy goes out of its way to forbid that kind of logic - WP:OR#Synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position.

If we do not have a factual definition which we are applying when we state that someone is Irish, then any source we have which states they are Irish can only be giving that as an opinion. They can give facts which support this - you consider that if someone chose to live in Ireland, served in the IRA, and called themselves Irish, that makes them Irish; but others might disagree. Citing facts which might back up an opinion; or citing sources which hold that opinion; do not alone make that opinion fact. That doesn't mean that it can't be included if a notable source has expressed that opinion; or that the facts that you consider to add up to their Irishness aren't every bit as notable as the more nebulous concept of 'Irishness' itself; but none of them can be cited to mean that a person 'is Irish' unless we've defined what we mean when we say that. TSP 00:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The most you can say about someone on the basis of what passport they hold is that they are a citizen of a particular country, anything else is interpretative. --sony-youth^pléigh 21:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. My suggestion was simply that we should say that that is what we mean, and all we mean, when we fill in the "Nationality" box on infoboxes - possibly going so far as to relabel them all 'Citizenship' - in order to lock this down to facts that are capable of verifying, rather than opinion. I am not saying that this means that this constitutes their nationality in any broader sense; I am saying that I would prefer - in the narrow context of infoboxes, which are very bad at expressing subtlety - to avoid speculating on people's nationality in a broader sense. TSP 00:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Once again, no. You can't say anything at all about someone on the basis of what passport they hold. A passport is not a verifiable source for the purposes of WP:V. If you want to say that Einstein was a mathematician you don't go to the university and get a copy of his degree - you cite a reputable source. Exactly the same holds true for Einstein's nationality or his citizenship. "Interpretative" doesn't come into it. Scolaire 21:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, I think this is a misunderstanding of WP:V. The passport is not the source; the passport is the fact. Any citizenships we reported would need to be provided by some reliable source; but they are a fact that can be reported, as distinct from an opinion, which remains an opinion however reputable the source.

Opinions expressed by reputable sources are still opinions. They are opinions that can be reported, and the fact of the opinion is notable; but that doesn't make the thing that is expressed fact. (For example, I can take a book in which Karl Marx asserts "Religion is the opium of the people". I can use that as a reliable source for the fact that "Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people". I can't use it as a reliable source for the fact that "religion is the opium of the people"; because that is still an opinion, even if it is one expressed in a book entitled to be considered a reliable source.) TSP 00:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

With the greatest respect, TSP (and I do mean it, I have the greatest respect fot you), I think that you have a deep misunderstanding of what a fact is. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines it as "1 a thing known to be true, to exist or to have happened. 2 truth or reality, as distinct from mere statement of belief. 3 a piece of information." WP:V begins: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" so right from the off, the meaning of 'fact' for these purposes is "a piece of information", not truth. "'Verifiable' in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source." That's right, I'm not playing with words, any piece of information that has been published by a reliable source is a verifiable fact. When Karl Marx said "religion is the opiate of the people" was he expressing an opinion or did he provide a dialectical proof? I don't know, I haven't read Marx, but if it was the latter then you can state that as a fact in an article on religion (WP:NPOV, however, requires you to point out that this fact is a minority point of view). To put it another way, is "religion is the worship of God" a fact, bearing in mind that the statement is disputed by Marxists? If not, can anything be stated as fact?

Incidentally, Encyclopedia Britannica is an impeccable source. Anything it states as fact we can state as fact. Wikipedia has no claim to have better or truer facts than Britannica.

Your citation of WP:OR is also fallacious. I never attempted to 'synthesise' sources to construct an argument, I only said that the fact of the man's Irishness was asserted by numerous authors. That's what citation is. On the other hand, if you state that the same man is British, based only on a birth certificate, that is original research, by definition.

Finally, your continued use of the word "opinion". My nationality is a fact. If nationality was an opinion, there wouldn't be any nations, and there wouldn't be any wars, because people would have nothing to fight over. There wouldn't even be Utopia, because Utopia itself would be a nation. That a passport or any other document establishes somebody's citizenship, on the other hand, is an opinion expressed by you, and nothing more. I don't agree with that opinion - no amount of documentation will convince me that, for instance, a Palestinian living within the State of Israel is an Israeli citizen.

Sorry if all of that sounds a bit bolshie. I just feel it's important that we at least try to have a consensus on the meaning of words, and the meaning of WP guidelines. Scolaire 08:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay here's one to potentially confuse people - Christopher McGimpsey, who doesn't yet have an article (and may or may not meet the notability theshold, although his brother Michael McGimpsey does) is an Ulster Unionist Party politician. He also famously held (and may still hold) a passport for the Republic of Ireland - see the Supreme Court case on the Anglo-Irish Agreement brought by McGimpsey v. Ireland. So what is Chris McGimpsey's nationality? Timrollpickering 12:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm shocked to learn that Chris McGimpsey doesn't have an article. I may start it myself at some stage. But as to his nationality, if we apply Readro's criteria, we can stop at 1. What the individual self-identifies as. Chris McGimpsey identifies as Northern Irish (the Irish passport, plus if I remember correctly he studied the Irish language, suggests that he doesn't repudiate Irishness to the point where he will only self-identify as British). In this case the Irish passport is admissable under WP:V because there is a reputable source cited. But then again, it's worth quoting the entire paragraph:

• The statement of claim contains no claim that either plaintiff is a citizen of Ireland, although it is stated that the first plaintiff is the holder of an Irish passport. No evidence was given by either plaintiff that either he or either of his parents had made the prescribed declaration pursuant to s. 7, sub-s. 1, of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, or of any facts which would indicate that he was "otherwise an Irish citizen".

Wow! maybe a passport is not evidence of citizenship at all! Scolaire 19:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I'd also ask if Chris McGimpsey has identified as "Northern Irish" as opposed to, say, "an Ulsterman" - the two don't always appear to be used as interchangable and are reflective of the use of "Northern Ireland" and "Ulster" for the (six county) province. I think that given the way identities are fluid within communities any attempt to try to pick "self-definition" nationalities for Northern Ireland is going to be far too complicated and difficult to verify to work properly. What about those politicians and groups who either asserted that the border wasn't the most important thing in politics (e.g. Gerry Fitt's "it is very difficult to be a socialist without being labelled a Unionist socialist or an anti-partitionist socialist, but I am a socialist...") or who shifted their position over time (Official Sinn Féin/Workers Party or even the various Unionists and Nationalists who formed/joined Alliance).

My thoughts on the rest will be posted below soon. Timrollpickering 18:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Michael McGimpsey is currently described at his Wiki page as "a Northern Ireland unionist politician." What's wrong with that?

(And, for the record, Irish citizenship law has changed a couple times since the McGimpsey case, so it might be worth a caution that the paragraph above does not represent an interpretation of current Irish citizenship requirements.) Nuclare 03:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If I wrote that bit (I created the article) then I used the adjective "Northern Irish" to mean the political sphere in which he operates, nothing more or less. Certainly that's how I've used it on other articles and the various categories - calling Brian Mawhinney a "Northern Irish politician" or Michael Howard a "Welsh politician" just seems odd and the same applied here. Timrollpickering 06:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Which would seem to illustrate to me why an 'article by article' policy is probably the best. If calling Brian Mawhinney a "Northern Irish politician" is odd, than calling John Hume and Gerry Adams "British politicians" seems even more odd. Nuclare 02:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Back to Basics

Wait a second - I followed the link from the Village Pump to here, but it seems like this has drifted a little from what I thought I was linking to. Specifically, a large part of the original question had very little to do with nationality and everything to do with specifying names of locations, which may or may not have been resolved. The central problem there is, of course, people who don't know at least a little bit about England (and since this is an encyclopedia designed for consumption by the public, who I can guarantee you will be in at least a significant minority ignorant of this whole issue) may not know where the hell Wales is in the first place, and that if you designate a city as being Cityname, Wales, these people will either have to follow a link to find out all about the great history of the British isles (or at least get a map, assuming they can read a map, which, lamentably, is not a skill the American public, at the least, is famous for possessing) or be confused. As far as place names go, is there any remaining controversy at all with attributing the location to the parent nation?

As far as the whole nationality debate goes, I'm kind of getting the impression that actual citizens of the British Isles might not be the best authorities on the issue. Certainly, a few people take the issue very personally. What the style guide should be about is making things easy for the reader - not for most accurately capturing the whole and entire character of the individual in question by the proper assignment of his soul to the correct bin for later processing and integration. To say in the lead that Robert Terwilliger is a Scottish/British/Jovian/American/What-have-you politician is not to assign any sort of laudatory or pejorative quality to the term, but simply to indicate where the man lives. I live in Texas. Thanks to prime time television and Aaron Spelling, there's a reasonable chance that other people might know where Texas is, but if, God forbid, I should ever assume political office, and I'm important enough for somebody to write me up in Wikipedia, I would think that it would make more sense to call me American than Texan.

So I approach the issue of nationality from a different angle, perhaps - I figure that you should just call the man whatever is accurate and identifiable from the reader's perspective. Being a citizen of a wholly created nation (another reason why this particular debate is mostly peculiar to Britain), maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I really think we should avoid making the issue more complicated than it has to be trying to divine another human being's self-identity. If the majority of non-partisan secondary sources attribute a person to a given nationality, then go with that in the lead, as that's what your reader is going to be expecting to find, or will find in his further investigation. If more note needs to be made about the individual's personal struggle with his national identity, then expand on it later in the article, but for one line attributions of nationality, that makes the most sense to me, anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cool moe dee 345 (talk • contribs) (10:59, August 10, 2007)

Thank you, Cool. It's always good to have the perspective from outside. You basically raise two issues here. The first, that of place names, seems to be relatively uncontroversial and is currently being thrashed out at Settlements again, above. The second, that of nationality, is more compicated. You see, when you say that you're happy to be called an American, you're speaking as a 21st century Texan. If you lived in 1865, you might not feel the same way. The infobox and intro in the Robert E. Lee article illustrate this nicely. For the purposes of information (not for any personal or emotional reasons) it's important to state that though Lee was in the United States Army, ultimately he gave his allegiance to the Confederate States of America. The purpose of this discussion is to see how best this can be done in the present, as well as the historical, United Kingdom. Get it wrong, and we'll have edit wars over hundreds of Wiki articles. Hope that explains it for you. Scolaire 15:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think it would be best not to have a MOS that covers people by nationality/citizenship and instead leave such issues to be handled on a case-by-case basis. If a widely acceptable convention results, then by all means that can be added to the MOS at a later date. Waggers 10:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What "Nationality" means

It's all very well to argue how to determine someone's nationality back and forth, but i think it's a waste of time if it's not actually consistent with how the term is otherwise understood across Wikipedia. I think it's worth just briefly considering what Nationality actually says and here's the intro:

Nationality is a relationship between a person and their state of origin, culture, association, affiliation and/or loyalty. Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the person, and affords the person the protection of the state.

Traditionally under international law and conflict of laws principles, it is the right of each state to determine who its nationals are. Today the law of nationality is increasingly coming under more international regulation by various conventions on statelessness, as well as some multilateral treaties such as the European Convention on Nationality.

Generally, nationality is established at birth by a child's place of birth (jus soli) and/or bloodline (jus sanguinis). Nationality may also be acquired later in life through naturalization. Corporations and other legal persons also have a nationality, generally in the state under whose laws the legal person was formed.

The legal sense of nationality, particularly in the English speaking world, may often mean citizenship, although they do not mean the same thing everywhere in the world; for instance, in the UK, citizenship is a branch of nationality which in turn ramifies to include other subcategories (see British nationality law). Citizens have rights to participate in the political life of the state of which they are a citizen, such as by voting or standing for election. Nationals need not immediately have these rights; they may often acquire them in due time.

(In regards the earlier proposed list for determining "nationality", the third parapraph pretty much says that "where someone grew up" does not in and of itself determine nationality, but they can seek to aquire it - and legal naturalisation would be as "British".)

Now it seems to me that the main part of the problem is that people are trying to using "nationality" and "citizenship" as though they are clearly defined terms with separate meanings when the truth is different - an example given on Talk:Nationality is a Bulgarian passport where the Bulgarian word for "citizenship" ("Гражданство" transliterated "Grazhdanstvo"; derived from "Grad" meaning "city") has alongside it the English word "nationality" (which in Bulgarian would be "Narodnost").

I also think the whole "the UK is a special case" argument is very POV and nonsensical. As one Wikipedian suggested above, the main reason we get more edit wars for the UK has more to do with the use of the same language by advocates of the various positions rather than some special status for the UK. There are many, many cases around the world of "countries within countries"/"nations within nations" or whatever confusing terms are used - there's the above mentioned case of Quebec & Canada; many, many people in Sardinia consider themselves to be "Sardinians" not "Italians" (and Sardinia isn't an exclusive case in Italy); then there's the Basque and Spain; self-proclaimed "Rhodesians" in modern Zimbabwe; people who still identify as "Yugoslavian" in the now six independent countries to say nothing of Kosovo & Serbia; and that's even before we get into both historic situations and the whole problem of identity amongst diasporas. All of these situations and many, many, many more raise identical questions and having one rule for them and a different for the UK would be hard to understand. Timrollpickering 18:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If there is nothing unique abut the UK case, why are we having this argument? Oh! Wait! It's those damned POV pushers! Pish! Don't they know the WP:TRUTH? --sony-youth^pléigh 10:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's a question of POV pushing (and I don't think that comment was very constructive), it's just a case of not seeing the wood for the trees. Timrollpickering has done well to put this into perspective. I'm unconvinced we'll reach consensus on this though; my view (at present) is that this MOS should not cover people for the time being, but focus on places, buildings, etc. Waggers 11:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it wasn't a very constructive comment, but I had had some faith in this page. I thought it could move on and leave partisan lines behind. What I still see (to continue a wood-from-the-tree analogy) are contributors barking up their own tree as proof that it's the only real tree in the forest.

There is no sense in arguing one-way-or-the-other to try to win the point. Each side (being informed, honest and knowledgable) will see the logical truth of the matter and their opponents (being misled, ignorant and irrational) will continue to bleat a response. That is why this page had to be started. Any attempt at winning the point is a falacy. It has to be given up upon and an agreement settled, regardless of what anyone thinks is the "truth" of the matter. --sony-youth^pléigh 12:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I too disagree that it is always POV-pushing (although in some cases, it can be quite blatent) - the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not. The vast majority of countries are not true nation-states, that much I feel is evident.--Breadandcheese 13:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

"the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - "the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - "the problem is that many people honestly don't consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is" - ... --sony-youth^pléigh 13:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you trying to make a point? If you are, I'd rather you argued it reasonably than coming up with bizarre innuendo. --Breadandcheese 14:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

"the problem is that many people honestly do consider the situation of the UK to be unique when it very clearly is not" - This sound peculiarly like, "I am right, but the problem is that there are people who don't agree with me, and it is particularly a problem because there are many of them." Do you suppose that those with whom you don't agree could say the same thing about you? --sony-youth^pléigh 14:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Tim quotes the Wiki article which deals mainly with the legal situation of nationality. No-one can dispute that those born in England, Scotland or Wales are automatically British citizens (in Northern Ireland, there is a choice) but some of us arguing an alternative but equally correct definition of nationality. The Columbia Encyclopedia gives a more balanced view of nationality than Wiki does on this issue and as Tim has already given the legal definition so I quote the following from it:

Nationality, in political theory, the quality of belonging to a nation, in the sense of a group united by various strong ties. Among the usual ties are membership in the same general community, common customs, culture, tradition, history, and language. While no one of these factors is essential, some must be present for cohesion to be strong enough to justify the term nationality. Used in this sense, nationality does not necessarily denote membership within a specific political state. There are many examples of nations divided between several states and of states composed of several nations and parts of nations. Thus not all Albanians live in Albania, and, on the other hand, Switzerland has citizens whose native languages are German, French, Italian, and Romansh.

--Bill Reid | Talk 11:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I get the impression that a lot of the time, 'nation' is a label used to imply that 'my culture is better than yours' - I've seen that in political debate in Scotland, the 'we're a nation, not simply a region (or province)!' when clearly there are regions and provinces out there with cultures just as distinct. Indeed, to apply this concept of national identity as if it is somehow universally agreed upon is inherently POV - under the above criteria from the Columbia Encyclopaedia, the village I grew up satisfies all the definitions of a nation.

I'd say as a consequence, the use of the term isn't all that useful in categorising things on Wikipedia. Although of course it can be well used to describe other things where it is relevant, ie the political ideology of nationalism and is certainly an important concept in world history. --Breadandcheese 14:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The reality of Scotland being a nation existing within a state is not even remotely in doubt. If you can't accept that, then we are a lot further back in this discussion than I thought we were. The village you grew up in is bound to display the same characteristics as the nation at large; its your village and mine and his that form the nation. So your ' ... as a consequence, the use of the term isn't all that useful in categorising things on Wikipedia ' comment is meaningless and please, lets not bring nationalism into this discussion. --Bill Reid | Talk 15:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The main reason my quote is heavily on the legal side is because that's how the intro to Nationality (which I quoted in full) is (currently) focused. (By the way if I understand correctly anyone born in Northern Ireland is automatically a British Citizen, it's just that they also have entitlement to Republic of Ireland nationality. People renouncing their British citizenship is another thing altogether.)

You're right about peoples living outside the borders of a current country - as well as the question of concentrated populations living in neighbouring countries there's also the mess that comes with diasporas (footballers who qualify for their national team on the "granny rule" most immediately spring to mind, some of whose national team reflects little more than who will have them), ex patriates and migrants (e.g. Patricia Hewitt, until recently Health Secretary and originally from Australia). Increasingly I feel any attempt to define anything but legal nationality will never find peace. Timrollpickering 13:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

RE: NI - a person born in NI is automatically a citizen/legal national of both the UK and RoI. Their identity (whether that be British, Irish or both) is up to the person themselves to decide, renounce, assert, not assert, etc.. Which passport they carry has generally, but not always or necessarily, decides whether the UK or RoI (or both if they carry both) makes representation on their behalf when they get into trouble abroad. They can always, and have done so in the past, call on both regardless of whether they have a passport for one or the other. Likewise, each govt. has in the past intervened in the case of people wether they had that particular passport or not.

For "finding peace" see my comments above. --sony-youth^pléigh 13:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Tim, please reread and re-evaluate what you wrote. That anyone born in NI is automatically British, but that they have an entitlement to another nationality. Why not say that they automatically have an an entitlement to be British as well as an entitlement to be Irish. Why automatically British, yet only an entitlement to be Irish?

Leaving Ireland (including NI) out of the question, the logic of your argument must extend to the child of any foreign national born in the U.K. So therefore on birth they automatically become British. Yet many countries forbid dual citizenship (Saudi Arabia for instance). It just doesn't wash. Nationality is not an accident of birth. Its a choice, by either the parent or the child. MurphiaMan 16:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote it is clearly using the legal definition of nationality. Now different countries' laws handle this differently, though international law tends to take the side of the government of the territory in question. There seems to be some uncertainty over whether or not an individual born in Northern Ireland is automatically bound as a citizen of the Republic - e.g. if they travel to another country do they have to obey any laws about Republic of Ireland citizens abroad? Does the Republic have the right to demand their extradition - say if it introduces legislation to conscript its citizens? Is there something in international law that a) determines the "default" option on citizenship when a person is entitled to more than one but each's laws bar dual nationality; and b) whether or not a state can impose citizenship on those born outside its territory (a different thing from allowing people, usually diaspora but also those in a territory of interest, the right to citizenship)? Timrollpickering 23:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is actually untrue. The Spanish state recognises multiple nationalities within its bounds, and Canada calls its native tribes, first NATIONS. None of these have that much more power than Scotland does. --MacRusgail 14:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Place, Nation, UK

Just to be clear is Place, Nation, UK i.e. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK vandalism or not?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.228.253 (talk • contribs)

No, going against convention is not vandalism in and of itself. Bear in mind also that this is only a proposal at the moment, and even if/when it advances beyond that, it will be a guideline, not policy. Waggers 09:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

True, but you can depend on endless edit wars breaking out with finger pointing back at the guideline. --Bill Reid | Talk 09:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. There is so much of it happening recently. It would be good to come to a sensible consencious as to what the correct format would be. Certain users have a real issue with removing UK from the Place, Nation and call it vandalism?!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.228.253 (talk • contribs)

No, like it has already been discussed elsewhere, it is going to become an 'address'. To say, Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK is ridiculous. UK is plainly superfluous to the description. --Bill Reid | Talk 07:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

OR Scotland is - there's only one Aberdeenshire in the UK. Waggers 07:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Really silly question but how many Banffs are there in Scotland, the UK or anywhere? (I honestly don't know.) Timrollpickering 09:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Only one Banff in Scotland which was the county town of the former county of Banffshire. There is also Banff, Alberta but don't know of any others. --Bill Reid | Talk 09:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, wikipedia's got a heck of a job ahead removing the words 'Scotland', 'England', 'Northern Ireland', 'London', 'Greater Manchester', etc from articles and substituting instead the term 'United Kingdom'. --Bill Reid | Talk 09:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I find this argument that it 'sounds like an address' unconvincing in the extreme. For one, it's rarely relevant: eg, the Aberdeenshire example - to quote its article: "Aberdeenshire... is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland."

Placing "Scotland, UK" there would not be remotely address-like. I've also taken an example at random here: Ardrossan. "Ardrossan... is a town located on the North Ayrshire coast in western Scotland. " - meanwhile predictably enough, it's Canadian counterpart is introduced thus: "Ardrossan is a hamlet in Strathcona County, central Alberta, Canada." It's not policy elsewhere, so why should it be suggested to be 'consistant' practice in relation to the UK?

More importantly there are places where UK patently should be included - twin towns, for example - where we'd never even consider the possibility of applying the 'it might look a bit addressy' standard to any other country. --Breadandcheese 22:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

B & c, you got in one. "Aberdeenshire... is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland". It doesn't mention UK because it doesn't need to, Scotland is enough. Same with Ardossan (Scotland). Check out Beaver, Pennsylvania - its opening sentence is "Beaver is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, at the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio Rivers." - doesn't mention United States because it doesn't need to. There is no policy anywhere, its down to individual editors applying common sense.

Go to any place name in any of the constituent countries and try and find any that has UK or United Kingdom in its opening sentence. Please accept that what you wan't just isn't going to happen. --Bill Reid | Talk 16:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

What it needs to do and what is consistant practice are quite different. I remind you that Aberdeenshire, unlike Beaver, is not a settlement, but rather a county. And, unsurprisingly, the county mentions the US in its opening paragraph. One could argue that commas are never needed in place names, or any sort of expansion on a concept where there is a link - but it does not work like that, and that turns Wikipedia into more a web of links than an encyclopaedia in the common sense of the term.

Almost any application of common sense in relation to this matter will end up reverted by others who have no common sense, so it's absolutely pointless. As for accepting that Wikipedia is wrong, biased and a bit a joke, yes, I am quickly coming towards that realisation, however I do still have an ounce of belief in humanity left within me, so I am continuing to participate. --Breadandcheese 17:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you for real? The correlation is exact. Beaver (Banff) is a borough (burgh) in Beaver County (Banffshire), Pennsylvania (Scotland). Period. US (UK) is superfluous; not required. This is my last on this, feel free to have the last word. --Bill Reid | Talk 19:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't reference Beaver or any other settlement (as clearly stated), the example I used was Aberdeenshire, for which the correct correlation would be Beaver County. Going out on an inaccuracy is never good. --Breadandcheese 21:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Once and for all, Breadandcheese, please stop defining common sense as what you in your wisdom tell us is so. 90% or more of what was written on this page was common sense, even if I disagreed with much of it. Your arrogant dismissal of everybody with a point of view different from your own has bogged down this discussion more than any other single factor. Scolaire 19:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't bring common sense into this, in fact I was pointing out the fallacy of the 'common sense' point there. Nor am I 'arrogantly dismissing' anything that amounts to decent, consistant debate. As for bogging down discussion, I think turning it into a message board, openly using Wikipedia as a political soapbox for cranks and a refusal to actually engage in the process by many (aside from posting 'it's all a conspiracy' style messages did a lot more harm than me labeling the occasional bit of nonsense as nonsense.--Breadandcheese 21:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Bill Reid: feel free to have the last word. Scolaire 22:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I can and do receive mail from overseas, simply with "Scotland" on it regularly (hardly ever with "Britain"/"UK" etc - although I did have one person write to me in "Inglatierra"). There is only one place of much consequence called "Scotland", and only one place of much consequence called "Wales" - same goes for "England". There are other places around the world with these names, but the context should be obviously. --MacRusgail 00:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If anyone else is still interested in this issue, I suggest they have a look at the lengthy discussion from 12 months ago and see how difficult this is to agree on. –MDCollins (talk) 14:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A conclusion: there is no conclusion

This has been an interesting and heated debate, and it emcompasses and highlights why we get edit conflicts and differences of opinion on articles related to people born or swearing allegience to the United Kingdom - a legal union of four countries, with three different legal systems. Identity is both individual choice as well as factual - and as an encyclopedia we focus on fact and verification; where as the facts of birth, education and residency can quite clearly mean someone has factual and verifiable ties to each country within the nominal union. If we take a simplified version of this debate - born in town X, but brought up in town Y: what should they be tagged as, as both are clearly verifiable? Taking another level, extend this debate to the European Union, then how will we identify those born in one country, but resident in another - the large number of Poles in the UK who came over to earn a deposit for a house and now won't through choice be returning, are they Poles through birth, or as will happen Brit's because they spend more than half of their life here? Unfortunatly, we also have to accept there are editors with agenda's - some of the Irish debates always amaze and disapoint me, and specifically the liberally applied tag of People of Irish descent in the United Kingdom: very little verification now seems to occur around grand parentage history, with more emphasis around tagging more people as Irish. The proposer spotted what they saw as a problem which could be solved - but this debate show's why its best left at present to editors to debate the issues on an article by article basis, which we already have a procedure for. I propose much as though this has been a good debate and all wish there were fewer edit conflicts, on this issue the current article level debate and dispute procedures are the best current process conclusion, and resultantly this debate should be closed. Best Regards, - Trident13 09:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"some of the Irish debates always amaze and disapoint me"

I agree with your conclusions, Trident, but I think it's a pity you had to illustrate your point with a display of your own chauvinism. Scolaire 10:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Having an Irish name, and an interest in Irish affairs through my family, I can understand them and the history but they do personally disappointed me that, in some cases, such heated and often personal vitriol is used by some in debating issues. I don't believe that's chauvinism, just being a human being. Rgds, - Trident13 10:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with conclusion. It was obvious to me a while back this discussion would go no-where, which is why I ceased wasting my time in it. Just a bunch of guys who like Britishness finding arguments against Scottishness, and so on and so forth. Don't know where that leaves the settlement thing ... rejected, or guideline? Perhaps that should be clarified, then there may be consensus on something at least. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see anyone with any such beliefs, just a lot of people looking for agendas (perhaps even artificially) in order to justify an unsatisfactory status quo that was favourable to them. As such, I couldn't help but cringe at the above commendation of this as a "good debate". --Breadandcheese 22:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, Breadandcheese, don't kid yourself. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh come on! You surely cannot seriously suggest this proposal wasn't shot down by many editors on extremely POV grounds and on the basis of little more than 'I don't like the word British' and 'I think this is something political'? --Breadandcheese 01:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

True enough. But, then again, there have also been some POV arguments in favor of this proposal -- the Three Cheers for the Union! speech above (with which a few other people agreed) and the 'romanticism' argument above. I understand the appeal of a consistent policy, but--POV aside--there are reasonable arguments against having an all-out, all-UK, consistent policy. Northern Ireland is probably the most obvious complication, but the idea that one can put the word "British" next to a person's occupation and that this isn't interpretable as defining identity isn't something I can wholly agree with. One could also agrue that identity is more noteworthy than citizenship and, therefore, should be what features first or more prominently on a Wiki page. One could argue the other way around. Both are POV. A desire for consistency is itself a form of POV. I imagine there would still be some unclear cases even if citizenship is what is used; U.K. citizenship isn't based on birthplace (nor are other citizenships which UK-resident people may also possess.), so it still wouldn't be straightforward in all cases. Personally, I'm all for avoiding nationality/identity adjectives in genuinely ambiguous cases (as opposed to the silly JK Rowling ones). Saying that such-and-such was born here, lived there, worked here and did this is ultimately more important and more informative than tagging them with an identiy adjective. Nuclare 14:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion from someone on the other side of the Channel

I'm Portuguese and I find this argument patentedly silly and inappropriate for this forum. Since my country has been a nation-state throughout most of its history, I may not fully understand what it feels like to be of a nation/country that is sublimated by a larger political entity, nor the necessities of those same nations/countries for self-determination. However, nobody here is discussing cultural identity or independentist political movements, but rather what flags should go on the infobox's nationality field. This should actually be fairly simple, so please, there's no need to have kittens.

Now, the UK is not a special case. It's not the only country in the world, not even in Europe, with several "constituent nations" or a multitude of cultural identities living within its borders. My neighbours to the east are a perfect example of that. So is Belgium. Of course, I don't see the need for infobox flags to identity people as Catalunian or Flemish. Ultimately, those aren't legal identities outside their country of origin, so there shouldn't be any reason to elevate their status to being equal or superior to their legal sovereign countries. Someone who calls himself a Catalunian is, legally, subordinate to calling himself Spanish as well. And someone who is Flemish is, by law, a Belgian first. Applying that to the United Kingdom, there's no special reason why its "constituent nations" should have this special privilege. You can't be Scottish or English without being British. That's what you legally are. Neither England or Scotland have any international rights without going through the UK first. If there is a problem with the usage of the word "British" to define legal nationality in the UK, please take it up with Westminster, not here.

Now, if we're talking about freedom fighters or someone with political opinions of separatism/self-determination, I expect people to continue reading past the first paragraph to understand that about them instead of hitting the "Edit" button immediately just to change a flag icon. The infobox's nationality is merely a legal tool, not a narrow definition of what the article's subject is. Anything else beyond that is unreasonable, as it requires dumbing Wikipedia down for the benefit of impatient idiots. And I always thought the point of reading was becoming more intelligent. So, in the specific case of the UK, and looking in from the outside, I see no reason to go beyond the word "British" in the infobox. Whatever cultural division of the United Kingdom you feel more affinity for, the main article text is there to explain what it is. --Pc13 15:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Jza84 17:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

PC13, one simple question. Are you ashamed that your country is no longer being ruled by Madrid? If you agree with Portuguese independence, that makes you the "separatist" (note use of blatantly POV term). I suggest replacing the Portuguese flag with the yellow and red striped one, since the Portuguese act of independence was technically illegal by Spanish standard. Actually you are wrong, there are legal definitions of who Flemings, Catalans, Scots etc are. Partly through domicile --MacRusgail 23:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In the UK at least, entirely through domicile, so there are in fact no lawful definitions of 'Scottish', 'English' or 'Welsh' as an identity or status. More importantly though, this is not a political discussion board.--Breadandcheese 14:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, yes there are legal definitions of who a Scottish person is - I have consulted with a retired lawyer friend of mine on this. I suggest you do your research, and stop spouting mere opinions. --MacRusgail 12:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Mac, your point is moot because of historical events. Spain recognized Portugal's legitimacy as as independent country in 1668, and the 1640 revolution was instigated by a branch that add legal claims to the throne anyway. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about infobox flags. Apparently I wasn't clear enough, so let me blunt. The "nationality" field on infoboxes is for a person's legal nationality. The legal nationality is that of the sovereign country. The sovereign country is the UK. Scotland, Wales and England as entities are all subject to the UK and therefore none of them are sovereign countries. The UK is not the only one with cultural regionalism issues. In order to allow individual regions within the UK to have their own flags whenever referring to natioanlity, we'd also need to extend the courtesy to Spain, Belgium, Germany, parts of France, parts of Italy, the Curdistan, Tibete, Quebec and the Republic of Texas. If you want to eat chocolate in class, you need to bring enough for everyone.

But I need to add you're fighting against windmills here. Nobody's trying to eliminate references to Scotland or any other region. On the contrary, if they're important to a subject, they should be at the forefront of its respective article. But legal nationality is something else entirely. The infobox's "nationality" field should be simple - nationality as written in the passport, which is that of the sovereign nation. Issues with Scottish, Basque and Curdish identities belong in the body of the article. --Pc13 07:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the "nationality" spot in the infobox for "citizenship" (which is in effect what 'passport nationality' means) or nationality in it's real sense (not the lazy kind that's easily defined and verified)? What is common practice? Billy Connelly, for example, may be as ardent a unionist as you can find (Pc13: this means anti-seperatist in UK terminology), but do people call him Scottish or British? It's my feeling that in the UK it is more common to call people by Scottish/English/Welsh terms and that that practice, unlike Flemmish/Walloon, is mirrored and understood throughout the English-speaking world. --sony-youth^pléigh 08:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Connelly is both, of course - Scottish and British - but what Pc13 is trying to get accross is that you can't legally (officially) hold Scottish citizenship. In terms of sovereignty, we shouldn't use constituent countries as an adjective for people, because it elevates the constituent countries nationality law status beyond what that really have. Afterall, do you call Connelly Caledonian, or Albaian? Celtic? - no, because these aren't proper nationalities. Do we call Daniel Craig an Anglo-Saxon? - of course no, but some minority groups would however. Loosely, Connelly is both Scottish and British.... but it is more complex than that if one wants to "hide" British nationality law...

What nationality is Tony Blair? - born in Scotland, lived in Scotland, but doesn't identify as Scottish? What about David Cameron - born in England to Scottish parents. Sean Connery doesn't have a drop of Scottish blood running through his veins - he's first generation Scottish, so what is he, Scottish or Irish? Is Salman Rushdie British or English? Amir Khan - not British? - is he Pakistani or English? If the Scottish people are an ethnic group, then how is Sean Connery ethnically Scottish, and same for Amir Khan for English? Is it because they were born there? - no, because Tony Blair isn't Scottish, is he? What about Peter O'Toole? - Irish, English or British? Ian Paisley? - Irish, Scottish, Northern Irish, or British? What about Elizabeth II?

My point is, what's the official and universally defining factor in deciding what peoples sub-British nationality is? - is it accent, ancestry, birth-place, dwelling, self-identification? Even if we have consensus, is that the official stance, and why? Does it work for everyone? I have ancestry from accross the British Isles, so what am I? I have a British passport.

Using the constituent countries to describe people and say they hold that nationality in some kind of official capacity is unhelpful, objectionable, unverifiable and extremely POV (yes it is a point of view to say Tony Blair is either Scottish or English, for example, that's what a proper POV means). Now I'm not a raging unionist, and fought hard to keep descriptions of places in the UK at a constituent country level, but one simply cannot hold Welsh nationality for example, or be universally described as English when they have over a millienia of 100% Scottish/Pakistani/African blood in their veins. I dare anyone contest these points! Jza84 13:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Connery describes himself as Scottish, Blair describes himself as English. It's not even an issue. Betty Windsor is whatever the hell she chooses to be - Canadian in Canada, Presbyterian in Scotland and an Australian Anglican etc etc. Charles pretends to be a member of each of the nationalities she represents. Nationality is not based on race, as you seem to think. Lenny Henry is English. So is Zola Budd if she chooses. --MacRusgail 17:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

MacRusgail, I've just spotted your retroactive post here. I'm thinking I should not reply, but I can't resist having read what you've put... - Presbyterian an officially recognised nationality? And Anglican atoo? (does that make Anglicans in Africa English?) What is this based on? Does that even help? Do you have an official source on Henry's nationality? What criteria are you using to assert he's English? I guess I must let Osama Bin Laden know he can be English at any time he likes - I'll tell him that MacRusgail is actually the official authority on identity nationality and can make you ethnically, legally, and otherwise fully accepted, nationalised and integrated as an Englishman. He doesn't need a source, any critical thinking or legal bestowments, just a POV lets you be English. I suppose Steven Gerrard is a Londoner or even a Mancunian next if "he" (not even us) so chooses!..... And MacRusgail, a race is a taxonomic social construct that attempts to categorise humans according to morphological traits; an ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other - I have a masters degree in Race and Ethnic studies, so I am somewhat aware of the subtle differences in nationality and race. Where you're failing is considering alternative (sometimes brutally ugly) points of view, and mixing identity with nationality, race, ethnic coding, ethnic grouping, ancestry, accent, birthplace, homeplace and homeland, and using a inwardly looking self-made criteria to describe people to conform to deep rooted "Anglophobic" Scottish psyche of archetypal pro-nationalist Scottish identity which has no official, consistent or scholarly criteria or definition of inclusion. Jza84 19:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I had expected that something that would raise so many questions to have a complex answer. I guess all of these books are for nought - "It's your passport, dummy!" (What a waste of trees.)

"Caledonian, or Albaian? Celtic? - no, because these aren't proper nationalities. Do we call Daniel Craig an Anglo-Saxon?" No, we don't - and quite rightly so. These terms, and what they refer to, are much out of date, common practice today is to call a person Scottish, Welsh, English or Irish. I'm sorry, you don't like that fact, but it is, none-the-less, and verifiably, a fact. How about British, then? Outside of the world of passports, is it really a "nationality"? I really never hear anyone ever call themselves so, and even when reported - in news or magazines for example - when a persons true nationality is known - Scottish, English, Welsh, etc. - then that's what's given priority. --sony-youth^pléigh 14:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) - That's not an incredibly civil or helpful response. Please don't forget I am entitled to raise points for discussion for means of working out issues like any other - there really was no need to call me a "dummy" in front of all these people like that, no matter how strongly you feel about that issue, and I'm quite upset that you feel the need to do that to make a response.

However, that aside, frankly that's not addressed any of my issues, and you've not engaged with any of the persons I've listed as to what nationality they hold, or answered any questions. As for English being a "real" nationality, why is it? England was unified like the UK, so why aren't the individual nations of the heptarchy used for nationality? Is it because of age? - because the etymology ans use of "Britain" is older than "England". Is it because of "news or magazines"? Because Google returns around four times as many results for "Ewan McGregor British" than "Ewan McGregor Scottish". Why is the "world of passports" redundant in an official, encyclopedic capacity? Are the people of Northern Ireland, Irish or British and why? Civil responses welcome. Jza84 14:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What's the obsession with passports? They're little books that let you go through borders, they have nothing to do with citizenship or nationality law and so are fairly irrelevant to this discussion. Is British a nationality - yes, it is, and it is one in which most people from all constituent countries of the UK share. Even then, I still think that's faintly irrelevant as I was pro-limitation to legal nationality rather than considerations of identity. --Breadandcheese 14:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

A passport is a public manifestation of a persons choice of nationality. Thats what it has to do with this argument. If a person chooses to carry a specific passport, then it can be pretty accurately said that they are of that nationality. Simple really when you think about it. Verifiability MurphiaMan 14:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, that rather convieniently rules out anything other than British from the point of view of the UK. How nice.

However, an example: My eldest sister was born in London. Shortly thereafter my parents moved back to Ireland. He husband was born in New York. While he was stil an enfant, his parents also moved back to Ireland. My sister and her husband had a child while they were living in London. Shortly after her birth, they moved home. She, my niece, to much derision, carries a British passport - niether of her parents were born in Ireland, and neither was she. She can, if she chooses, claim a US passport through her father. She is now 15, when she is 18 she may begin the rather lenghty process of being naturalised Irish if she so chooses. Now, I don't foresee a WP article on my niece just yet, but if there was one, would you put her down as British today? If she chooses to be naturalised - of which there is no guarantee, as it is a rather lengty and bureaucratic process for something that what benefit it may bring is purely superficial - would you write that she was British, later naturalisied Irish? If she chooses to never change her passport, which is quite likely, would you believe that it would be "a public manifestation of a persons choice of nationality"? While my niece is undeniably Irish, regardless of what her passport says, if she chooses never to become naturalised, I don't think that that would consitute any great public expression of her supposed British nationality - simply that she couldn't be bothered with it. --sony-youth^pléigh 15:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you mean the Republic of Ireland in reference to Ireland - then that's an issue of sovereignty, and doesn't cross the constituent country boundaries anyway. Jza84 15:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The point posed above (and repetitiously thoughout this talk page) is that a person's passport is the only verifiable nationality a person has. Is my niece British? --sony-youth^pléigh 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(Incidentally, I did mean the Republic of Ireland (which is commonly and formally called Ireland), although in the context it would make no difference whether I was talking about the island or the state. Rememeber that that an area which this proposed manual of style would govern also, having formed the United Kingdom in 1801 and secceed from it in 1922. That said I presume my niece would be exempt from it - or would she, being British and all?) --sony-youth^pléigh 15:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

So now we're getting there - so if you believe your sister to be Irish on the basis that although she was born in England (in the United Kingdom), she has Irish parents and thus is a special case - and probably best described as Irish....... then........ why isn't that true for Sean Connery? A man who's forefathers did nothing for Scotland, fought in no wars, voted in no elections, paid no tax, pledged no allegance to the land at all, but thinks himself as a true Scot! Surely someone should tell him there's more to being Scottish than wearing a kilt?... My point (before you ask), consituent country nationalities are a matter of extreme POV, whether consensually or individually - you're either British, or you're not, but English/Scottish/Welsh/Ulster-Scots/Cornish/Irish AND Northern Irish are matters that are open to interpretation, and are thus relegated as unencyclopedic as an official frame of reference! Jza84 15:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Your argument about Connery is racist at the worst, and stupid at best. You make your own choices, not your ancestors'. He's done more for Scotland than Blair has ever done. --MacRusgail 17:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

My personal take is that if your niece was notable, and she had an article, and it was public knowledge that she carried a British passport, and she did not make any other public pronouncements as to her nationality, that there would be sufficient verifiability to specify her nationality as British in an an infobox. MurphiaMan 17:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(reduce indent) Well, I came here and encourged this discussion from a start because I knew that there were some out there who held your opinion. I knew that it bothered them that their perspective was not represented in this encyclopedia and so I sought to seek out ways to reconcile the current consensus with their views. I can see that you are unmovable and unwilling to compromise. I'm sorry that that means that your views will not be represented in this encyclopedia. I'm sorry, but I treid, and it really makes little difference to me as things currently are the way that I would have them.

As a parting remark, I'd suggest that in future you should aim to compromise on your view a little more. If you do so, some of them may find their way into consensus. I'd also hold back on comments such as "consituent country nationalities are a matter of extreme POV." They don't earn you any friends.

I am very dismayed at mess that this propsal for a UKMOS went. If an all-Ireland MOS can exist, then really, why on earth can GB not manage the same? --sony-youth^pléigh 16:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly agree with Jza84 and Pc13. I too fought hard to include the constituent country in lead sections of locations in particular, Truro, Cornwall, England etc... rather than Truro, United Kingdom (but that is a separate issue) but still recognise that nationality is most definitely British. Obviously "British" (sorry) editors of this wp are more likely to want more specific information, but as PC13 was referring to, would we want that specific information for the Belgians etc... Use the body of the text to explain that Tony Blair was born in Scotland, but affiliates with England if needs be, but his nationality (for infobox purposes) is still (and less ambiguously), British.–MDCollins (talk) 14:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you not think that the test is whether it is common practice to refer to someone as Flemish or Walloon rather than Belgian in the English language? (It is not, incidentally, common practice to do so in French or Dutch.) What is common practice with regard to Scottish/English/Welsh vis-a-vis British in the English language? --sony-youth^pléigh 14:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

British - 1. vs. 2., Jza84 15:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL "sean connery scottish" (490) vs "sean connery british" (76). Not even double of "Sean Connery American" does it have. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.215.149.99 (talk) 15:09, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

And 96 vs. 3, for Ricky Hatton (6 for American! - double it does have]). I gave you a head start with Sean Connery!! Google is unscientific of course, but a good insight for discussion. The issue of English vs British has never been quantified, but still, what nationality is Tony Blair, Amir Khan, Salman Rushdie, David Cameron, Peter O'Toole and Ian Paisley? You've not addressed a single one. Jza84 15:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

continuing with a better comparison "Sean Connery is a Scottish" (1950) compared with ... wait for it ... "Sean Connery is a British". Makes one role on the floor ... an amazing 4!!!! Just as many as "Sean Connery is an American". seems you may have a problem bringing usage into the argument. you may have to go back to the passports

Wow, so we know that Connery refashioned "British masculinity" joined the "British Navy" and played a "British agent" in a "British picture." Point being? --sony-youth^pléigh 15:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so let's get this right - now it's not common practice? It's not use in news and magazines? It's not even ancestry (but is for your sister), and "British" isn't just passports, its multiple institutions and cultural factors.... esencially it is merely a POV if you're Scottish.... then we agree! And that's why it should be avoided on Wikipedia. Jza84 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I do weep for all of the POV'd people. Yet it cheers me to see that Connery is voted "Best British Actor" (even "Best British Actor of All Time"!) Do you see the difference? Institution = British. Peolple != British. --sony-youth^pléigh 15:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly my point! Those institutions wouldn't last a second running "Best English Actor" or "Best Welsh Actor of All Time" - because it's unquantifiable as to who would be eligable! British is quanitifable, and official! You're making this a little too easy now! Jza84 15:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

British is quantifiable. My niece is certainly quantifiably British. No shadow of a doubt. But we are talking about nationality, that is not quantifiable. Unless, my niece is British? --sony-youth^pléigh 16:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

She has British nationality - which you admit exists finally - so that's what would go in the infobox yes. We're clearly opposed on this issue, but my point is (and always has been) that constituent country nationalities are open to POV, and are not (as) simple to codify as British is. Going forwards, we need to work out how to put this into articles... I'd suggest...

Sonia Youth is the sister of Wikipedian Sony-Youth. Born in England, to Irish parents, her British nationality was subject to a debate on August 22, 2007. - We're not descibing her as Irish, which is open to interpretations on ancestry, accent, birthright and ethnicity, but saying where she was born and that she has British nationality. Am I being POV?? Do please say if so... Jza84 16:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Sonia Youth" - laughed out loud! - The question was what to put in her info box, no? The intro looks good, but honestly, anything but Irish in the infobox would be ridiculous. Anyway, see my note above. Good luck. --sony-youth^pléigh 16:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on why on the 'granny clause' doesn't work in your niece's case, Sony. I got the impression from your description that her grandparents were born in Ireland. Can't she obtain Irish citizenship/passport 'through descent' in that way? I know you have to get on a registry (as opposed to having automatic citizenship), but that's got to be simpler than naturalization. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not understanding why naturalization is her only option for Irish citizenship. Nuclare 22:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Jza84, how the heck is being Scottish a Point Of View. Nationality can never be a point of view, it is a fact but not by your strictly legal citizenship/passport-holding definition. If I define nationality in a UK sense then I choose not a legalistic defintion, but one that reflects the origins of the constituent countries. Individual peoples who have strong sense of belonging to the same cultural group, who have a conjoint heritage, who share their history and language. I suspect that some people from England (not all by a long way) have lost this sense of identity with their own country and i think these are the ones that who try to push this silly UK-ishness on an educated editorship within these islands. I think its time for them to wake up and smell the coffee, this is never, ever going to succeed - editors will carry on as now. --Bill Reid | Talk 19:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why do so many on this talk page feel the need to resort to attacks on one another's nationality? The UK is far from unique in being made up of what were once separate countries and different countries (and even parts of countries) have had different success rates at forging the nation. Germany, for instance, proved much more successful at this even though loyalties at both levels still exist. (Indeed "Deutschland über alles" is a call for Germans to be "German" first, not "Prussian", "Bavarian", etc...) But other parts of the world are not at this stage with many, many people claiming loyalty to a historic nation, a supranation, a neighbouring state and so forth, rather than regarding their nationality as the same as their legal citizenship.

And where exactly is it set down a) that nationality (in the "loyalty" sense) is not a personal choice when there are multiple options and b) who objectively defines an individual's nationality when it's not coterminous with the citizenship of a state? And what happens when people accept a nationality but reject a state claiming to be for all of that nationality? (e.g. Northern Irish Unionists who accept they are "Irishmen" but reject a state claiming to be for all the Irish. Or for that matter members of the Irish disapora?) Or what about people with ties to more than one of the four home nations for whom the over arching single state/nation/country is their answer to nationality?

Even national football team elibility rules (to pick a topical example this evening - currently, and wisely, the convention for sport is to use the country the player plays for internationally) is not clear cut on this one and there are many players who have not yet played internationally and so are eligible for more than one team (at one stage Owen Hargreaves was eligible for all four UK teams and Canada and would have become eligible for Germany if he hadn't signed for England when he did), whilst a lot of players who qualified for the national team they play for on the "granny rule" have been accused of having shallow roots in the nation and just signing for the highest ranking team that will actually take them. (There's also the issue of footballers who advocate all-UK or all-Ireland teams, which can mean anything from an indication of their views on borders to a talented player just wanting the chance to play in international tournaments that their current Home Nations teams hardly ever qualifies for.)

Is it not equal POV to be pushing the constituent national identities onto people? Timrollpickering 22:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, where did I attack someone else's nationality? But at least you accept the concept of different nationalities within the UK. Yes, the Germans have merged smaller states into one but there was a lot of bloodshed and wars along the way, (and I can tell you, Bavarians are proud to be Bavarians) but the overarching feature that allowed this was language. The German language was a major catalyst for the union. In Britain, there were English, Scots, Gaelic and Welsh speaking peoples and that was enough to preserve an individual sense of nationality. The rules of UEFA have nothing whatsoever to do with how someone perceives his or her nationality and it is quite frankly a bit ridiculous to suggest it. You raise a number of issues that may affect a relatively small number of individuals but I would suggest that the vast majority of the people in Britain have a very exact take on their nationality. Finally, no-one is pushing national identities onto people because whether you like it or not, nobody needs to, it is the status quo. It is a little band of UK-ists that are doing all the pushing of their POV as far as I can see. --Bill Reid | Talk 09:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"I suspect that some people from England (not all by a long way) have lost this sense of identity with their own country and i think these are the ones that who try to push this silly UK-ishness on an educated editorship within these islands." That, although milder, is similar to many of the comments that have attacked proposals as "outdated concepts by the English" on this page.

FIFA (and other international sports tournament) rules are a relevant example of one of the few existing formal objective criteria for determining nationalities amongst the Home Nations that doesn't boil down to the individual's choice and they still aren't always precise. Individual choice is messy for Wikipedia because for a huge number of people the answers are not exclusive and very few people are ever asked to pick one nationality over the other in surveys. (As for experience, I've just spent most of the last week on a university phoneline, taking a number of callers' details and when I asked for "nationality" for the pro forma, every home applicant said "British", not "English" or "Scottish" or "Welsh" or "Northern Irish/Irish/Ulsterman" or "Cornish" or anything else.

The reasons for many countries coming together are quite varied (though the UK was not exempt from bloodshed in its long formation) though language is not an exclusive one - many people who don't speak Welsh, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Ulster Scots or other languages have no problem with identifying with those nations. But not everyone thinks in terms of having to choose one over the other and frankly it's as much a POV of separatists as a POV of "UK-ists" to seek to impose one over the other that isn't rooted in any objective criteria like legal nationality.

(And yes Bavarians are proud to be Bavarians but is that an exclusive choice? Though to be really confusing, Bavaria is one of the "Länder" of Germany - and that's German for "countries"!)

(Oh and is everyone in the political boundaries of Scotland "Scottish"? What about Shetland? http://www.newstatesman.com/200704020064 ) Timrollpickering 10:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If legal nationality is the criteria, than can we assume that you (and others proposing this policy) would exempt many Northern Ireland people from this policy? Nuclare 11:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If the Shetlanders want self-determination, let them have it (it's more than the UK's ever given us for centuries). But of course, Berwick-upon-Tweed would have to be given a choice as well. ;) --MacRusgail 12:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Bill, if you read through the discussion, I explain several times why "sometimes" describing people (with an adjective) using constituent countries is open to huge personal interpretation (a POV), i.e. at what point does one become Scottish? - it's a rhetorical question of course (unless you have the official and universally accepted answer - which I very much doubt), because what you'll reply with is just a Point Of View, and that is why I find it objectionable to include on Wikipedia. Example; the Scottish people are an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland - so why is Irish Sean Connery, with his Irish name and Irish parents and Irish blood considered a through-and-through Scot on Wikipedia? By what process did he obtain his Scottish nationality? Is it because he was born and lived there? - because that's true for Tony Blair, who, if not a Brit, is often passed to the "English". Do you see the paradox and inconsistency? Jza84 11:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Sean Connery self-describes as a Scot. Just as Blair self-describes as an Englishman. Why do English folk seem to think that being Scottish is some kind of racial attribute? It's not, and the sooner people realise that, the better. As far as I am concerned my local Pakistani-born grocer, is a proud Scotsman, and I have no problem with that. --MacRusgail 12:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, where did I say I was English? Do you have a source that all English folk seem to think that the Scottish are a race? And being Scottish officially is decided upon by self-identification now?? - since when, and by whom? Again, POV, POV, POV. My Bangladeshi born friends consider themselves British but not English, because the English are an ethnic group in their eyes. Romans and Scilians only consider themselves true Romans or Scilians if they can trace seven generations of their blood to that place. Orthodox Jews (from memory - please forgive me) only consider people ethnically Jewish if they are paterally/materally Jewish.... you're just not addressing the issues at hand here, Scottishness is open to POV, and is not universally codified; British nationality is. Jza84 12:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think someone (in fact everyone) need to have a read through WP:NPOV before mandying the P. word another time. --sony-youth^pléigh 13:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear! You make me proud JZ. Well said indeed. From the days of Brutus and King Arthur there has been but one people, one nationality on this, our Island ... that of the Great British Island Race. These Neanderthal SNP and IRA people threaten the unity of this, our Ancient Island Nation. People of England, this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, on wikipedia, or wherever the darkness descends. British-only in infoboxes and article descriptions is the only way! For it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. Remember, England expects that every man will do his duty. Lady Britannia tells it true and objectively on those maroon booklets we can all gaze upon and gladly press to our breasts with our ancestral Teutonic spirit and our pride as Ancient Islanders. Truth emanates from Lady Britannia's noble voice and Her's alone... let us follow her words and not be wearied by these savages who dare to speak against Her. Only in her noble voice can codifiable objective truth be found. The rest is heinous devilry and must be cast aside. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties as good English men and women, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their Finest Hour'. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by England's Rose (talk • contribs) 14:46, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

LOL! Nice attempt at a wind up! Timrollpickering 15:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Many a true word said in jest. If the Ein Reich Ein Volk people could see what they sound like. The British Empire is the past, not the future. You sound like slightly more subtle versions of Rose above. --MacRusgail 16:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll pick up on what Tim has said. My statement regarding what I perceive as a loss of identity among some English people is not and never was intended as an attack on the English. The rules of the different governing bodies in sport, i feel, is simply not relevant here. A Scotsman not all that long ago captained the England cricket team. There is no British football team at the Olympic Games because the home nations FAs wouldn't allow it; FIFA and UEFA allow the four home countries to compete as separate nations; there is no NI rugby team because NI players play for the Ireland side. So sport throws up so many anomalies that it is really not worth talking about it.

You say "many people who don't speak Welsh, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Ulster Scots or other languages have no problem with identifying with those nations". That is absolutely correct but what i was suggesting it was because of the differnces in language, culture, law, etc that has fostered the way people in Britain look upon nationality. Its not just me that's saying it, the UK govermental body, National Statistics says it, see here[6], to quote a bit of it "Fifty per cent of people described themselves as either English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Thirty-one per cent described themselves as British only, with 13 per cent choosing British and either English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Four per cent gave an 'other' identity; one per cent gave other combinations." So in no way can you say that we on this side of the debate can be accused of POV. As I said before its the UK-ists who are POV pushing.

Jza84, as you can see from the above, 69% of the people have no difficulty at all of identifying their nationality. You take the beloved Sean as an example. He did not have Irish parents, his Great Grandfather was the last to remain in Ireland. Of course he has Irish blood coursing through his veins and I would guess he would be well proud of it too but lets just get that fact sorted out. Tony Blair even despite being born in Scotland, identifies himself as being English and I suppose he is justified. Blair's father was born in England to English parents and was adopted by a Glasgow couple, hence his arrival in Scotland. So I don't see a paradox at all. The Scottish People article is defining how the Scottish people came to inhabit this corner of the British Isle. You could write a similar article describing Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Danes. What is remotely objectionable about that? --Bill Reid | Talk 15:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Just because a viewpoint is held by a majority, does not make it any less POV. Both sides of the argument are POV. Readro 15:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure sport is totally irrelevant to discussions of nationality given that in the UK it is one of the most prominent times when the home nation nationalities are on display - remember Jim Sillars's comment that the Scots were "90 minute patriots"? (And some surveys have found Northern Irish Protestants feel most Irish around the times of rugby matches.) But in terms of definition, FIFA rules are one of the few attempts to define home nation level nationality that is neither just what the individual says they are nor someone else deciding what their nationality is.

It is not the case that "NPOV" = "majoritarianism is fact", especially on a contentious matter - no less than 46% in that survey chose "British" in some combination - not an insignificant minority in itself - and the link you've given throws up the interesting point that what looks like a slight majority (I think - the details aren't there but it's very rare for a survey to get a clear 48:52 exact split with nothing else and between 2 & 5% chose "other", with the largest concentration in London, so that makes it exceptionally close) in England consider themselves "British", so if you're trying to play the "a majority think this way so that makes it a neutral fact" card then perhaps you should stop using "English" and use "British" instead for the English to be consistent. ;)

You say "69% of the people have no difficulty at all of identifying their nationality" - frankly that is a POV, because you are denying the other 31% who say they're "British" their right to a loyalty nationality as you do not recognise it. Where is this set in stone?

Most of the original drive behind this proposal was the endless revert wars on many articles were POVists of both viewpoints constantly changed things, endlessly citing policies that are not as precise about the definition of "country" and "nationality" (remember even Wikipedia's own article on nationality is more about legal citizenship than cultural loyalties) as any set of rules trying to delineate for the UK would need to be, or citing "consensus" across articles but not agreeing on what set to use. Now the UK is not unique in this regard, as the numerous examples cited above show, and the reason the UK comes up more than other countries is because of both the larger number of articles and the use of the same language by advocates (whereas Canada/Quebec seems to be handled differently on the different language Wikipedias), and an encyclopedia written for a global audience needs to handle such matters consistently. Legal nationality was proposed as something that is far easier to determine than self-identification (although it is more than just "what passport do you hold" - it's "which countries are you a citizen of by their laws and international law" - IIRC a country declaring the inhabitants of territory not within its legal borders to be its citizens - a different thing from extending citizenship to second & third generation emigrants - is barred under international law) and generally not disputed. Timrollpickering 15:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Tim, Jim Sillars made that statement years ago. We have moved twenty years ahead in the past ten. Not that you hear of that much in the BBC/ITV news. Sillars' statement applied back then. Not now really. --MacRusgail 16:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC) p.s. Judging by the sheer volume of stuff you've put on this page, you and breadandcheese have far too much time on your hands.

Tim and Breadandcheese are only standing up for what's right, for what's true, for what's objective, for the cause of our ancient nation, for the noblest cause of all, for the cause of Arthur, of Alfred the Great, of Cromwell, of Admiral Nelson, of Churchill, and for the cause of those noble progenitors of our sturdy Island Race, Horsa and Hengist, who freed our island from slavery. These men fought and gave their lives so that there might be an England, a Britain, an Island Nation whose greatness and majesty has heretofore remained unsurpassed. Some wish to blight Noble Lady Britannia's image. Those who would stop them are heroes and a credit to their ancient people. No time is too much, too burdensome for Albion. England's Rose 17:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments like that don't really help! (Oh and as for time, that just comes from having been at the terminal a lot lately.) Timrollpickering 20:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Tim, this discussion is beginning to get a bit daft and quite frankly I am getting bored with it so after this I'm not coming back in reply. Of course we know all about "statistics and damn lies" but you seem to be in some sort of denial here. We have 50% of the population who think of themselves as solely E, S, W or I. We have a further 13% who give themselves some sort of "dual" nationality, i.e. British but also E, S, W, or I. Finally we have the 31% who describe themselves as only British. So take the guys in the middle, the 13%. Make them choose British and that gives a total of 44%. So those guys in the middle also said we are E, S, W, or I; add these to the 50% and we arrive at 63%. So a tad short of two-thirds of the population actually see themselves as being E, S, W or I. The fact is after 300 years of Union 63% of us still believe in the existence of the constituent countries. I'm talking about realities here so it is easy to see that instead of sorting out a few edit wars, I believe things will get infinitely worse. --Bill Reid | Talk 17:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

So that's two editors from the constituent country side backing off (for want of a better term). The crux of the matter here is one of nationality vs. identity. Of course it's going to be bitter, and I can't deny that some people "prefer" Welsh over British - but that's a matter of identity and not official British nationality law. You just simply cannot hold contemporary Scottish nationality - it's an anachronism, an identity, an inconsistently applied fancification. Some say "Scottishness" is self-determined - so can Osama Bin Laden come to Scotland (or the UK) on his Scottish (or even British) passport if he so chooses? Can he trace his ancestry to the Clan Cameron? What about a reincarnated Longshanks? - can he deny he is English by claiming he's Scottish? Can an "average white British John Smith" suddenly claim he is an African by every and all criteria? Of course no, it's more complex an issue, and that's why I find it objectionable. Constituent countryishness is an identity, and not a universally accepted and offficial nationality. It really is as simple as that. I'm not denying Scotland doesn't have a history, or England doesn't exist, or there is a Welsh nation (a nation is a group of people - not a division of land), but they really do have a "federal" British nationality. What I ask now is, can anybody be "British" in ANY sense at all, or are they (and we) lying? Jza84 17:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In response to Bill Reid, where have I denied the existance of a Scottish "loyalty nationality" (using the ambiguous "nationality" alone is not helpful in this discussion)? I have never denied the existance of the constituent countries, though you seem to be denying the existance of "British" as a genuine nationality on a par with German, Canadian, Spanish and so forth. Nobody is trying to stamp out these identities, with the possible exception of those who say things like "69% of the people have no difficulty at all of identifying their nationality" as though those who chose just "British" do have a problem. That's the "Ein Reich Ein Volk" attitude, not the one that MacRusgail referred to. I haven't seen any of the people arguing for legal nationality arguing that constituent countries' identities should in anyway be "supressed". Scottish, English, Welsh, Northern Irish, Irish, Ulster, Cornish and so forth are all existing "loyalty nationalities" - there's no denying that. So is "British". So too are both "Canadian" and "Quebec" (what is the correct adjective?). And so forth for many other countries.

As I've said before, "nationality" is not a very well defined term that overlaps heavily with variously "citizenship", "identity/loyalty", "ethnicity" and several other terms (some of which are no more clear-cut). It's the "it's one thing not the other "attitude that is the most POV in all this. Timrollpickering 20:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I wholly agree with Tim - of course - but, going forwards now, can we, as a bright community of editors, workout a proper approach to use in infoboxes and articles? Firstly I think all flags should be dropped, British or English/Scottish etc. Secondly, I think British should always be used in infoboxes (not necessarily leads - but that's one for the community I guess). I think it's unacceptable for articles and their editors to hide mentions of the United Kingdom and the adjective "British" - this trend hailing mostly from a core of North British (joke!) editors for too long. Jza84 20:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"IIRC a country declaring the inhabitants of territory not within its legal borders to be its citizens - a different thing from extending citizenship to second & third generation emigrants - is barred under international law" - that is exactly the situation in N.I., see Good Friday Agreement.

For Jza84's comments above - I wholly agree that flag's should be removed, but have always preferred the suggestion, which oh so nearly got a consensus way above, to use both British and Scottish/etc. in the info box in some form or another e.g. British (Scottish) or Scottish (United Kingdom) etc. Though I don't know how this would work in NI-related articles and still can I remind people that there is still a question relating to Ireland, the entirety of it, during the period 1801-1922. --sony-youth^pléigh 20:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Irish & British relations in law have always been rather complicated, as though they're not "foreign" countries in at least one direction if not both. And Irish nationality law says:

The only limitations to which were that anyone born in Northern Ireland was not automatically an Irish citizen but entitled to be an Irish citizen and, that a child of someone entitled to diplomatic immunity in the state would not become an Irish citizen.

What I was thinking of when I wrote my original comments above is the notion that unilaterally conferring citizenship upon those in a neighbouring territory without the consent of the internationally recognised government covering that state is an act of claiming the territory and enacting that claim (I would write "annexation" but it seems that's when the unilateral takeover is recognised internationally). Citizenship laws seem 10 times more complicated when covering areas that once had a single citizenship applying across them.

A key difference in the Good Friday Agreement is that the UK government explicitly consents to people in Northern Ireland being entitled to citizenship - i.e. joint consent, rather than unilateral application. Also am I right that this is an entitlement to take up citizenship rather than an automatic conferrment? (And that people in the north are not automatically bound by the laws of the Republic relating to citizens outside the state?) Timrollpickering 21:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

And there's a further question about Northern Irish people being British as they can quite freely (as I understand) obtain Irish passports under the terms of some clause or treaty - though of course, passports don't count for nationality ;)!... What about [[England|British]]? or "British (English)"? Have these been considered? Looking mainly at the History of British nationality law, but also considering that the Republic of Ireland split for a reason from the UK, I should imagine that the use of "Irish" is permissable for persons born from 1801 to 1922 - but I think that should be a community decision. Jza84 21:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[[England|British]] will confuse more than it helps - the adjective isn't directly applicable. "British" should only be piped to link to either United Kingdom or Great Britain or Britain or a specific relevant topic at a "British" level.

As for the Irish situation, all I can say is thank the heavens for an existing MOS. Thinking about it there could be some real fun - just how many nationalities could be applied to Éamon de Valera? Variously American (place of birth and he also held one of those darn passports), Spanish-Cuban (his father's nationality I think - or does this one separate out further?), all-Ireland Irish (where his mother was from), British (the state his mother was from), perhaps a "26 county Irish" (okay this one would be a very POV but isn't someone who a) stopped abstaining in the Free State and b) who declined an opportunity for unification with the north regarded as accepting partion - and thus could be called a "26 county nationalist" - by some elements of Irish Republicanism?), "Northern Irish" (again POV but he was an abstaining member of the Northern Irish House of Commons for a total of thirteen years) - any more? The last two are admittedly both very POV labels that DeV would have rejected and his politics were aiming for a 32 county Ireland (and I only include them as examples of labels that some others might want to stick on to a person against their own identification), but what labels would fit Conor Cruise O'Brien, variously a Cabinet minister in the Republic and later a member of the Northern Ireland Forum for the UK Unionists? Timrollpickering 21:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"entitlement" is how it is expressed for everyone (north and south). Its for the reasons stated above, and more (thinking of the current "hidden war" on many British-Irish related article), that I firmly believe that a British-Irish MOS would be very useful. For the case at hand [[English|British]] would be very confusing and, I think, only compound what many people think are interchangeable terms already. "British (English)" would be closer to something I'd like (but I wouldn't make one smaller than the other). Word order though is going to be a gripe. --sony-youth^pléigh 22:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

But thinking a little more about the use of a consistuent country in a nationality field, even in brackets, it still has the same problems as I've outlined, i.e. at what point is somebody English or Scottish etc (I'm thinking, Salman Rushdie, Rod Stewart, David Cameron, John Prescott and Tony Blair)? As much as I'd like a consistent approach, I still think that nationality should remain as British, but, as most infoboxes include it, birth place should be kept at a constituent country level - no flags for either. Also, we might want to consider for lead sections something like [[Scotland|Scottish born]] rather than decidedly "Scottish" - this is used for Chris Ofili (who is of course one of the Young British Artists). Jza84 23:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I've never seen why nationality is needed in infobox anyway. It is, and should be, in article lead. But I see no need for it in infobox, or for flags either. And I firmly believe in using English/Scottish/Welsh. I believe they are more accurate than the generic British, which many do not use. The history of the UK must be considered, and the 3 constituent countries have distinct nationalties which must be used if we are to be accurate. I accept that not all people can be called English/Scottish/Welsh, so they would be British. But I believe they are in the miniority. With regards to some of the above, I believe politicians (those at Westminster) should be British as they are British politicians, in the same way MSPs should be Scottish and so on. To call a MP an "English [or Scottish/Welsh] politician" could be confusing and lead to misunderstanding.--UpDown 08:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

But, we're looking to acheive consistency here, and its still unacceptable to "hide" British nationality on the basis of WP:IDONTLIKEIT now. Whilst there is a slight element of commonsense on this for politicians, nationality is certainly not determined by proffession, so using "British" for just Westminster politicians is also objectionable (also, is Alex Salmond going to be called British? Or Gerry Adams?). What about the huge (British) migrant population of Britian? If the history of the UK "must" be considered (why for nationality I do not know), then why not use historical states, like those of the Heptarchy? What nationality are those from Monmouthshire or Berwick-upon-Tweed (if not British)? Nationality is a requirement of of the various biography wikiprojects, and really is expected of any respectable encyclopedia. Again, place of birth should be at a constituent country level, but nationality at UK level (no flags) please, for so many reasons as outlined already. Jza84 11:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Witt flags I totally agree, as I do with place of birth. With Alex Salmond, Scottish is more important as he's 1st Minister. Gerry Adams, Irish. And this isn't nationality by profession, its simply stopping people getting confused. Calling an Westminster MP a Scottish politician might lead people to think that person is a politician in Scottish Parliament. And my reasoning for English/Scottish/Welsh is no WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but what I see as logic, for my reasons above (and ones I've expressed before). Migrants are a problem I agree, and perhaps British is best for them, but only for them, not for their children (in my eyes Amir Khan should be down as English).I also dispute "huge", as from 2nd generation they are no longer migrants. I do also believe in constitency with categories, having British at top, and English at bottom is not constituent. And you say nationality is required of any "respectable encyclopedia". I agree, but I feel no need in infobox, opening line yes, but why infobox? It merely creates more arguments for one, but I feel in opening line is enough.--UpDown 19:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Folk from Monmouthshire are Welsh - hence the poor vote for the English Democrats who stood there in the last election. Welsh Bicknor might be a better example. --MacRusgail 20:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Quite right MacRusgail - a much stronger example (though only Welsh people from Monmouthshire are Welsh... ;)... ). Though of course, there is also the Cornish issue too which we haven't considered, where identity is asserted to be one and the same with "nationality". The Cornish editing community traditionally votes/debates very strongly for using the UK or "British" in many ways on Wikipedia, and some more hardline contributors editting that some people in articles have "Cornish" nationality... Jza84 23:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Call: Will you answer?

Some who edit Scotland insist on calling that region, rather than the Great British Island, a "nation". This is surely an affront to Lady Britannia, and our great and ancient nation. Please don't sit by and watch our Lady's funeral altar be erected. I have issued a rallying call for Mother England at Talk:Scotland. Please join the call. Please save Lady Britannia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by England's Rose (talk • contribs) 19:46, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

This isn't even good trolling. All I've got to say to you, is sort out your identity. --MacRusgail 20:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that you removed my comments from the Talk page there. You may despise your nation and country of birth, but you shouldn't encourage others to stop loving their great country. Name: England's Rose 20:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Bring back BJAODN and we can put this prosaic fluff in there. Adrian M. H. 20:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, a little rough round the edges it may be, but, he has a point. And lets not bite the newbie... I've suggested this many times before, but once again I must assert that a "nation" is a group of people, not a division of land!!!! Scotland is a country (ok, properly a constituent country), which is the division of land that it is under proper grammar and scholarly definition. Nation=people, Country=division of land. Frankly, as it is, it reads stupidly, and is clearly completely compromised by a core of editors trying to place Europe as a lower and more useful tier of geography over the United Kingdom, in what is another example of "hiding" the UK very existence from the world... we really shouldn't be describing Scotland in any other frame in the first sentence as other than "a constituent country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".... this is the approach taken by every other majoy encyclopedia going. Jza84 23:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You may have a point but shouldn't you be taking this to the Scotland talk page? --Bill Reid | Talk 08:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes - done! Thanks, Jza84 12:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I have made the cause, the voice, the cries of Lady Albion known. I have defended them so far as my strength has allowed me. This knight-errant will not return to the hostile environs of wikipedia. My faith goes into the hands of those admirable spirits, Jz, Tim, Breadandcheese, Readro and others, who I hope will maintain their lofty resolution, and protect the honour of Mother England. After all, these IRA and SNP bigots are but ants in the grass. History and Lady Britannia will prevail. Name: England's Rose 07:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Which Lady Albion did you make the cause, voice and cries known for? Albion, Alba or the place that she of often mistaken to represent, which you so endearingly called "Mother England" (surely in a union, Scotland and England be sisters, no?)? Yours in IRA/UDA/SNP/Plaid bigorty, --sony-youth^pléigh 08:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever I have said here, is because I want consistency on Wikipedia, not due to some patriotic desire like you seem to think. I have not ever stated my personal viewpoint, because I don't feel that would be appropriate. Readro 14:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This rubbish should simply be removed. --Breadandcheese 13:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is British, a dirty word?

The English, Scottish, Welsh and N.Irish are all British, Is the UK united or not. It's too bad these old nationalisms haven't ended in 1707. Yep, that's right, British should be used. GoodDay 23:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Describing someone as "Scottish" etc. is not any more nationalistic than describing someone as British, as both Britain and its constituent countries can be seen as nations. Also, desribing someone as "Scottish", "English" etc. is not anti-British as the title of this section implies. Please read the guideline assume good faith. Lurker (said · done) 10:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, I didn't mean to suggest 'bad faith'. It's just that for outsiders (non-British editors), the English, Scottish, Welsh, N.Irish thing can potentially be mis-leading. It truly would be easier to use British, thus giving the impression of national unity to outsiders. GoodDay 15:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as the proposal was already rejected, I'll be moving on. GoodDay 20:56, 29 September 2007 (UTC)