Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern Independence

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Keeping this. Please improve and discuss renaming/moving via talk page or Wikipedia:Requested moves. Thanks! Missvain (talk) 00:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Independence[edit]

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I don't think this is a thing; seems to conflate and confuse regional devolution with 'independence' or 'secession'. Likely WP:SYNTH, possibly with an underlying political motive (note the plug for a new 'Northern Independence Party'). -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:22, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Spiderone 14:15, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ 100% agree with the nominator: this looks like WP:SYNTH to me as well. At a passing glance it looks well-sourced, but most of the references have nowt to do with independence, instead being about devolution. My (very much WP:OR, unreferenced and probably subjective) perspective as a northerner is that full-blown independence is not a thing anyone has really advocated until the existence of the new party. (Devolution has been: for instance by the Yorkshire Party.) Renaming to Devolution to the North of England or similar, and refocusing, would be a second choice if it were determined the material was worth saving. YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 14:58, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ - I fully agree with the nominator and the excellent points made by User:YorkshireLad. The article contains many errors - (eg the idea that the 2004 North East England devolution referendum was about "whether to establish a parliament for the North" is at best a serious misunderstanding). The article reads as very leading and there does not seem to have been any serious discussion of the North of England become its own state in modern times (devolution or the North of England joining an Independent Scotland as mentioned here are not the same as Independence) or any coverage of any such campaigns by credible sources. There is also no political party with any elected representatives that advocates such a step. Equally what is meant by the "Northern or the "North of England" problematic as this is a vague term. While mention is made of an "independent country in the North of England, based on historic Northumbria" inthe article, the Kingdom of Northumbria's borders varied significantly over the years. By some definitions Northumbria would arguably exclude large parts of what is now accepted as being part of the North of England (eg Manchester), by others it would include significant parts of Scotland including Edinburgh! Dunarc (talk) 22:01, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I am changing my view as some of my concerns have been addressed, but there is still the problem that the article confuses independence with devolution. In fairness, this I do not think this is entirely the creators fault as this is something that other sources mix-up. Basically what was proposed in 2004 for the North East (and was planned to be offered to other regions including the Yorkshire and Humber in the future until the failure of the 2004 referendum killed the idea) was the creation of an assembly (not a parliament) which would take some decision making power from the Parliament of the United Kingdom as the Welsh Assembly does for Wales. The North (and any other devolved region) would still return MPs as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales do post-devolution. Independence would involve the creation of a new state or states as happened when the Irish Free State was set up. Equally English regional parties with elected councillors like the Yorkshire Party are not like pro-Independence parties in Scotland and Wales. For example the Yorkshire Party does not favour a parliament for the North of England, but an Assembly for Yorkshire. It is not currently working to create a state that also includes the North East and North West of England, which the idea of it being a Northern independence movement would imply. The issue of devolution for the North and its various regions is to my mind worthy of an article as it is a notable subject debated by many parties and it is great to see someone work on it. If the article is renamed and focused on devolution/increased autonomy and makes clear that there movements in different regions of the North of England, then I think most of the issues could be sorted and we would have a useful article. Dunarc (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Yep, good points Dunarc, I think you, YorkshireLad and I are roughly in agreement - an article that addresses both, and notes the difference rather than blending htem together. There would appear to be more activity/support for devolution than outright independence, which I can see is probably more fringe. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks Deathlibrarian for this and for your work on the article. I think we are pretty much in broad agreement. Dunarc (talk) 21:03, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I'm the creator of the article, and the RS articles (VICE ""North of England Independence Devolution " ""An independent north? What an England severed in two might look like" The independent) ARE about the North breaking away from England, as well, there are a bunch of articles talking about the various parties, and their wishes for an independent/autonomous North. This is clearly a live issue, there are four political parties all formed to push for some level of independence for the North, all with their own wiki pages, and yes some of them *do actually have elected members* in local council. My main feeling in writing it was... I was suprised there wasn't an article for it already - there are wiki articles about parties formed for the issues, but oddly, there were no wiki articles about the *actual* issue itself. Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:11, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I will also comment on Dunarc discussing the practicality of the North breaking away... that's got nothing to do with a discussion about whether the article should be deleted. Whether a Northern England secession movement is practical, or whether the North is properly defined, is no doubt an issue for this movement - but the Wikipedia article just reflects the existence of the movement, whether the movement is going to work, or whether you can define the north easily is not relevant to the AFD dicsussion. Deathlibrarian (talk) 06:00, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Deathlibrarian: Thanks for improving the article; it's definitely not the same one I !voted on earlier. I'm inclined to change my !vote because this is looking less WP:SYNTHy, but I'd still argue that about 50% of the article is still about devolution rather than independence. (In particular, while arguably those four parties want some level of independence for the North, that manifests as three of them—the North East Party, the Northern Party and the Yorkshire Party—wanting no more than devolution. Imagine how the SNP would respond if you told them they had "some level of independence" already!
  I wonder how you would feel about renaming and refocusing the article, as I suggested above, to be explicitly about devolution and (implicitly) independence? There doesn't seem to be an article about devolution to the North either, unless I'm missing it, so this could be a really good opportunity to have that covered too, and I'm not sure that (yet) the two issues are sufficiently distinct to warrant two separate articles. Even if kept as an article solely about independence, I think it should be renamed to something like "Independence of the North of England", for two reasons: (a) WP:NCCAPS indicates that "independence" shouldn't have a capital letter unless it's the first word in the title, and (b) it should be indicated that this is about the independence of the North of England, as opposed to the north of any other country, per WP:PRECISE. In other circumstances I'd have WP:BOLDly moved it myself, but it's inadvisable to do so during an AfD.
  Finally, pinging the nom, DoubleGrazing, in case they want to take a look at the re-jigged article. (You've already pinged the other !voter so there's no need for me to do so.) Sorry, this was a longer post than I intended! YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 08:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - - Cheers YorkshireLad - Yes, I've spent a bit of time finding more RS and adding a bit more detail, I was hunting down some better sources, and some BBC coverage and an extra article from the Independent. I'm happy for the article to be renamed, you are correct, there is a difference between devolution and outright independence, though they both are seeking more autonomy for the regions than they now currently have of course.... but I think as you say makes sense for the article to cover both, two articles doesn't seem warranted. I'll change the spelling of indepedence, and I figured the title would need to be changed - I was thinking it may need England in the title eg Northern Independence (England).. or something. Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:11, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks for tagging me in, @YorkshireLad: I've read the article again and looked at the newly-added sources, and while I agree that things have somewhat improved, the fundamental issue remains, namely that the article combines calls for devolution and increased autonomy with some mostly humorous remarks about 'Unilateral Declaration of Independence' etc., and concludes that Northern England is aiming for independence. It is not; that is where the synthesis lies. If this were an article about the debate over, and progress (or otherwise) towards, increasing autonomy for Northern England, in that context there could perhaps be a short section about calls for independence (with suitable health warnings to make it clear that that's still not much of a 'thing'), but that wouldn't be improving this article, that would be creating a new article and merging some of this into that (which, FWIW, I would support, but that's a different matter). --DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but rename and refocus, along the lines of the discussion between me and Deathlibrarian above. YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 19:42, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I'm the article creator, and just in response to DoubleGrazing's suggestion I may have created the article because I am connected to one of the parties - I am not, in fact I live in far away Australia, so have no personal connection to the issue, which I personally see as impractical for economic reasons. I stumbled across the issue doing AFD when one of the parties was listed. Deathlibrarian (talk) 21:31, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 23:55, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rename at least. A worldwide encyclopedia should not have an article on a country specific issue under such an unclear title.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:14, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment John Pack Lambert a rename has been suggested by all editors here, so considering this, I've changed it to "Northern England Devolution" I had a look at what the concept is referred to popularly, and this seems to be the most common term - the page still needs a tidy up, but as you point out, at least the name is more informative and less ambiguous now. If editors here have a better suggestion, by all means, go ahead. As per other suggestions, I have change the wording of the article so it addresses autonomy for the North generally, including devolved powers and some mention of indepedence. Thanks everyone for your input. Deathlibrarian (talk) 06:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Deathlibrarian, Do you mind if I move it back for now? I think it should be moved elsewhere, but to quote the main AfD page: While there is no prohibition against moving an article while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize such a move can confuse the discussion greatly, can preempt a closing decision, can make the discussion difficult to track, and can lead to inconsistencies when using semi-automated closing scripts. (I think there might also be a need for debate about where it should be moved to: certainly WP:NCCAPS means it needs to be at Northern England devolution at least, and I think Devolution to the North of England reads a little better.) YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 11:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, righto,YorkshireLad yes, move it back if you like. I was just trying to address John Pack Lambert issue, but I can see I shouldn't of done that while the AFD was on. Sorry about that! Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Deathlibrarian, No worries—per WP:BOLD, you didn't do anything wrong! YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 13:03, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 01:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment sigh The article has now been moved anyway, by Starklinson, to Northern independence. I don't want to get into a move war by moving it back again, especially since it may well end up being moved yet again after the AfD, but just leaving this note for the closer in case it impacts on any closing scripts. YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 10:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I was just fixing the capitalisation, feel free to continue your discussion! YorkshireLad your proposals also make sense – Starklinson (talk) 10:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Starklinson, As I said above, per WP:AFD: While there is no prohibition against moving an article while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize such a move can confuse the discussion greatly, can preempt a closing decision, can make the discussion difficult to track, and can lead to inconsistencies when using semi-automated closing scripts. It's expressly not a prohibition, so I won't move it back and you haven't done anything wrong by fixing the capitalisation. (And outside of an AfD discussion, I would have done the same!) But it potentially makes it harder for whoever comes to close the decision, because the AfD and the article are now under different page names. YorkshireLad ✿ ^(talk) 11:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:58, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep bu also change the name to be more clear on its topic.★Trekker (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.