Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:27, 12 July 2010

The following was been suggested as a manual of style entry for use of the term British Isles:

• The British Isles are Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Orkney, Shetland and, by tradition, the Channel Islands. Use on Misplaced Pages may or may not include the Channel Islands.
• Use of British Isles is not prescribed in any context (i.e. there is no context in which British Isles has to be used).
• Use of British Isles is appropriate in geographic contexts and (scientific) contexts related to geography such as distribution of flora and fauna, geology, weather patterns and archeology.
• Don't mix "apples" and "pears" (e.g. if content lists states then list states, if content lists geographical units then list geographical units).
• Use of British Isles in political contexts should be avoided after 1922.
• Use of British Isles on articles that relate particularly to the Republic of Ireland or to the island of Ireland (including their geographic features) should be avoided except where the article relates more particularly to Northern Ireland.

Editors should respect verifiability and differences in terminology that appear in reliable sources where appropriate. Edit warring over use or non-use of British Isles is discouraged.

The above has been discussed as part of the work of the British Isles Terminology task force and was broadly accepted. A poll on the wider community is invited on whether to add this entry to the Manual of Style.

Straw poll

• Support Sensible and fair. --RA (talk) 21:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support I think that it pretty much covers the main points with balance.--SabreBD (talk) 21:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose (for the moment). I wish to discuss this on the talk page. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support Well done RA, this has been a long time coming. Clear guideline are essential in this controversial area. Bjmullan (talk) 21:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
• Broadly Support, but the very last point requires some modification. The Shannon is the longest river in the British Isles, and there will be times when it is not inappropriate to say this, even though the Shannon is in the Irish Republic. One would not avoid saying "The Amazon is the longest river in South America" because the countries it passes through take a dim view of the USA - and really this is the same issue. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose in current form. The last clause seems to defeat the purpose as it is currently worded, and I can imagine it leading to future drama. As stated, the term applies to Ireland as well as the other isles. It follows that the term should not be avoided in articles discussing the island of Ireland. If the word "particularly" is being use in a precise or legal fashion, a different word should be chosen at the very least. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:59, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. The last two points are a classic violation of NPOV, and make the all too common mistake of assuming Irish articles need to reflect the Irish World View. This is not NPOV, not in a million years. 'you Britishers are allowed to use your British terms on your British articles, but stay away from our Irish articles'. What an utter and complete intellectual abuse that really is, what a contemptuous way to treat a cornerstone principle like NPOV. I don't know if there are examples of such articles in such categories which can justifiably use the term, but I am not one of these obsessive POV pushers that have been systematically looking for it either, using the special investigations page. I am willing to leave it to good faith discussion on talk pages, most especially for those pages, not less, where there is less likely to be two split camps of vested interests, rather than deploy an ignorant and blunt instrument like this on unsuspecting editors minding their own business writing good articles that make sense to any reader from any country, and have no interest in using Misplaced Pages for mass social engineering because they think they have the right to shape this pedia to their world view. And the basic shop talk of verifiability is likely to be gamed in the exact same way as has been seen in the Demonyms of Northerh Irleand bullshit - where a single primary source is now being used to assert the utter fantasy that the only two terms that exist for calling people from the entire locality of Northern Ireland are Northern Irish and Irish. Frankly, based on experience, if it's RA talking about RS's, I now have zero faith in any proposal put forward. He has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to basic policy issues like verifiability and neutrality, and the ways he can mix and match disparate sources to create an entirely new re-imagination of the world has to be seen to be believed. Go and read the 'Descriptions of Northern Ireland' section if you doubt me. What a really creative but wholly policy violating piece of writing that is. MickMacNee (talk) 22:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
• Infact, I'm probably doing a disservice to many Irish editors by implying they all support this extermination project on the defined categories of Irish articles. It is always funny when the perrennial ROI issue pops up into the general editor sphere with yet another social engineering proposal, and a few Irish editors then rock up and declare they have absolutely zero issue with use of the description Republic of Ireland where necessary, to the clear disgust of those attempting to pretend that having written sentences of the form 'Ireland is on Ireland', even on the 'British Isles' article funnily enough, is not the height of stupidity if one is seriously wishing to educate people with brand new information, rather than push a POV. MickMacNee (talk) 22:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)