Talk:Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill

Consultation results

The results of the recent consultation have been published, with approximately 60% disagreeing with the overall purpose of the bill: https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/equalities-human-rights-and-civil-justice-committee/gender-recognition-bill/equalities-committee-summary-of-short-survey-grr-bill-responses.pdf JezGrove (talk) 23:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Potential political bias

The content/sources on this article appear to take a clear political line and maybe should be reviewed and or/balanced. I find the use of the term "anti-trans" rather than, for example, "gender critical" particularly concerning 146.200.181.77 (talk) 07:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. in particular, the sentence "Anti-trans campaigning efforts by these organisations that focus on perceived and manufactured concern for women's safety have effectively attempted to stir up public opposition to the proposals" is not NPOV and shouldn't be stated in Wikipedia's voice. As The Scotsman reports, "Reem Alaslem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, expressed fears the proposals could be abused by predatory men". JezGrove (talk) 10:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with these comments. There are also other points concerning amendments made on 4 December 2022:

14:19 – deletion of inf on backbench revolt; deletion of inf about J K Rowling [1]

14:35 – reference to opposition to the changes was deleted from the lead [2]

My view is that these changes should be reversed.

Sweet6970 (talk) 12:10, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I've been thinking about how Reem Alaslem's personal comments can be introduced to the article. The response from human rights [3], Scotland's statutory human rights body, international experts and the Scottish Government have been been sharp and have highlighted that Alaslem has contradicted the Office of the Higher Commissioner for Human Rights and her own position on this issue. Other contributions fit easily into the article's support/opposition sections, but this feels more complicated. To loop back to your first question: anti-trans and perceived threats is in line with the language of the academic paper used as a reference, but I'm not sure the line belongs – it feels like a digression. 81.79.240.98 (talk) 21:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

1) Presumably there is no objection if I revert the edits I referred to above.

2) I propose that we simply delete the statement"Anti-trans campaigning efforts by these organisations that focus on perceived and manufactured concern for women's safety have effectively attempted to stir up public opposition to the proposals. since it does not add significantly to the information provided in the previous sentence: A number of anti-trans organisations such as For Women Scotland, Fair Play for Women, LGB Alliance campaigned against the proposals.

3) I see that (per a search) the source for this text uses ‘trans-exclusionary’ 25 times, and ‘anti-trans’ twice, so I also propose that this sentence be changed to A number of trans-exclusionary organisations such as For Women Scotland, Fair Play for Women, LGB Alliance campaigned against the proposals.

4) The heading for this section should simply be Opposition to the proposals. There is no need to have ‘anti-trans’ in the heading.

5) I think it is worth including something about Reem Alaslem’s comments – if she has apparently contradicted herself, then this means she has had second thoughts, and her current view overrides her previous comments. This would come under opposition. It may be worth noting the response from the various organisations mentioned in the previous post.

Sweet6970 (talk) 09:34, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

"Trans-exclusionary" is also a term that "gender-critical" (or "reality-based" as Hadley Freeman put it in a BBC Woman's Hour interview a few days ago) feminists and campaigners would deny. JezGrove (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The justification for using ‘anti-trans’ was the wording in the source – but, as I said, ‘trans-exclusionary’ is much more common in that source. To me, ‘trans-exclusionary’ sounds less aggressive and hostile, and I think is probably more accurate, than ‘anti-trans’.

What do you think of my proposals above?

Sweet6970 (talk) 12:51, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

In that case fine - and your proposals are an improvement in my view. JezGrove (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I have now made the changes discussed above. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:23, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

In short, JKR is an uninvolved individual, this is not a tabloid or a news site or worse a twitter replicator. The use of the term 'revolt' stinks or POV/ It is also PV to only include the SNP. "opposition to the changes' is wholly and could mean anything. The UN woman was also just one person wading in when her opinion was not asked for. Again another uninvolved person is being amplified by anti-trans media sources. This is again not a tabloid or news site. Aslo trying to coddle a source so it is softer and so on is POV selecting. the groups listed are straight-up anti-trans groups, and calling them anything else fails the duck test. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The edits were made after discussion on this page, and should not have been altered without agreement on this page. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:11, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah a couple of people over a few days where the edits violate Wikipedia policy on POV and undue weight. You wanna keep talking be my guest, but you cannot say this discussion freezes the article as we want it. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Making edits in accordance with consensus on the Talk page is the way Wikipedia works. You should not edit against consensus. There was no violation of any Wikipedia policy. The article was neutral after the edits which I had made on 11 December. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:35, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I have laid out multiple NPOV and Bias issues here which consensus cannot override. Articles MUST be unbiased and from an NPOV. Consensus does not mean anything goes if two people or more agree.Sparkle1 (talk) 23:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Regarding your comments in your post of 20:53 14 December above:

i) J K Rowling is a high-profile individual whose actions are generally noteworthy. The text you deleted included a response from Nicola Sturgeon – presumably you are not disputing that Ms Sturgeon is notable?

ii) There is nothing remotely POV about the term ‘revolt’ in a parliamentary context – it is standard terminology.

iii) ‘Opposition to the changes’ – this is discussed in the body of the article.

iv) Reem Alaslem is the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and it is not appropriate to refer to her as just one person wading in when her opinion was not asked for. And the source was The Scotsman.

v) I cannot get any sense out of your comment Aslo trying to coddle a source so it is softer and so on is POV selecting..

Reply to your comment of 21:14, 14 December: The edits do not violate Wikipedia policy – but your statement You wanna keep talking be my guest, but you cannot say this discussion freezes the article as we want it indicates that you have no intention of editing in a collaborative way. In addition, you have now made other edits to the article without agreement, knowing that the wording of this article is in dispute. This is not the proper way to behave.

Sweet6970 (talk) 23:24, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

i) J K Rowling is a high-profile individual whose actions are generally noteworthy. The text you deleted included a response from Nicola Sturgeon – presumably you are not disputing that Ms Sturgeon is notable?

Sturgeon elected official JKR one billionaire who happens to have a load of followers on Twitter. One is an elected politician and the other is just a member of the public. the two are in no way comparable.

ii) There is nothing remotely POV about the term ‘revolt’ in a parliamentary context – it is standard terminology.

Revolt is used to try to convey it as more meaningful than it is. the noun means "an attempt to end the authority of a person or body by rebelling." hardly neutral. a more neutral way is x people from the following parties voted against. You cannot just home in on the SNP that is pushing a POV.

iii) ‘Opposition to the changes’ – this is discussed in the body of the article. -

The title you had was the same subheading and the main heading so totally meaningless.

iv) Reem Alaslem is the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and it is not appropriate to refer to her as just one person wading in when her opinion was not asked for. And the source was The Scotsman.

So what one member of an international organisation waded in without being asked. Doesn't mean that because it was newsworthy it is encyclopaedic. it's not a report from her group it is just her opinion, there is no attribute she even made it with the backing of her organisation. Wikipedia is not a news site. The Dali Llama could wade in doesn't mean it is encyclopaedic. Information for the sake of it is her inclusion.

v) I cannot get any sense out of your comment Also trying to coddle a source so it is softer and so on is POV selecting.

You have gone on about what language 'sounds softer', your exact words were 'less aggressive and hostile' and the other person quoted dog-whistle terms used by anti-trans groups to self-describe and would oppose being called anti-trans, which is in no way a way to write an encyclopaedia article. that is coddling the language to not describe the groups truthfully or accurately. Their whole existence is anti-trans and trying to tone down and coddle the language is bias-pushing. For the avoidance of doubt here is the definition of coddle for you "treat (someone) in an indulgent or overprotective way." Which is exactly how you are treating those anti-trans groups in this article.

Sparkle1 (talk) 23:55, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok this is unnecessarily confrontational and everyone should walk off and come back afresh, no one owns this and getting heated over this helps no one. Sparkle1 (talk) 23:44, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

You have not answered my points, and you have made further amendments to the article without agreement. You should self-revert to the version of 21:13 14 December 2022, and try to gain agreement for your changes on this Talk page. Your version of the article is biased, in particular, by concealing that there was a revolt by SNP MSPs. Sweet6970 (talk) 09:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Each of them has been answered and I am presenting the data for the votes in the most neutral way possible. You want to shout REVOLT over 7 no votes by SNP members out of 64. If that isn't POV pushing nothing is. I am also not going to discuss getting your sign-off or approval before making edits to this article. I have significantly cleaned up the article and toned down a lot of unnecessary negativity in the article and a lot of POV pushing in the article. Members of the public saying things and wearing t-shirts is tabloid fodder not encyclopaedic, no matter who the member of the public is or how wealthy or famous they are. Elected members of the Scottish parliament are different, but it cannot be a laundry list of only those who say negative things. I also find the NPOV tag laughable. It is clear from your edits and editing history you oppose reforms and oppose this legislation and you cannot allow that to colour your judgement here. I am also pointing out that you have wildly thrown good-faith assumptions out of the window here with your demands and I am not going to play along with that. The article has changed I WILL NOT revert and if you do then you will be reported for edit warring and POV pushing. If you wish to make constructive edits then fine, but blanket reverts and revert demands are simply nonsense. The things you are demanding be reverted are standard and uncontroversial. Do you honestly want a discussion on adding an info box, calling it a bill instead of a proposed Act, and adding in a vote summary table? That would be a complete farce and I will simply not partake as it does not further the purpose of Wikipedia to discuss such basic uncontroversial items. Just because you had a discussion doesn't mean its outcome is fixed in stone and that you get to demand that the article remains like the discussion outcome. That is classic article ownership and is something I will not endorse.

In short, I suggest reading up on how Wikipedia works and how editing Wikipedia works and then I suggest you come back here. Otherwise, you will simply get nowhere. Sparkle1 (talk) 18:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Could you expand on what you mean by encyclopaedic, Sparkle1? I'm not a fan of Rowling or how she's conducted herself wrt these proposals, but leant away from removing her comments (and Nicola Sturgeon's response) because of the way they were seized upon by the media and form part of the context of the bill. I am not disagreeing with you — I appreciate how you restructured and organised earlier versions of the page I drafted — but seeking to understand the different views at play on this page. 81.79.240.98 (talk) 20:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Being newsworthy and making newspaper inches does not make something worth going into an article. For it to be included there must be some relevance and connection as to why it is included. The Scottish Billionaire famous author is not an elected politician, did not give evidence on the bill and was not asked to participate in the legislative process. Rowling is just a member of the public in this context who wore a t-shirt and got n some newspapers. That is newsworthy but not encyclopedic. If she was an elected politician and she was a prominent politician campaigning against this then fine include away. That would be relevant, she is though not an MP, MSP, or Cllr. She is no different in this context to you or I. Neither of us warrants inclusion on this for opening our mouths on this subject on Wikipedia no matter how many newspapers give us a column. Rowling is the same. Celebrity may equal newsworthy but it does not equal encyclopaedic content. If it did then there would be no end of everyone who could be included from goodness knows what quarter and there would be no way of saying well this person was included but this person can't. It is just a total and utter farce to say being a celebrity and getting to be amplified by a newspaper (no matter how much one shouts about being so-called silenced) affords you influence and connection to a subject. Remember this is an encyclopaedia with standards, not a journalism-free tabloid giving whoever you are friends with space to spout whatever comes to mind no matter how devoid of truth, reality, or basic sanity it or they are. Wikipedia does not include opinion pieces outside specific articles on the people themselves or where there is a direct link, such as starting the MeToo movement. All Rowling is is an opinion piece and giving it inclusion in POV pushing and clear undue weight. Sparkle1 (talk) 01:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your reasoning in greater detail, Sparkle1. Having looked at other pages that focus on legislation and proposed legislation, the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 for example, I see a similarly brisk approach has been taken to interventions by public figures. 81.79.240.98 (talk) 19:18, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Bias in this article

@Sparkle1:

a) I see you have deleted the POV dispute tag from the article i.e. you are disputing that there is a dispute. This means that there is a dispute. Stop denying this.

b) The current wording says: The bill is supported by feminist and LGBT and human rights campaign organisations, including Amnesty International, Stonewall, Rape Crisis Scotland, Equality Network, Engender and Scottish Women's Aid. This implies that all feminist and LGBT and human rights campaign organisations support the bill, whereas the feminist organisations For Women Scotland, and Fair Play for Women, and the LGB rights organisation LGB Alliance are opposed to the bill.

c) The Equality and Human Rights Commission has expressed concerns [4], but this is not mentioned in the article.

d) You have made a subheading ‘anti-trans groups’ specifically for the feminist and LGB organisations mentioned in (b), when the source predominantly speaks of them as ‘trans-exclusionary’.

e) You have deleted the information about the revolt by SNP MSPs [5] The fact that, as reported by the Guardian, this was the biggest revolt by SNPs, is highly significant. Your statement that describing a revolt as a revolt is POV makes no sense whatever.

f) You have changed the comment made by Reem Alaslem from Reem Alaslem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, expressed fears the proposals could be abused by predatory men. to Reem Alaslem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, gave an opinion against the proposals. This excludes the relevant information from the article, and biases the article.

Sweet6970 (talk) 20:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

(Summoned from the notice board thread).

a) Not sure exactly what the threshold for marking an article as disputed is, but this seems pretty minor at the moment. Yes, technically there’s a dispute.

b) Agree that this sentence incorrectly implies too much and should be amended to supported by several.

c) Agree, this was reported in a reliable source and seems relevant to include.

d) Agree, it is not acceptable to describe these groups as anti-trans in wikivoice, because on Wikipedia anti-trans redirects to transphobia, which is a serious accusation not supported by the sources.

e) The source uses the term revolt so yes that’s what we should use. It’s a normal parliamentary term, not some kind of insurrection.

f) Agreed, seems like whitewashing to elide the critical part of the quote.

Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:41, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

You clearly want reasoning here so here goes.

First of the only lack of neutrality is in your head, there isn't actually any, you are seeing a lack of neutrality because it goes against what you want to be portrayed in the article.

You hammer on about this 'revolt' crap; 7 I repeat 7 members of the SNP out of 64 voted against it. Leave the hysteria in the Guardian, the Scotsman and other news publications. This is not a news site. This is an encyclopaedia. Calling it a revolt is POV pushing and that is not going to happen in this article.

The group you mentioned, such as "for women Scotland" and "Fair Play for Women", have a single purpose of removing the rights of trans people and excluding them from society. LGB Alliance calls itself an LGB group but in court revealed it is mainly supported by straight people. They are also well documented in pushing anti-trans agendas, and in Australia were recently designated an anti-trans hate group. So they get called what the are Anti-Trans groups. The duck test says they are anti-trans Wikipedia is not for their propaganda. trans-exclusionary is just a fancy term for anti-trans. These are groups who bring lawsuits to try and exclude trans people from society and try and remove the rights of trans people in court.

You mention wading in by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, you mean the group that put out misinformation on trans people, as can be seen here. They are bad actors in this and are nothing to do with Scottish legal proposals as the information you want to put in was not put out by the Scottish committee. They can be found here. So they fall into another one of the wading in uninvited camp of people who Wikipedia do not give credence.

Your claim of 'support by all' is a dog whistle red herring to try and crowbar in groups who are anti-trans under the umbrella they think the public finds least hostile. The list of examples clearly set out who the groups are and who are in support. There is no suggestion of truth behind your ridiculous claims of it showing support by all.

As for the UN woman you are championing, this article is not for anti-trans dog whistles and that is all she spouted. She is mentioned, but the article is not for promoting the dog-whistle propaganda she is throwing out unasked for.

In short, this article is not going to promote an anti-trans agenda and nor should it, and nor should Wikipedia.

In conclusion, I find the laundry list of complaints to be ridiculous and I reject 100% of it. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:39, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I have mentioned this discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard Sweet6970 (talk) 11:42, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I have made clear how ludicrous this whole bent is of the article not being neutral on the forum shop you have gone down to. Sparkle1 (talk) 12:42, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Sweet, you may want to put down that boomerang. Your bias and agenda are quite evident. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I have replied at the NPOV Noticeboard. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I see that Sparkle1 has, yet again, in defiance of the discussion in this section, removed important information added to the article by another editor, making the article severely biased. Sweet6970 (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@Scientelensia: There is a dispute about what should be included in this article. Please discuss your edits here, Sweet6970 (talk) 09:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I added some content to under-developed opposition and noted the current status that the bill could be blocked by the British Government. Unfortunately, Sparkle1 has removed most of it. Scientelensia (talk) 11:37, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Sweet you are agenda pushing and it is transparent. You are also now engaged in personal attacks claiming things you are engaged in and have been warned to drop the boomerang as it will hit you hard on the face. Sparkle1 (talk) 10:02, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

User Sparkle1, I request for you to stop deleting content with no valid reason – you say that it is not useful to have certain politicians’ opinion in the Opposition section, yet you have no problem with Sturgeon’s personal opinion and the opinion of a Councillor of Europe in the Support section. Scientelensia (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Protest during stage 3 hearing?

BBC News mentions heckling from the public gallery after the result was announced. The National confirms one protestor flashed her genitals at the Parliament.

It's currently going round Twitter that this was a member of the Scottish Feminist Network and the group was removed from the chamber. Relevant segment of the broadcast including the announcement of the result, the heckling, and business being temporarily suspended: https://scottishparliament.tv/meeting/meeting-of-the-parliament-december-22-2022?clip_start=15:01:38&clip_end=15:02:45

WP:NOTABLE? Appears there are secondary sources already. Treppin (talk) 18:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Going to need to be included in a way which is neutral and does not give it undue weight. Got to make sure that the delaying tactics, ticketing system abuse and other tactics used against the proposals are also included. There must also not be a use of this article as a news report. There also needs to be consideration that public order offences may have been committed and that prosecutions could be undertaken. If there is inclusion there must be the condemnation of these issues as well as views supporting this. The media in the UK is notoriously anti trans and is using this bill as an anti trans vehicle so their coverage needs to be viewed through the appropriate lens as-well. Sparkle1 (talk) 08:17, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The coverage of this incident should be neutral and based on reliable sources e.g. the BBC, The Times and the Guardian. There is no foundation for the statement The media in the UK is notoriously anti trans and is using this bill as an anti trans vehicle. The statement If there is inclusion there must be the condemnation of these issues as well as views supporting this. is wholly inappropriate – it is not for Wikipedia editors to decide what views/actions should be condemned, and what should be supported. However, there is the question how much coverage of particular protests we should give in our article. The statement about flashing genitals is not, as such, particularly significant in the context of our article, which is about the Bill/Act itself, and the general reaction to it. What wording is proposed? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I have included the following wording, based on the BBC source, which I hope will be agreeable: The announcement of the result was accompanied by cheers from supporters in the chamber, and shouts of “shame on you” from protesters in the public gallery. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 11:19, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I support this addition. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

This is neutral, fair and is also written well. Scientelensia (talk) 12:47, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Unproductive subthread; let’s focus on improving the article
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
At it again I see with the agenda here Sweet. The Council of Europe reports the UK media to be anti-trans and part of the culture against trans people. The UK media is hostile to trans people you just have to look at the scaremongering nonsense they spout with no foundation. The tropes they Trott out of trans women are 'threats to women' and the endless tosh about 'stealing places in and destroying women's sport'. Give it a rest that they are neutral and reliable on these issues. There could be a whole article on how anti-trans the UK media is. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:45, 23 December 2022 (UTC) As you know, the only ‘agenda’ I have is that Wikipedia should be informative and neutral. If my post is laughable nonsense then logically that means that you are in favour of including in the article the genitals flashing incident, which I am dubious about (?) Sweet6970 (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2022 (UTC) Drop it Sweet, your agenda and biases are clear. Stop posting unconnected things which distort what I have posted. You know full well I am only referring to the anti-trans garbage put out by the UK media. You know I was not commenting on one woman being a hypocrite for being a part of a group which demonises trans people, calls them perverts and mentally ill then decided to act like a petulant self-absorbed narcissist by shouting around and flashing her fanny even if it was covered by a merkin. I do not hold you to be a good-faith interlocuter on this article sweet. Sparkle1 (talk) 09:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Balancing of Article

Today I have made a few edits which restore deleted content by user Sparkle1 – again! However, I appreciate their view that the article wasn’t entirely balanced, so I added content onto the other side of the argument. In future though, it is better to add information instead of deleting it unless there are problems with referencing of it does not promote an unbiased opinion. Moreover, I have mentioned in the Opinion polls section the validity of such polls can be questioned as they are subject to sample size, sample area, demographic. Additionally, it is possible to manipulate results to push an agenda. Scientelensia (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

In general, I support your amendments. However, the general comment about opinion polls (Questions have been cast on the validity of such polls….) is not directly related to the subject of this article. It is a comment which might be made if one were writing an essay, and is not really appropriate in the article, unless a source has made this comment in connection with these particular polls: I would delete it. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:48, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I know what you mean, however, I would argue that people deserve to know not to immediately trust any survey they find. As polls listed come from both sides of the argument, I still think that adding this upholds the neutrality of the argument whatever polls are added to the page and therefore should not upset any users. Scientelensia (talk) 12:54, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The content was not ‘randomly deleted’ please withdraw that claim, Scientelensia, it came with a clear edit summary and there are previous discussions. The issues with the article have been numerous. This article cannot be treated as a newspaper or a forum. The claim of ‘both siding’ is also not valid as there must be relevancy for the content, the content must be encyclopaedic, and must stay focused on the subject matter. This article is not a forum for trans rights in general and claims or comments made by Joanna, Joanna and Mhari are just Tom, Dick and Harry inclusions. I agree with the neutral inclusion on the supporters and protesters. I am though wondering why there is even a section on opinion polls in this article. Can someone give a good encyclopaedic reason for inclusion, which is not so and so did it and it was in so and so news outlet? The article is not ‘unbalanced’ as is bizarrely pushed by others. This article must not include every loud mouth or column inch opinion. The bill is very narrow and the process of the bill and the actual bill must remain a focus. Singling our one party no matter who they are IS massive POV pushing. I looked up the tuition fees vote from 2012 and people tried to single out the Lib Dem’s but that was deemed POV pushing even though they had the pledge. Same is here with singling out 7 and then 9 members of the SNP even though it was in the manifesto it is still POV pushing to single them out. The claim of ‘unbalanced’ is as far as I’m concerned deluded and others need to realise this is not a news site, campaign platform, commentary, or forum. Sparkle1 (talk) 13:51, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The rationale for why there is an opinion poll is, I believe, for the manifestation of the general and prevalent consensus displayed by the population of the United Kingdom at the time – I believe that this is relevant as future viewers will be able to gage what people thought of the bill years into the future when the bill is a thing of the foregone. Scientelensia (talk) 14:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Why the UK as a whole when this is only relevant to Scotland? Also is it Wikipedia’s job to inform ‘future readers’ of a few opinion polls? What is the relevance to the bill? This is not an historic time capsule. Sparkle1 (talk) 14:19, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The UK, as you may be aware, has the potential to block the bill, therefore increasing its relevancy in this situation. Moreover, I do think that the fact that a survey was conducted by the Government of Scotland recieved 687 comments from those who were in favour of the Bill, and 4,768 from those who were against the Bill (around 7 times more people disagreed) is important as they still went through with it anyway. Opinion polls are useful to document opinions on gender and sex over time. Your argument is also flawed, as nearly every event documented in Wikipedia has happened in the past – is every article detailing an event to be called “an historic time capsule”? Scientelensia (talk) 14:44, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The fact the Westminster government can use a legal provision does not mean that it is sufficient a hook to include public opinion outside Scotland. This legislation will not apply outside Scotland so I ask again why the whole of the UK? A survey and a consultant are not the same here. Also the claims made by people on stereotypes are completely irrelevant to the bill in their entirety. The spin you put on it of ‘went ahead with it anyway’ shows a POV to include. You state ‘ Opinion polls are useful to document opinions on gender and sex over time.’ Lovely but that is not the purpose of this or any other article. Your claims of WP:Otherstuffexists/Wikipedia:When to use or avoid "other stuff exists" arguments is a patent bad argument and should be avoided. You have not addressed why there is inclusion and the fact that other articles have opinion polls does not make it right, relevant or precedent for this article or for those articles either. I ask again why is this section in the article? Sparkle1 (talk) 14:53, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Seeing as Scottish politicians are pushing for he bill not to be reverted, I think it is relevant! Scientelensia (talk) 15:21, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Additionally, Why are Care in any way relevant? Sparkle1 (talk) 15:09, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I’ve looked for any surveys I can find… feel free to ADD some! I would ask you to stop deleting content only opposing the motion. c (talk) 15:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you withdraw the second part of your claim as it is nonsense. I have equally removed Mhari Black and someone else you I think added it back. Additionally, this is not a repository for surveys and opinion polls. I ask again why is this a section on this article. Finally, you really must stop adding Rowing and Cherry. these sections are the worst kind of saccharin I have read in a long time. especially offensive about them is using Cherry's sexual orientation. Additionally, Rowling as I described in great detail above in another thread is just a member of the public and has nothing to do with this no matter how 'prominent' people think she is. Wikipedia is not a news site for the shoutings of popular people or famous people.

On an aside I would strongly recommend reading WP:NPOV Scientelensia and WP:MOS. Sparkle1 (talk) 15:20, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Many other sites have mentioned Rowling in this, feel free to add any other prominent people! Scientelensia (talk) 15:21, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Rowling has been instrumental in these gender debates. Given her comments and I recon your probable hatred of her, I feel you probably know this. Scientelensia (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Please strike these comments as they are just a grotesque personal attack, as you are making claims of "I recon your probable hatred of her" which is not acceptable. Sparkle1 (talk) 16:22, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Scientelensia @Sparkle1 you have both breached WP:3RR today. To move forward productively, please propose wording and sourcing for changes here on the talk page, and don’t edit the article without first achieving consensus. One topic at a time would be most helpful. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:40, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

So what on the other sites including Rowling? This is not the place for one member of the public views. Prominent people are not to be included, this is not a laundry list article for the opinions of every top dick and all. No members of the public whatsoever just because they are prominent, it is a grotesque undue weight. Finally, the section you keep re-adding violates POV on a massive scale and uses horrific weasel words and promotes spin from organisations is frankly unencyclopaedic.

I ask again why is the opinion poll section needed in this article. Sparkle1 (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

While I do support the opinion polls section, I state that I never added it. Scientelensia (talk) 15:29, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I am not saying you did add it, I am asking you why should it remain?Sparkle1 (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Again, to show public opinion. Scientelensia (talk) 18:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

That is circular, it shows what it does, it does not give a reason for inclusion. It does not answer why it should be included at all. Showing public opinion for the sake of it is not a legitimate reason for inclusion. so I am asking you why should it remain? Sparkle1 (talk) 01:38, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Polling section issues (CARE + 'Government of Scotland survey')

I removed the section about CARE's polling on the GRR bill. There are a couple of concerns: the citation is to a press release on CARE's website, the polling question, company and results are not published. CARE are summarised as an "organisation working to prevent self-harm, abortion, gambling and suicide". I'm not sure that's an accurate way to summarise their work: CARE is short for 'Christian Action, Research and Education' and their work includes opposing this bill, opposing the Scottish Government's ban on the psychological torture of LGBT+ people, defending protestors who harass women accessing abortion services, opposing abortion in NI and various other culture war issues. If they are to be included, I would add CARE to the list of groups who opposed the bill.

I've also zapped the section about the 'Scottish Government's survey.' In my comments about the edit, I should have acknowledged this and I apologise that I did not. The link is not to polling, but to a document that tries to summarise the results of one of the Scottish Government's consultation exercises. Those exercises are touched upon in the body of the article. Due to their scale and variety the results of each exercise is going to be difficult to summarise without running into NPOV issues or editorial questions. In the draft I removed, the opposition talking points speak to anxieties that people have, but are AFAICS irrelevant as the bill does not alter clinical practice, or the circumstances in which individuals are judged competent to make clinical decisions. If this consultation response document is to be summarised, I feel we would have to engage in a similar exercise for the first consultation, the relevant Holyrood committee's open call for evidence and *maybe* some of the consultation exercises. [And we're stuck with the same NPOV issues at each stage] 81.79.240.98 (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree and I think that there should be fewer uses of polls and not more. I also think all consultations must be integrated in to the correct part of the stage of the bill. As such I would not include a summation document. Sparkle1 (talk) 16:49, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposed changes

Earlier, I added content to both Support and Opposition sections of the Bill in attempt to add more content while preserving the neutrality of the article. This can been seen below. I also added some polls, including a poll conducted by the Scottish Government themselves. Most of the users I’ve talked to agreed with these. As this poll resulted in a negative result for the bill, user Sparkle1 removed most of the content opposing the bill, resulting in edits restoring and deleting these facts. However, I did make changes the user requested such as using sites like The Times instead of the Scottish Express and removing phrases previously in the article, such as “widely considered”. Despite this, when I pointed out that the user was removing only content opposing the bill, Sparkle1 decided to remove basically all of it, with still slightly more content on the Supporting side. You can read the previous support and opposition sections below. Do you all think any of this should be restored?

(N.B. user Special:Contributions/81.79.240.98 pointed out something about the CARE organisation, which I agree with. Obviously my edits below are not perfect, but I wanted to gain a general consensus over whether or not any of this content should be restored instead of mindlessly deleted.)

(N.B.2. the user Special:Contributions/81.79.240.98 also stated they disagreed with having the Scottish Government’s poll, but I felt this was useful, again, please let me know if you agree or disagree.)

(N.B.3. I couldn’t manage to display the references underneath, but you can click the link below to assure yourselves that they’re there!)

Any thoughts and replies would be warmly welcomed. Thank you all very much and have a very Merry Christmas!

Support

The bill was supported by many feminist, LGBT and human rights campaign organisations, including Amnesty International, Stonewall, Rape Crisis Scotland, Equality Network, Engender, Scottish Trans Alliance, and Scottish Women's Aid.

The SNP, Scottish Greens, Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats supported the bill.

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has championed the bill, stating that she wouldn’t “apologise for trying to spread equality”. Sturgeon also insisted that nothing in the bill would produce any more threat to the safety of women.

Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović described the bill as following international best practice.

Upon finding out that the bill could be revoked by the United Kingdom’s government, SNP politician Mhairi Black warned Rishi Sunak and his government that doing so would be an “attack on Scottish democracy”.

Opposition

The bill was opposed by the Scottish Conservatives, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland, and feminist and LGB organisations such as For Women Scotland, Fair Play for Women and the LGB Alliance.

Moreover, prominent figures, most notably author JK Rowling, opposed the bill, as did many other feminists.

Many members of the United Kingdom’s population also expressed concern that the Bill reinforced gender stereotypes and undermined the sexual orientation of homosexuals.

Ash Regan was one of 15 senior SNP politicians, a list including current Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and Business Minister Ivan McKee, who signed a letter in 2019 urging the Scottish leadership not to "rush" into "changing the definition of male and female". Additionally, Forbes commented in 2021 that her “hope would be that nobody’s voice is silenced in this debate”.

The SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a lesbian woman considered as an advocate of women’s rights, was sacked from her job as justice spokesman in 2021 after she opposed her the plans of her party. Moreover, Cherry claimed she later received “very threatening messages” SNP from a party member concerning her views.

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Gender_Recognition_Reform_(Scotland)_Bill&oldid=1129297192 Scientelensia (talk) 18:46, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

In short the above will never get back in as it simply violates far too much of the purpose of Wikipedia. This article is not and will not be a laundry list of every Tom, Dick and Sally giving their tuppence. The above proposals are grotesque I mean it is disgusting to use a persons sexual orientation as a hook. Also trying to sugarcoat rabid anti-trans groups as anything else is vile. Leave it that the additions of some member of the public who is not a politician is irrelevant. The proposed changes have so many issues that it will never get into the article. NPOV, Relevancy, agenda pushing and most of all tabloid news reporting. As such the proposals are hopeless. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I’m afraid you misunderstand the “purpose of Wikipedia”, which is too provide relative information for viewers to digest with an unbiased tone. I don’t think it is the role of one person to authoritatively discuss what content people are allowed to read or not.

Nobody is utilising “sexual orientation” as a “hook”, would you care to explain yourself here? Too, if the “additions of some member of the public who is not a politician is irrelevant”, then I would ask that you at least consider the additions which themselves concern politicians.

Moreover, I wonder what agenda I seem to be pushing? I have added content on both sides with politicians and organisations featuring on both sides. I will add that you yourself removed almost all the content opposing the motion until you changed your course when this was pointed out. All “tabloid news” has been removed and replaced since you pointed it out, and I would suggest that perhaps you are pushing your own agenda. Of course, nobody is perefct and nothing can be 100% unbiased, however I would recommend ceasing this pointless battle. Both of us obviously feel strongly about this, therefore to conclude this affair I suggest a compromise. If we both have different points of view, then this will make the article truly unbiased.

Merry Christmas! Scientelensia (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed with User:Sparkle1. I just looked through the edits being discussed and the only parts that were removed were obvious POV violations. I don't see why Rowling's input is important here, any more than any other celebrity's. "Many other feminists" is simply weasel words. Same goes for "many members of the United Kingdom’s population." Describing the likes of For Women Scotland, Fair Play for Women, and the LGB Alliance as "feminist and LGB organisations" seems gratuitous when those organizations primarily focus on opposing legislature involving the trans community. LGB Alliance doesn't even fully oppose conversion therapy. I don't see the importance of Cherry's sexual orientation being mentioned either, unless this is to suggest she speaks for all lesbians, and "considered as an advocate of women’s rights" is, once again, weasel words via the use of the passive voice to avoid saying who considers her that. Maivea (talk) 22:09, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

The additions you are demanding are tabloid journalism and anti-trans dog whistles with a clear anti-SNP bias (no matter how much Nicola Sturgeon quoting you think offsets this). All of the proposed changes are hopelessly out of the understanding loop as to the purpose of Wikipedia and its policies and guidelines. The article is not going to be a tabloid journalistic endeavour and no matter how much you try and use ink by the barrel it is not happening. "I have added content on both sides with politicians and organisations featuring on both sides." That is not how being unbiased works. Both siding is a clear misunderstanding of the policies. All this boils down to is a heated set of tabloid laundry lists. Both sides and unbiased are not the same, you are conflating the two. Adding what you have is some of the most biased additions that could be made to the article no matter how much 'both siding' is done. There is no compromise on the additions you are proposing. None of it in any form is getting in. Nothing on Cherry is getting in. Nothing on Rowling is getting in. Nothing on "the Bill reinforced gender stereotypes and undermined the sexual orientation" is getting in. Nothing on "Ash Regan was one of 15 senior SNP politicians" is getting in. Nothing from Black is getting in. Calling specific anti-trans groups "feminist" and claiming multiple "LGB organisations" when it is one prominent well-funded anti-trans group is getting in. "First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has championed the bill", is not getting in. The reason why? It is all POV-pushing, It is all agenda-pushing, it is all wholly unrelated to the topic, and it is all just tabloid newspaper copy. I will not in 'the spirit of compromise' allow crowbarred rubbish like this in, where it is clearly there to further biases, POV and agendas. You also seem incapable of realising the Council of Europe statement has been moved to a more appropriate section of the article, which shows you are blanketly reverting and not paying attention to edits which are actually being made by others. The horrific weasel words which are used throughout to push the POV and Agenda are also horrendous and make the additions unsalvageable use of phrases such as "considered as an advocate of women’s rights", "as did many other feminists", "Many members of the United Kingdom’s population" and "expressed concern". These are classic weasel words to try and slip things in through a veneer of claimability and so and so rumour mill said so. It is not happening. Finally the disgusting use of "The SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a lesbian woman" which utilises sexual orientation as a hook is just flat the prime example of how much this is just not fit to be included on Wikeidpia. In short, these proposed changes violate an incredible amount of Wikipedia policy and cannot under any format be added. Sparkle1 (talk) 00:39, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

It appears you are just unreasonable. Scientelensia (talk) 11:09, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Compromise must not violate the basics of Wikipedia and your additions violate far too much of the basics for them to be included. I could list them but you have not shown a willingness as a new editor to engage with them as was shown by the deletion of such links I posted to you on your talk page. Also being 'unreasonable' in the eyes of another editor does not invalidate anything which has been posted and nor is it a way of dismissing or invalidating the other person. You are very good at playing the struggling victim here which is not going to get your wanton POV and agenda into this article. Sparkle1 (talk) 11:20, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I can’t be bothered with you anymore. Scientelensia (talk) 12:09, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

That’s jolly nice of you doesn’t mean you get to do as you please on here or any other article in violation of Wikipedia policies and its purpose. I sincerely hope you read Wikipedia’s policies and purpose and come back with an understanding of just how bad the proposed changes you are suggesting are. If you then come back with policy compliant proposed changes I’ll happily work with you. At the moment though there are more violations than a recidivist on parole. Sparkle1 (talk) 13:27, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not a place for tabloiding or the opinions of every Tom, Dick and Sally

The only political parties that get to be included are parties with representation in the Scottish Parliament, otherwise, the list of who gets included could be endless.

A Rally or protest outside where a couple of fringe Westminster MPs spoke is not relevant enough to be included no matter who they are. It seems there is a heavy 'must crowbar Cherry in somehow' bent being pushed on this article. She is not getting in and nor is the Alba party or anyone from them. These rally/protest inclusions are just more POV pushing, agenda pushing and undue weight. It doesn't matter one iota how well-sourced something is, it is not getting in if it is POV pushing or undue weight. Cherry and the Alba Party are on the fringes and cannot be promoted as if they are mainstream, no matter how much media spewing about trans people is done.

Rishi Sunak, Shona Robinson and friends, and whatever they say is irrelevant when trying to pad and puff the Royal Assent section. What is relevant is when they actually do something. The fact Royal Assent is being awaited is currently covered in more than enough detail. There is no need for editorialising with lines like "never been done before" and including newspaper reports of politicians' media pronouncements. It just turns this article into a newspaper, so these inclusions cannot be allowed to slip their slimy way in.

Sourcing and verifiability do not trump the need for the article to be encyclopaedic and neutral without undue weight. As such there must be remembering when editing this article that no matter how many sources something has it does not mean it gets be included. Inclusions must not treat this article as a laundry list, tabloid newspaper, or a forum to promote fringe politicians and fringe political parties, with fringe views, being loud and having friends in the media does not mean the views aren't fringe views. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:53, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The only parties that get to be included…. You do not have a veto over which parties are relevant to this article.

A Rally or protests outside…where a couple of fringe Westminster MPs… There is no such thing as a fringe Westminster MP

re Joanna Cherry and She is not getting in… You do not have a veto over who is mentioned in this article. Cherry is not ‘on the fringes’ – she is the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights

Rishi Sunak is currently the Prime Minister of the UK- what he says is relevant.

It is relevant that Royal Assent for a bill of the Scottish Parliament has never before been refused, because if it is, this will be a constitutional struggle between Westminster and Holyrood, and would be relevant to any question of Scottish independence. See e.g.[6]

You have not persuaded me.

Sweet6970 (talk) 21:13, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Parties not represented in the Scottish parliament don't get included or there would never be any focus on the article. Simply going, 'but they should' is not good enough. Why should a party that did not get a vote on this legislation to be included? Also it is complete and utter codswallop to say the nonsense of "no such thing as a fringe Westminster MP' if you believe that then be my guest, I am not going to join you. Why though are Westminster MPs trying to be crowbarred in on an article on legislation they could not vote on? This is not a forum or place for general discussion.

When something beyond a press release from the Prime minister happens such as actually using section 35 go ahead and include it, until then what he says is just more news reporting and not relevant, this is not a general forum or discussion board. I hear Twitter Is a good place for that. This article is not for 'the constitutional struggle between Westminster and Holyrood'. That is clearly turning this article into a forum and a speculation destination.

I also don't think you would ever be persuaded as you seem bent on not keeping this article focused on the legislation, but clearly want to crowbar it to being an open forum for the views of anyone and anything to be included. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:35, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

@Sparkle1: these are changes added by @PoliceSheep99 which I thought were quite reasonable:

1. Wikilink to Scotland Act 1998. What is wrong with this?

2. Stating that use of Section 35 powers had never occurred before. This is true, notable, and reported in a reliable source. What is wrong with this?

3. The sentences Cabinet members Alister Jack and Kemi Badenoch as well as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have made statements saying the Government is actively considering this. and Shona Robison and LGBT+ Labour have criticised this as threatening the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament. There has been media speculation in The Guardian and Alex Cole-Hamilton that there will be legal challenges to the bill and any potential government use of Section 35., in support of the point above. Again, reported in reliable sources and completely relevant to the passage of the bill.

4. The sentence Victor Madrigal-Borloz, United Nations Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, supported the legislation., in the Support section. Again, reported in a reliable source.

5. The sentence Members of British Parliament Neale Hanvey and Joanna Cherry as well as former MSP Johann Lamont spoke against the bill at a rally in front of the Scottish Parliament building.. I'm not sure of the standard of Yahoo News as a reliable source, but the rally was also reported by the BBC so it seems perfectly reasonable to include in the section about opposition to the bill.

Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:13, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not a general debate on the use of section 35 powers, it is not a general debate on trans issues, and it is not a general forum to give everyone who got their name in a friendly newspaper a place. In short, these proposed edits, are just POV-pushing tabloid journalism.

The term 'never been used' is part of a debate on the section 35 powers, not this bill so it is POV pushing to try and sensationalist that section.

Talk from politicians. This is not the place for that as this is NOT a newspaper, when something happens like I don't know section 35 is actually used or legal challenges actually happen then add away. At the moment political press releases are pure speculation and media news reporting. Something Wikiepida most certainly is not.

As for the UN people you are duplicating information and the information does not need duplicating. If you want to expand that so and so supported and so and so opposed in the more relevant Stage 3 section be my guess. At the moment you are duplicating to try and pad out the opinion on the bill section which is an obviously pointless thing to do.

As for fringe politicians, these are like Rowling. They have no place in the article. They are no MSPs, they are fringe politicians and a fringe political party and Wikipedia including them no matter how many news media sources write coverage does not mean that they get given undue weight by being included. So far it just seems that the BBC covered it so in it goes when in fact the coverage is undue weight and news reporting. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:35, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I take it you agree that point 1 is fine.

Section 35 is mentioned in reliable sources when reporting about this bill. We are not speculating on it being used, we are summarising what the reliable sources are saying about the subject of the article. Exactly what POV do you think is being served by including this information?

Talk from politicians seems eminently relevant to an act of Parliament, but relevant opinions worthy of inclusion are not limited to politicians. We follow the sources.

Joanna Cherry is not a fringe politician. What is one of those anyway; do you mean backbencher? Regardless of your opinion of her, reliable sources have noted her opposition to the bill, she’s got a long-standing history of involvement with this bill, and I hardly think a brief mention of this way down in the weeds of the article adds a great deal of weight.

Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:07, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The claim of "We follow the sources" misses the fact that the article is not driven by sources. That's the tail wagging the dog. The article must be neutral, free from POV and focused on the subject matter. I ask, why are non-MSPs being included? Inclusion is giving them undue weight. The sources cannot drive the article. The subject matter must drive the article. In this case, it is the legislation itself and not the circus and sideshows which came along with it trying to have a debate on trans rights.

A fringe politician is one who is outside of the mainstream and on this issue Cherry most clearly is a fringe politician within her own party and other politicians. Simply being promoted by anti-trans newspapers does not make one any more mainstream. That is though enough on Cherry and if she is a fringe or not. It has to be remembered that non-depreciated sources here cannot be used to include opinion pieces and agendas. "long-standing history of involvement with this bill" is POV and does not mean Cherry gets to be crowbarred into the article. By that metric, anyone could be considered to have "long-standing history of involvement with this bill" and get included. Cherry is like Rowling here, just one more voice from the outside shouting in. Her inclusion is not justified.

The POV being pushed regarding Section 35 is the whirls of speculation of will-they or won't-they, will-he or won't-he and so on. If they do use it then that is fine include it. If they don't use it fine include it but pushing the POV of wild speculation and including press coverage of he-said and she-said is just ridiculous and detracts from the focus of the article. This is not a debating society or a political Sunday show on TV. The article cannot get into the weeds of speculation. There must be a waiting to see what happens then the article can include what actually happens. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Tell me if I’m right or wrong: you seem to be proposing a very limited scope for the article, defining being an MSP as the bar for having a relevant viewpoint, and excluding wider reaction, opinion, commentary, and so forth? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 23:15, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The article does have a very narrow scope. It is not a forum for trans rights. It is not a newspaper to include the discussions or talking points of anyone who is anyone. It has to remain focused on the legislation, legislative process and the outcomes of that process. Noise about it will and will not do this from Tom, Dick and Sally, are simply outside the scope of this article. Including individuals like Cherry and Rowling is POV-pushing as they are just outsiders making noise. With respect to the comment of "wider reaction, opinion, commentary, and so forth". That is always going to be a big falling foul of POV, especially at this stage in the legislation when it has not even got Royal Assent, let alone even come into force. If you want to go down that path this article ain't the place for it. That is more akin to it being a forum and a general discussion on the topic of the legislation, which is gender recognition for trans people and not the legislation in and of itself. The best thing to do with this article as it stands is to wait for the outcome of what is going to happen about Royal Assent. Sparkle1 (talk) 23:36, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

You say The article does have a very narrow scope. but that’s not actually the position, which is that you want it to have a very narrow scope. The version of the article you want deprives our readers of relevant information, and in particular, it deprives readers of information about opposition to the bill.

You describe everything you object to as POV but you never say what the POV is, nor how the information concerned is POV in Wikipedia terms. I recommend that you read WP:NPOV. The nutshell says: Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it. Your attitude seems to be that we should not explain the sides. You have also said that the article should not be driven by sources But this is the opposite of what WP:NPOV says, which is: All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

Your edits result in an article which is so uninformative that it is not much use to readers, and is biased in favour of the bill. Your criticisms of the edits you have reverted are misconceived.

Sweet6970 (talk) 12:18, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Other editors clearly have shown that they view you to have a clear bias and agenda, so I do not take your views as neutral on this when you are trying to crowbar everyone under the sun into the article. The claims of "deprives our readers of relevant information, and in particular, it deprives readers of information about opposition to the bill." Is code for including more and more in the opposition section, because it boosts the POV you are pushing. The claims of "so uninformative that it is not much use to readers" is again more code that your POV is being eliminated from the article. The claim of "Your attitude seems to be that we should not explain the sides." The article cannot take to "explaining sides" as that is straying into Original Research which Wikipedia bans outright. It also seems to be that you are trying with your quote from NPOV, to suggest that Anti-trans media sources get to be used as a crowbar to push in anti-trans slants. This is not an open forum on trans rights, a place for individuals' opinions or anything which is a general commentary on the bill, trans people, trans rights, conspiracies, or outright lies about what the bill does. The media in the UK such as The Times, Guardian, Telegraph, BBC (look at Women's Hour as a prime example), etc, are all rabidly anti-trans and on this topic cannot be in any way viewed as reliable, beyond nuts and bolts reporting on the legislation. They cannot be used for things such as reporting things like 'protests' as they are easily viewed as artificially boosting these events. This article is about the bill, not the so-called debate of opposition and support noise going on surrounding it. Reliable does not mean unbiased. Sparkle1 (talk) 19:53, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Sparkle1 you are drifting away from talking about edits towards talking about editors, throwing a bunch of WP:ASPERSIONS. You’ve had multiple warnings about this battleground attitude. I would be most grateful if you would take some time away from the keyboard to reflect, then come back and rewrite your comment minus the hyperbole and personal attacks. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:54, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I am not making to claims of bias alone; see this WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. I would also be wary of WP:Boomerang

I am not casting aspersions here. It is clear from the attempted insertions that there is clear POV and agenda. This is nothing against the editor themself but they do need to see they are trying to insert information which is POV and Agenda pushing. Stating truth is not an aspersion. If sweet comes along with edits which are not chock full of POV and inclusions of people simply in friendly media sources. I'll happily work with them. Perhaps there need to be a looking at why is there all this extraneous information being aded to the article. Why is all this stuff trying to be added which is better left on a political forum, and Sunday Show for politics. There is no justification for any more additions in the opinions section. The inclusions stray deeply in to POV-pushing and OR. The additions of Cherry, The Alba party and so on are just noise for the sake of it. The addition of Black and LGBT+ Labour more noise. The claims of it to inform readers and show a full picture are just codswallop. The article is on the bill not a crowbar to discuss trans people, trans rights or platform anti-trans bigots or hyperbolic TRA's. Yes I know both sides here, and neither are welcome on this article. The article is weeds deep in attempts to be a newspaper and WikiTwitter. I would suggest asking Sweet why they are trying to crowbar in what they are trying to crowbar in. This is not a place to be ' explaining both sides' that is foruming and political lecturing, not Wikipedia. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:21, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I am not trying to crowbar everyone under the sun into the article. That suggestion does not make sense in itself, and you ought to be aware that I did not actually add the material which you dispute.

I do not speak in code.

My POV is irrelevant – I do not edit with a view to having any article reflect my views.

You say the article cannot take to “explaining sides”. This was a quote from WP:NPOV, to which I referred you. So you are opposed to the most fundamental policy of Wikipedia.

Sources such as the BBC and the Guardian are regarded as reliable by Wikipedia, without any exclusion for transgender matters.

Your arguments do not hold water.

Sweet6970 (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Simply saying ‘your arguments don’t hold water’ doesn’t mean they don’t no matter how many times you repeat your opinion. I draw your attention to the following demonstrating in particular how much of an anti trans bent the BBC is on. [7] here is the full report [8]

The UK media is being noticed as promoting anti-trans rhetoric and is being called out for it.

I am not going to engage in your laundry list against me as it feels futile if you cannot see what multiple users are pointing out to you. Sparkle1 (talk) 09:44, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

If you want to argue against Wikipedia's NPOV policy, you can open a discussion at WT:NPOV and if you want to get the BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian removed as reliable sources, you can open a discussion on WP:RSN. In the meantime, Wikipedia policy on NPOV is as @Sweet6970 has stated, and those news sources are considered reliable. Note that reliable sources can be biased; bias doesn't prevent us from extracting facts.

It is entirely normal for an article to contain reactions, commentary, opinion, etc. - it is helpful for readers to understand the topic in context. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 11:01, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I draw your attention to the following demonstrating in particular how much of an anti trans bent the BBC is on. If one follows that thread, one finds the claim that "Five former members of staff spoke of how they felt “hidden” and “ashamed” during their time at the BBC, which eventually led them to quit. The most recent resignation was last week." . The number may be a bit higher, but the resignations related to ALL LGBQT coverage over a number of years, not simply trans. Getting from a small number of staff leaving because they disagreed with coverage to "how much of an anti trans bent the BBC is on" requires a massive amount of hyperbole. Pincrete (talk) 13:34, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Having read this whole thread, I want to express strong support for the positions expressed by @Sweet6970 and @Barnards.tar.gz AndyGordon (talk) 11:00, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

This article needs outside input as this is just POV pushing in my opinion and trying to turn the article into a political forum. Sparkle1 (talk) 12:58, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Opinion Polls

I can't fathom a good justification for retaining the section on opinion polls. It doesn't really add to the article and it seems to just be there for the sake of it. There were three public consultations on this bill which are covered, the inclusion of opinion polls as well seems pretty pointless. Sparkle1 (talk) 21:05, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The opinion polls are relevant because of the possible constitutional struggle between Westminster and Holyrood mentioned in the section above, and because the views of the Scottish public are relevant to this dispute, and to possibly increasing support by the Scots for Scottish independence. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:20, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

These opinion polls are in no way related to this so-called 'possible constitutional struggle between Westminster and Holyrood'. This is wild speculation. Also, this article is not for going down and promoting some theory of a possible future crisis. If it happens then go wild. At the moment is it speculation and this encyclopaedia is not the place. So I ask again. Why should they be included? Sparkle1 (talk) 21:38, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

It is quite normal to include a range of views in an article on a controversial subject, and opinion polls are one type of view. They are different in purpose and methodology from consultations. Compare with the following article: 2014 Scottish independence referendum - plenty of opinion polls included there. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Why are we including them though? The argument of it is common practice and exists in other places is just a precedent argument and not a justification for inclusion. There were three public consultations which are extensively covered in the article, does the article really need padding with opinion polls? The public consultation gives an accurate snapshot view and we don't need to engage in more of it. This is not an election article. If it was I'd have no problem with going opinion poll wild but this is not an election article, so the justification of 'it is used in an election article' doesn't marry up. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:41, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Including the opinions of the public seems to me manifestly, self-evidently relevant to the Opinion section of an article about a bill of Parliament in a democratic country. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Being 'manifestly self-evident' is circular, it is not a reason for inclusion, please provide a reason and answer why when three public consultations are included opinion polls are also being included when this is not an election article. Sparkle1 (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Because the views of the public are relevant to an article about a bill of Parliament in a democratic country. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 23:16, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

That is answering a different question. The question you have answered is: Why are opinion polls conducted and get paid attention to?

The question I am asking is Why are they included in this article?

This is not an election article, three major and one minor public consultations are included. What is added to the article by the inclusion of opinion polls? The arguments being put forward here for inclusion are coming across as; I like therefore they should be included, and this is close enough to an election article so lets include them as it feels right. None of these are actual reasons for inclusion. Sparkle1 (talk) 23:28, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The reason for including the opinion polls is that these give relevant information to our readers. This is a contentious bill, and the opinions of the Scots population regarding the bill are relevant. You say This is not an election article….. Quite so. And these are not election opinion polls, so your statement is irrelevant. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You claim "This is a contentious bill, and the opinions of the Scots population regarding the bill are relevant." The contention is entirely manufactured by the media and anti-trans agitators. Also, the claims of the bill being contentious or uncontentious are both potential violations of Original research as that is a conclusion drawn by the editor, based on their opinion. I make no claims of the bill being contentious or uncontentious in the article itself. My personal opinion and all personal opinions of users and the media must remain out of the article. Also, these polls are not shown to be just "the scots population". Why do we need opinion polls when there are already 4 Public consultations? Also if they are included what is the criteria for inclusion? Sparkle1 (talk) 21:03, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

We need opinion polls because they are different from public consultations. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2022 (UTC) 

The above does not give any reason for inclusion. It is simply stating ‘they should’. Why should they be included is the question. The article does not ‘need’ them simply because they are different to public consultations. What next we ask people who are in the street and include that because that too is different from a public consultation. Sparkle1 (talk) 09:48, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Request for Comment

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There seems to be a rough agreement that no meaningful consensus could be achieved from this RfC. As closer I would suggest that the a review of the guidance at WP:RFCBEFORE, WP:RFCBRIEF, WP:WRFC, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example formatting for suggestions and advice on crafting a clear, concise, and neutral RfC question. And as always, editors are gently reminded to continue discussing ongoing issues on the article talk page, and to take full avail of all dispute resolution options when consensus cannot be achieved. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

---

Dispute over the inclusion of information to the article regarding those in support and opposition to the legislation and the scope of the article in general. There are multiple discussions above that show the depth of difficulty in finding agreement on this article. Sparkle1 (talk) 13:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that as long as something can be kept in due weight and follows our other policies (RS’s, neutrality, etc). However, when it comes to parties, keep it minimal and only significantly elaborate on the most vocal supporters and the leading major parties in support, and opposed for that measure. If there is a way to mention smaller parties while following WP:DUE, sure, but Wikipedia isn’t a database of every person and their mother who has a position. Do however, restrict it to parties which have an MP only or are large enough in their substance, notability, and influence to exert such without any MP, if such parties exist.

On the subject of opinion polls, only do the most reliable ones, that is, ones provided by reliable sources. However, summarize the polls relative to time period; if most polls show one result throughout, say that the polls mostly showed one result; however, if the polls are mixed, summarize them. We shouldn’t go into detail on EVERY single poll. But in general, polls, despite being disputed in their reliability, are widely spoken about. We shouldn’t be editing, or more accurately using Wikipedia, to make a point that polls are bad.

Supporters that aren’t parties like unions, activism organizations, celebrities, etc can all be put into one sentence each, except if one organization’s activism was crucial. In other words, if an activist was like Nelson Mandela relative to a cause, by due weight they should have more written about them. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:40, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Note in particular that these 2 edits: [9]21:13 14 December 2022 and [10] 20:44 29 December 2022 gained support on this Talk page but were reverted. Sweet6970 (talk) 09:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

These POV-pushing edits inserting comments from everyone and their mother were removed, because they are unencyclopedic POV-pushing inclusion of everyone and their mother, and the comments by InvadingInvader support their removal. Sparkle1 (talk) 00:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

InvadingInvader has so far made no comments on the specific edits, or the actual wording of this article.. However, they have said Do however, restrict it to parties which have an MP only or are large enough in their substance, notability, and influence to exert such without any MP, if such parties exist. Reference to the views of Alister Jack, Kemi Badenoch, Rishi Sunak, Shona Robison, and Joanna Cherry has been deleted from the article. Regarding opinion polls, they say … summarize the polls… rather than exclude them altogether. Regarding other supporters, they say: Supporters that aren’t parties like unions, activism organizations, celebrities, etc can all be put into one sentence each, except if one organization’s activism was crucial. In other words, if an activist was like Nelson Mandela relative to a cause, by due weight they should have more written about them. This would appear to support the inclusion of a sentence about J K Rowling. Sweet6970 (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that Rowling should be listed as part of a sentence with common supporters. An example would be "Some of the bill's most notable supporters outside of politics are Fooberton Foo, the Supreme Cabal Regime of the English Wikipedia, and the Reichstag-climbing Spider-man. Same thing for for the Opposition. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 10:43, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

For clarity: J K Rowling opposes the bill. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:43, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Exactly one name in a list. Nothing about [redacted] Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull or t-shirts, or Sturgeon’s comments, one name in a list of others. Also only MSPs and parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, so auf wiedersehen Alba, Cherry, Black and co. Sparkle1 (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

What is an uninvolved party supposed to do with Dispute over the inclusion of information to the article regarding those in support and opposition to the legislation and the scope of the article in general? What question is being asked that you want additional input on? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't seem to grasp the comment above as InvadingInvader has given an in-depth response. Any other description given by me would be simply challenged by individuals who are determined to insert their preferred revision into the article. Sparkle1 (talk) 00:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Could I suggest a collapsible table which outlines the MPs who support and oppose the bill? InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:19, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

That's covered in the voting tables on the bill stages. MSPs are all covered. Westminster MPs are just agitators in my opinion making press coverage. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

We could list some of the most notable Westminster MPs InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 04:10, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Potentially but then you get into why is this person and not this person?, what is ‘most notable’? and so on. The determination of those will be just more POV including or excluding. The bright line is best stuck at MSPs and not MPs MEPs AM, etc. Going down that road is potentially limitless in scope and what is added to the article? Sparkle1 (talk) 12:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The significance of the views of the Westminster MPs, including in particular the Prime Minister, is that there is a possibility that Westminster will not allow this bill to come into force. (If so, there may be a legal challenge.) Excluding this information makes this article misleading. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• I think the WP:Ten year test applies here. In current events there can be a tendency to include bits of predictably-fleeting significance. The positions of the political parties voting on the issue is historically significant context, the polling of public sentiment is historically significant context, the summary of major groups on each side is significant context, a high-news resignation is probably notable but not worthy of a section, but individual opinions of assorted other individuals will in most cases not have lasting significance and should generally not be included.

  P.S. I agree with Rhododendrites's concerns, the question here is poorly presented. If this RFC gets scrapped and restarted, I would advise more clearly specifying the content or categories of content that are disputed. Alsee (talk) 19:27, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

This RfC is so vague as to be pointless. There have been several discussions on specific points e.g. the latest discussion above, stated by Sparkel1 and entitled by them This is not a place for tabloiding or the opinions of every Tom, Dick and Sally. The consensus was strongly against Sparkel1. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

• Agree that the RfC is poorly phrased, and thus unlikely to produce any concrete agreement, but broadly speaking I am sympathetic to including a broader range of opinions from individuals and groups and the exclusion criteria of Sparkle1 appear to be unworkable and limiting. We may individually despise positions taken by politicians without voting rights in Scotland, and/or UK news organisations reporting those views, but the extent of coverage in WP:RS is the only measure available to us as to the character and extent of debate among the public - unless we believe that media wholly control public debate, rather than also reflect it. A reliable source is one with a reputation for fact-checking and accurate reporting, it is not confined to sources whose biases we agree with. People like Cherry and possibly Rowling have received acres of media coverage, both critising and endorsing.Pincrete (talk) 13:51, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lead section & royal assent

I edited the lead earlier to describe the bill as "awaiting Royal Assent" with a sentence at the end of the paragraph explaining the government's recent announcement that they intend to block royal assent. Sparkle1 then changed this structure, describing the bill as "pending not being granted Royal Assent, by the use of a section 35 Order of the Scotland Act 1998, by the Westminster Government". I prefer my version for two reasons. a) The bill has not yet had royal assent refused, so it is technically still awaiting royal assent. Given how fractious this is, we do not yet know for certain whether royal assent will be denied, just that the government currently plans to do so. I think "awaiting royal assent" is the clearest way of putting this. b) I also think it is clearer to put the government's intention to block royal assent at the end of the paragraph. These two things (the current legal status of the bill and the government's announced intention) are different things and I think it would be clearer to keep them separate. Doing so would also resolve what I think at the moment is quite a clumsy opening sentence. What do others think? WJ94 (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree that your version is clearer and easier to read. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I also agree your version is the better of the two and the easier to understand. I think "pending not being granted Royal Assent" just sounds awkward and cumbersome, and probably isn't a state in the passing of legislation. This is Paul (talk) 19:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok, well I have restored my version of the paragraph. WJ94 (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

"pending not being granted Royal Assent" is horrific, as are the other changes, such as the ill-fitting explanation of the section 35 order in the lede. Changed again, I see...  Tewdar  20:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Disagree wholly with the so-called agreed-upon version. it is just devoid of any of the current events. Also, a discussion amongst a couple of people in a few minutes is not a consensus its the start of a discussion. There are sources removed from the government itself, and the current section implies that Royal Assent could be happening when the four-week deadline expires for making a section 35 order which is not the case at all now. If the wording is disliked then discuss that, the order being in force is currently not clear so until that is cleared up limbo land is what we are in. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

this version seems decent and up to date to me.  Tewdar  20:21, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

'pending not being granted Royal Assent' is about the time between the announcement and implementation of the section 35 order is it the legal symmetry of 'awaiting royal assent' it could equally be worded 'awaiting not being granted Royal Assent'. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The bill is not awaiting royal assent anymore FFS. The government in Westminster have blocked Royal assent so to state 'awaiting Royal Assent' is flat-out wrong. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think they have used the section 35 powers yet. They have only announced that they will.  Tewdar  20:30, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

This is why we are in a weird legal limbo of pending/awaiting not being granted. The steps have begun to make such an order, it is just when it is made. Jack's statement fulfils the elements of the section, including writing to the Presiding Officer. It is clear the bill is not getting Royal Assent and this needs to be made clear. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

'Tis clear: On 16 January 2023, the United Kingdom government announced that it would use section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to block Royal Assent for the bill. Tomorrow it will be even clearer. 😁  Tewdar  20:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

This is true, as we are in today and not tomorrow we are in the weird legal limbo place between things happening. Royal Assent isn't getting granted, but the order refusing has not yet happened. So its clearly not awaiting Royal Assent it is clearly awaiting not getting Royal Assent. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not for Wikipedia to forecast the future, no matter how obvious we may think the outcome. For what it's worth, there could be further legal challenges, maybe a supreme court showdown... let's not call it until it's actually happened. Tewdar's wording is an accurate summary of the current state of affairs. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for restoring my version of the lead when I did - I should not have been so hasty to do so and should probably have left someone else to do it. Nevertheless, I agree with Tewdar and Barnards.tar.gz. The government not yet blocked royal assent but have only announced that they intend to do so. With something as unprecedented and contentious as this, we should avoid assuming that things will pan out exactly as the government have planned - and avoid giving the impression that they will (WP:CRYSTAL). At the moment, the bill is awaiting royal assent and the government has said they intend to block it; this should be made clear in the article. It is not "pending not being granted royal assent" because that is not a legal status that a bill can have, and that wording makes it sound like a done deal. WJ94 (talk) 21:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Kemi Badoncoh rhetoric

This edit looks fine to me but it has been removed a couple of times for unconvincing reasons. Can anybody see anything wrong with it? It is currently back in the article. Is there any reason not to keep it? It seems relevant to the topic and neutrally written. DanielRigal (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Looks reasonably well written, neutral, and DUE to me.  Tewdar  20:20, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

It feels like duelling statements in the press with inflammatory language from an anti-trans minister on one side and inflammatory rhetoric from the other side. The section needs re-writing. The section can and needs to be a lot better, this is not a rolling new feed from CNN or the BBC. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I support the inclusion of this para. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

You would support anything I opposed or disagreed in anyway regarding and vice-versa. Do you have anything apart from voting as to why this should be included. Simply going 'I agree. include it' is voting and not substantive. Please expand on why you believe it should be included. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

No personal attacks please! DanielRigal (talk) 20:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the previous comments by DanielRigal and Tewdar - I thought that would be obvious. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Again voting by simply saying agree., please see Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. What are you reasons for agreeing? Sparkle1 (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

This is not an RfC. There is no voting, or even !voting, going on. Even if this was a !voting situation it would be perfectly reasonable for somebody to say that they agree with somebody else's reasons. DanielRigal (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

This is getting in to the weeds. All I want are Sweet's reasons and not their vote. This is not a democracy after all and the link I gave was to how to build a consensus and not about RfC's. 'In summary, polling is not a substitute for discussion'. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Aren't we overstating the situation compared to The Guardian? It says plans are announced and we imply it's happened already. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:24, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

If so, I have no objection to tweaking it to reflect the source more accurately. DanielRigal (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Thats an interesting point are we giving this undue weight? Please expand on the point you have raised. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sparkle1:, seeing as you have banned me from your User Talk page, please can I ask you here not to mark major edits as minor? If you are unclear about what constitutes a genuine minor edit please see Help:Minor edit. Thanks. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@DanielRigal:Big lol. 😁👌👍 Sparkle1 (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I fixed everything, now it's perfect, g'night everyone! 😁👌👍  Tewdar  21:01, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

What is it? What does it do? Missing section?

How can an article be this long and never describe the content of the bill? There is more description of the English law than the Scottish one. All I can gather from the lead is it "makes it easier", and from the body of the article no mention at all. What a failure. Rmhermen (talk) 00:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The stage 1 legislation section says:The bill lowers the age people can change their legal gender from 18 to 16, removes the requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and reduces the waiting time from two years to six months of living in an acquired gender. Perhaps this needs its own section instead.  Tewdar  10:00, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Expansion of the article to go into the details of the bill would be useful. Sparkle1 (talk) 19:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Stage 2

The section on this says that a number of amendments were proposed [to be] made to the bill, but the majority were not passed. There is then a list of amendments, but there is no information about which amendments were passed, and which failed. I don’t have access to the National - can anyone help?

If not, then I think the whole of the list of amendments should be deleted. Sweet6970 (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Wrong way round, you could add the amendments which were not passed as opposed to removing those that were...just a thought...there is Google. Also, the National is not the only source. plus here is Stage 2 proceedings fresh from the Scottish Parliament itself [11] Sparkle1 (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The point is that the article does not currently say which amendments were passed, and which were not passed. And we would need a secondary source. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Then go ahead and add them. Sparkle1 (talk) 19:32, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Can you assist with this query? Sweet6970 (talk) 01:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm slightly more familiar with what happened during the stage 3 proceedings than at stage 2, and I know there was a rather monumental number of amendments that were proposed and failed at stage 3 but I'm not sure how many of those came from stage 2. I do have access to both of The National citations currently in the stage 2 section, though they are both vague on the number of amendments that failed.

The first of the has some information about three specific failed amendments from the first date of the stage 2 proceedings; one (or a series, it's not clear) from Christine Grahame increasing the "lived in" period for those aged 16 and 17 to six months, with some supporting and opposing commentary from other MSPs, the second a failed proposal from Rachael Hamilton to maintain a minimum age of 18 before receiving a certificate with no further commentary, the third on a proposal from Russell Findlay seeking to prevent registered sex offenders from being granted a GRC, with some opposing commentary from Shona Robison.

The second of the two sources states that More than 100 amendments were lodged in the bill but only that The majority of proposed amendments made at Stage 2 were defeated by the committee. without giving specific numbers.

Looking at the current text of the Stage 2 section, I'm not sure that there is much else we could put in with those two sources I'm afraid. We could theoretically add the amendments highlighted in the first citation, but given that there were over 100 in total, I'm not sure that's the best approach to this. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for providing this inf. It looks like we don’t have clear information on which amendments were proposed, and which were passed/rejected. In addition, because the wording of the section is unclear, I can’t actually work out what we are saying about the amendments i.e. which were passed and which were rejected.

So I think that the specific mentions of the amendments should be deleted, leaving only the first and last sentences.

Sweet6970 (talk) 13:43, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

In the grand scheme, I think a brief mention of that more than 100 amendments were proposed and that most of those were not passed at voting is probably worth including, length wise this would be no more than a sentence. If RS are generalising on this, then I think it's probably OK for us to do so too.

When looking at the totality of the Bill, and making some informed guesses as to what's about to happen with regards to legal proceedings, I think by the time this is over much of the content that will be of interest will be focused on the blocking of the bill by Westminster, the legal arguments presented in the courts, and any political ramifications with regards to devolution and Scottish independence. In that context, a brief summary of the bills passage through Holyrood, and the key facts/events that happened at each stage is important to understand the fullness of this story. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I have made a change which I believe reflects the outcome of our discussion. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:59, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I've restored The National source to the end of the sentence, just so that it's verifiable to secondary sources, but otherwise it looks good. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:06, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:23, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Original research on statement of reasons

Just wanted to note that I've removed a paragraph added by Snokalok, that presented a specific quotation from the policy statement about the invocation of section 35 of the Scotland Act as original research as it was cited only to the text of the policy statement. If there are reliable secondary sources that could support this, it could potentially be restored.

However, given that this statement sets out the legal position of the Westminster government in blocking the legislation passed by Holyrood, I wonder if we might better be served in terms of content by waiting for legal scholars and commentators to make commentary on the statement? Given the significance of the invocation, I suspect there will be such commentary from all parts of the political spectrum over the coming days and weeks, as such analyses will feed into any challenge of the section 35 order by the Scottish government.

Also yes, this is the same message I left at Talk:Transgender rights in the United Kingdom#Original research on statement of reasons, but it was the same content on both articles, and the same question on legal analysis seems relevant here as well. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Am I missing something here? Are you saying that using primary sources is WP:OR now? Or something else?  Tewdar  22:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I think you're missing something :)

Taking a specific quotation, out of a 13 page, 57 numbered paragraph document (based on the PDF version) is WP:OR, as it is using part of that source out of context. Why chose that one quotation? What makes it more meaningful or impactful than any of the others in the document? Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:54, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I look forward to quoting your reply in the future to support my own opposition to similar use of primary sources in other articles. 😁  Tewdar  23:19, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

And depending on the context of those discussions I may or may not agree with you. There are circumstances where quoting from a primary source is fine, but this to me is not one of them. In this context, the Westminster government has stated many reasons why they blocked this legislation, so why is this one reason more important than all of tr

And depending on the context of those discussions I may or may not agree with you. There are circumstances where quoting from a primary source is fine, but this to me is not one of them. In this context, the Westminster government has stated many reasons why they blocked this legislation, so why is this one reason more important than any or all of the others? Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:28, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

How about this [12] for a secondary source, which says Jack and Badenoch have both argued it waters down protections for single-sex spaces and contravenes UK-wide equality legislation by imposing a different regime for just one devolved country. and The statement of reasons, when finally published by Badenoch’s equalities office, sets out three reasons why the Scottish bill has UK-wide implications. The first warns of the supposed impact on single-sex clubs and others, and on equal pay, of having two “parallel and very different regimes” in the UK for deciding gender. The second argues that the Scottish system will bring “significantly increased potential for fraudulent applications” to change gender, while the third says it will affect the working of the UK-wide Equality Act. Sweet6970 (talk) 00:27, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I think that source could work for an initial brief sentence or two, not sure of the exact phrasing at the moment though.

There seems to be precious little coverage at the moment on the reasons in the policy statement for why Westminster blocked the legislation. The only other two sources of interest I can find right now are The Independent, which points out an interesting question for why a Section 33 order was not used instead, The National which quotes extensively but uncritically from the policy statement, and a BBC News piece titled "The legal arguments over Holyrood's gender reforms" but is surprisingly uncritical of Westminster's reasoning. I wonder if perhaps we'll see more coverage in tomorrow's broadsheets? Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Very rough draft idea:

"On 17 January 2023, the [Secretary of State Alister Jack/Equality hub/Minister for Women and Equalities Kemi Badenoch/Westminster government?] released the [Westminster government's/their?] policy statement on their decision to invoke Section 35. In the statement they set out three primary reasons for why [they believed/the Westminster government believed?] the Scottish bill impinged upon reserved matters; the first [warning/claiming/] of a [possible/potential] impact on provision of single-sex services [authorised/protected] under the Equality Act 2010 as a result of creating "two parallel and very different regimes" for issuing gender recognition certificates, the second [warning/claiming] of a [possible/potential] increased risk of fraudulent applications, and the third [warning/claiming?] of potential impacts on the operation of the Equality Act 2010."

Citation wise this would use the Guardian source linked by Sweet6970, the BBC News source I linked previously, and the PDF text of the policy statement from gov.uk. The three reasons are in the same order as they appear in the policy statement. The words in green brackets are for word choices I'm not entirely sure about. In the case of the first two, it's unclear to me, based on the reporting and the text of the document, who actually published the policy statement today. We might be able to get away with a generic "Westminster government", in which case the word their seems the correct choice for the second optional.

As for the rest, the policy document itself states that it is the Westminster government's belief that the act may have these impacts, and in a lot of places it uses hypothetical language clauses, for example It may also be that providers find it more difficult to justify excluding increased numbers of people with GRCs or worry about an increased risk of operational and/or legal challenges. This could lead to an increase in the number of transgender people accessing single-sex services, spaces and roles (emphasis mine, source sentences paragraph 49 pages 11-12) Given this ambiguity in the document, and the intention for this to be brought before the Court of Session for a judicial review, I think we need these qualifiers or something similar to them in our prose to make it clear that the UK government's position is not a settled matter of law.

However, I also think that if we keep this to a minimum now we will certainly have better sources in the coming weeks. I know of at least one legal scholar who I follow on social media, Dr Sandra Duffy, who has stated that she has articles in the works in relation to this, and given the magnitude of the decision, I'm certain there will be others. From my own reading of the policy statement, this strikes me as the kind of document that will be heavily analysed and discussed by legal scholars prior to any court appearances. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The proposed wording basically looks good to me. I suggest the following, based on your draft: On 17 January 2023, the Westminster government released a policy statement on their decision to invoke Section 35. In the statement they set out three primary reasons why they believed the Scottish bill impinged upon reserved matters: firstly, a potential impact on provision of single-sex services authorised under the Equality Act 2010 as a result of creating "two parallel and very different regimes" for issuing gender recognition certificates; secondly, a potential increased risk of fraudulent applications; thirdly, potential impacts on the operation of the Equality Act 2010. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:45, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Yeah that version of it works for me. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:31, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Change made. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Legal comment - Lord Hope and Lord Falconer

This report by the BBC today [13] says that Lord Hope says that the Scottish government’s chances of success in a legal challenge to the section 35 order are minimal, whereas Lord Falconer has tweeted that the UK govt’s reasons are not justified. i.e. they have opposite views.

Is this worth a sentence?

Sweet6970 (talk) 15:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)  

Looks like Atchom has just included the commentary by Lord Hope, as well as some from a law lecturer at University of Glasgow, and the CEO of Stonewall and director of Stonewall Scotland. I think including the counter commentary from Lord Falconer is important to show that there is both agreement and disagreement within the House of Lords on this. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Change made. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Also looks good, though I added the word "However" to the sentence about Lord Falconer, just to make it clearer in the prose that Falconer is diverging in opinion from the other two. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm always wary of using the word 'however', because it can be editorialising, but in this case I have no objection. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah it's a tough one. Unfortunately I couldn't think of any other way to succinctly make the divergence clear without breaching neutrality. "However" had the benefit of only being a single word, and the other neutral options would have added several. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:29, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

SNP 'Revolt' pushing

There is a clear POV push to include the use of the phrase revolt and make out 9 SNP MSPs votes against this bill are far bigger than they actually are. I am not buying that 9 of 63 members votingg a certain way warrants such hysterical inclusion in this article. This is not a complete and utter hack-a-thon for talking heads and political campaigns. Sparkle1 (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The SNP MSPs who voted against the legislation defied their party whip in doing so, and typically in UK politics doing is generally referred to as a rebellion. I see no reason to disbelieve that this was the largest rebellion by SNP members in the last fifteen years, so this content does seem fair and worthy of inclusion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

It's actually rather unusual for SNP MSPs to defy the party whip.  Tewdar  19:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

This is all well and good as a form of lovely personal opinion and original research. 9 out of 63 is not the hyperbolic nonsense it is being described as it is also lovely attacking the SNP and it is sheer POV pushing. The inclusion is also duplicative as the votes can be seen in full above. The inclusion is nothing but POV-pushing and duplication. Newspapers have to sell copy and have to make up as much controversy as they can to flog papers and sell ad space. Wikipedia is not in that business and cannot be fostered on this or any article. Sparkle1 (talk) 19:38, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

How is it "personal opinion" and "original research"? Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources report. Many news outlets reported it and noted that it was the biggest SNP rebellion since they gained power 15 years ago. That makes it noteworthy enough to mention briefly in this article. – Asarrlaí ^(talk) 19:48, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Quite easy as it is selecting hysterical language from one or a few sources and replicating it verbatim, to try and push a selective view of the votes by 9 out of 63 people in one party. Why is it being described with such emotive language why is no other party being described in a similar fashion why is the fact the opposite side of this is not being described in such fruity language? This is the personal opinion pushing taking place. it is taking sources agreed with and then inserting it verbatim. Need to not have these kinds of opinions and hysterical editorialising creep in. It was removed and remained removed for a while so the consensus until it was put in by the time of stability of the article, is for it not to be included, so the current changes are trying to insert against that stability of not including. Sparkle1 (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Multiple secondary sources single out the rebellion as noteworthy and there is nothing like a consensus to remove this section, so please don't try to manufacture consensus where there isn't one. Atchom (talk) 20:14, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, which part of this is original research? That nine SNP MSPs defied their party whip? Well that's verifiable via multiple reliable sources so it's not OR. That this was the largest rebellion by SNP MSPs in the last fifteen years? Well that's a quotation from a reliable source Euronews, so again not OR. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The use of the term revolt the inclusion of this in the fashion it is being included. Calling it anything other than simply 9 MSPs from the SNP voted against the bill is OR as there is no way of revolt being anything else as a description. " That this was the largest rebellion by SNP MSPs in the last fifteen years?" How lovely that this may or may not be true but its inclusion is POV pushing to try and go look at the SNP in disarray. Get out of here trying to push this anti-SNP rhetoric into this article. The other parties had people vote against the whip, where is the hysterical editorialising language to describe those parties? Sparkle1 (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

taking sources agreed with and then inserting it verbatim - what, like "Now, I understand that independence is the only way to achieve [progressive] goals in the face of a highly conservative UK government. 😂  Tewdar  20:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

If we were solely relying on the voting records from Holyrood to include this content, you would be correct. However a quotation from a secondary reliable source is not original research. A quotation from a secondary RS cannot be OR, because by the very first sentence of WP:OR, OR is material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.

Furthermore we do not call it a revolt in wikivoice. The only content in wikivoice is that nine SNP members voted against the legislation. The text about it being the "biggest rebellion against the government" is a quotation from the Euronews source. Including this quotation is not a NPOV violation, because a great many sources have described it in that or similar ways. In addition to The Times and Euronews there is also The Daily Record, The Telegraph, The Herald, BBC News, The Courier, and The Guardian. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

And when looking at the array of sources side by side, I actually think we possibly could call this a rebellion by SNP wikivoice and not fall afoul of WP:NPOV. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't you usually be going to AN/I to report Sparkle1 for edit warring at this point?  Tewdar  20:24, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

That's my secret Tewdar, because of the clearcut 3RR violation I already have. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Please, accept my humble retraction of my sarcastic comment. 😂🙏  Tewdar  20:27, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I see you engineered this and are now in full gloat and would appreciate you striking those gloating attacks from this page. Sparkle1 (talk) 12:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

2021 poll conducted by Survation

As stated in an edit summary by an IP user, Beyond Holyrood Magazine, their polling does not appear to have been covered, published or reported by other sources, and they do not appear to exist beyond this wikipedia page, Holyrood Magazine and pages that quote either. Furthermore, the holyrood article doesn't have a byline, and how are you supposed to interpret 53% when 20% responded "don't know". A whole fifth of respondents were "IDK". If this poll is to be included in the article, then someone needs to make a case for it. Why is this one-off 2021 poll commisioned Blackburn et al considered notable/verifiable for a contentious topic? Another user pointed out Holyrood magazine doesn't even get the name of the three supposed analysts right. In my edit summary, I said maybe adding more context could make it right, but the more I look, the worse the source is. Maybe Holyrood magazine is OK when the author is willing to put their name to the piece, and doesn't mess up the name of the analysts they're reporting on. But this is not that article.Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 14:41, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not just a random poll on the general subject of the contentious topic, it comes as the Scottish Government prepares to bring forward reforms to the laws around gender recognition, which is why it's relevant context for this article. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:41, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I meant this article is about a contentious topic, so we're supposed to be extra careful about adhering to Wikipedia's policies, like verifiability. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 17:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The existence, relevance, methodology and result of this poll all seem verifiable? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 18:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Verifiability is best determined by reliable secondary sources. Here, our secondary source doesn't even get the name of the analysts right. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That amounts to some kind of typo. There is no doubt about what they are referring to. It would be disproportionate to attempt to disqualify a source because of such a minor issue. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:51, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

From what I can tell, part of the difficulty here with finding other sources discussing this poll, is that Holyrood Magazine really screwed up the name of the policy analysis group that commissioned it. The correct name seems to be MurrayBlackburnMackenzie. When searching for RS with the correct name, I've found a factual article in The Times about it, and an opinion article in New Statesman.

So this to me comes down to a question of weight. Is the coverage in Holyrood Magazine and The Times enough? I'm not sure. The Savanta Comres poll a month later seems to have a lot more secondary coverage, with mentions in The Guardian, Holyrood Magazine, The Independent, and The Times. It looks like its too early to tell how impactful the YouGov poll from earlier this month is in secondary sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Two sources that both link it to the subject of this article seems to make it entirely suitable for inclusion, and I don’t think we run into any weight issues with having it mentioned in a single sentence. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:42, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Coverage in the Times and a mention in the New Statesman are enough to make it worthy of inclusion. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

My concern about this proposed inclusion is that it rips the polling result out of the context in which it was produced, and within which it is presented by both Holyrood Magazine and The Times (and for that matter in the op-ed) - namely as evidence casting doubt on the appropriateness of poposed GenderID legislation. It was commissioned by policy consultants with the intention of separating "anti-trans" sentiment from hostility to gender self-ID, and (unsurprisingly) it reaches precisely the intended conclusion. The available RS are clear about this context, but I haven't seen text proposed for this article that would be comparably clear.

Also, since the result is comparable to that found by YouGov, I don't see a good reason why the Survation poll isn't simply redundant. Newimpartial (talk) 13:12, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

If you haven't seen text proposed for this article that would be comparably clear how about proposing a wording? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC).

Previous versions of the article, up over Christmas when Sparkle1 was taking charge of the page, did acknowledge that the polling had been commissioned by anti-trans campaigners, but text acknowledging that fact (and the fact that other campaign groups, like LGB alliance, are anti-trans groups) have been quietly removed. I would echo some of Sativa Inflorescence's points about how polling can be manipulated, and add that the existing rights of the trans community are largely unknown to the public, but my own philosophical view that polling like this conducted on human rights issues is odious. 90.242.208.68 (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I don’t get it. The context is that it was commissioned to gauge public opinion on the specific question of self-identification which is central to the then-proposed legislation? Or maybe are you saying there are sources which cast doubt on the methodology or results of the survey? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:04, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Seeing how the Times reported on both polls just illustrates how "reliable sources" have no idea how to deal with polls. It's not like polling for a campaign where the methodologies/questions are pretty standard. I don't think any of the polls should be in this article, because it's all low quality evidence either way. You ask the questions in a way that appeal to humanity, you can get 50+% support. If you ask questions in a way to emphasize fear and uncertainty, you get 50+% oppose. this is like the central tenet of political polling.

In scientific corners of wikipedia, single studies aren't seen as reliable. even if they get coverage in the media. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 13:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Have you looked at any of our fine archaeogenetics articles recently? 😂  Tewdar  13:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Archaeology is a lot slower than public polling. Archaeology has some of the longest PhD programs, don't they? It's slow, careful work. Each paper takes year of research and writing, followed by extensive peer review.

Public polling changes week to week depending on the questions asked., and peer review doesn't go too far past "will it get clicks." You're right though, I forget that some sciences take a slower approach to "publish or perish" than others. The polls both for and againt are still low quality evidence. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 14:25, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Not archaeology. Archaeogenetics. Here's a couple to start you off... I agree with you about polling. 😁  Tewdar  14:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Names

I was wondering wether it's really necessary to list the full names of all voters in the different stages of the legal process. I don't see the encyclopedic value of this, surely the totals per party are sufficient. Moreover, giving the sensitive nature of the subject, I think is also at odds with Wikipedia policy, i.e. WP:BLP. Tvx1 22:10, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It is essential to avoid any bias and to ensure that there is a neutral point of view. This is also standard for bills such as this. See Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and other legislation of a similar kind. Not including the vote breakdown tables leads to the OTT POV nonsense of the pushing of ridiculous and inflammatory narratives in wikvoice of the internal politics of individual groups in the parliament and other ludicrous POV's.

It in no way has anything to do with BLP or coming anywhere near this side of the galaxy of violating BLP. Such a fallacy is a whole cloth creation out of thin air. If including factually accurate and neutrally presented information is in any way a BLP violation then give up on Wikipedia entirely, as nothing could be included in the encyclopedia. There is ZERO, absolutely ZERO issues with BLP. To make such a claim and if it were true is a total inversion of BLP. Sparkle1 (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Can you please show a little bit of respect to other users in your posts please? Your reasoning makes no sense whatsoever. Even without the individual names, just listing the totals per party gives plenty of breakdown for encyclopedic purpose. The individual names have no additional encyclopedic value. I never suggested deleting the entire tables. And the other article(s) you mention should probably not include them either. Many wrongs don't make a right. Tvx1 15:57, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It is a plainly silly proposal and a truly wild misinterpretation of BLP. Sparkle1's response was appropriately dismissive. --Pokelova (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

What’s so silly about it then? Can someone please give a genuine argument as to what the encyclopedic of each individual’s name is instead of just mocking the proposal.?! Tvx1 18:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Please do not WP:Bludgeon on this topic. please cite where specifically in BLP your position is supported. Your current position is an inside-out, upside-down nonsensical version of BLP which would mean every article on a human being that is alive would have to be deleted as nothing at all could be included on them as it would be a violation of your absurd BLP version. Prove us all wrong with the parts of BLP you think to support your weird and ludicrous position. Sparkle1 (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

This is a bizarrely hostile conversation.

I don’t happen to agree with the original suggestion for the following reasons: I don’t see any connection to BLP, and while I think the encyclopaedic value of naming every voter is low, it’s pretty harmless both in terms of content (being an easily verifiable uncontroversial public fact) and presentation (being hidden by default in a collapsible list).

However, I think it’s quite possible to have this disagreement without the emotive language on display here. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

If the encyclopaedic value is low, then why list them. Just listing the totals per party is more than sufficient. Tvx1 21:10, 24 April 2023 (UTC)