Talk:Dan Norris

Need for citations and NPOV
Several recent edits to this article seem to have removed comments which do not flatter the subject and have removed tags which show statements which need to have references to back them up. As the page is about a living person it must comply with the policy Biographies of living persons, specifically WP:NPOV and WP:V, and includes the appropriate actions to be taken if an editing is writing or editing an article about themselves. In particular there are several statements in the article which require citations to back them up which comply with Reliable sources, the fact tags should not be removed until suitable sources have been cited. I want this to be a good factual article about a notable individual but do not want to see it subject to an Edit war.&mdash; Rod talk 15:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The article has been extensively edited by . I have left a COI warning on his talk page. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Remmoved COI tag because most of the article has since been re-edited by (presumably) neutral editors 82.32.73.70 (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I see the COI problem, but I'm unsure about the current paragraph dealing with expenses. The cited reference just lists the figures (for each expense category) and the ranking. Presumably the only reason for mentioning the expenses in the first place is because they are worthy of criticism. But that, in itself, is an interpretation. Without additional information, it's hard to say whether the expenses were in any way out of the ordinary, or not (and in the latter case, there probably shouldn't be a paragraph on them at all). Markus Poessel (talk) 13:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Stance on Freedom of Information
Further problem: the paragraph about Norris being for or against Freedom of Information. Currently, it reads:

"Despite Norris's claims that he is a keen fighter for freedom of information, he has voted against 9 out of 14 parliamentary investigations or inquiries into the Iraq war since 4th June 2003. For the other 5, Norris was either absent or he abstained. However he was the only MP of any political party in the whole of the West Country (and one of just 25 out of the 121 MP who voted on this bill) who voted for Freedom of Information laws to apply to MPs' allowances at the crucial Third Reading vote on this key issue on 18 May 2007. "

- the first problem is the count. Of these "14 parliamentary investigations or inquiries into the Iraq war", 8 are in fact pairs of motions (in each of the four cases, there were two motions, with different wording, on the same day). To count these as separate instances is pretty dubious.

The next question is whether these are Freedom of Information issues at all. In the first case (4 Jun 2003), the matter was not so much whether there was to be an inquiry, but whether there was to be an independent inquiry, as opposed to an inquiry by the Intelligence and Security committee (the latter version was passed without a vote). The second case (16 Jul 2003) was along the same lines (judicial inquiry vs. Intelligence and Security committee). The third case (10 Sep 2003) does not appear to be about any inquiries and investigations at all. The third (22 Oct 2003, two versions) was about the committee investigations being sufficient or not. The 13 Jan 2004 motion was about censuring the government for failures in supplying the troops with proper equipment; no FoI issue that I can see. The 9 Mar 2004 motion is indeed about FoI - "This House believes that all advice prepared by the Attorney-General on the legality of the war in Iraq should be published in full." The 17 May 2004 motion does not appear to address any FoI issues at all. 31 Oct 2006: this is about inquiries; the counter-motion leaves open the possibility to do so at a later date. 11 Jun 2007 ditto. 25 Mar 2008 ditto, but the motion that passed explicitly noted "that a time will come when an inquiry is appropriate".

All in all, only one of the motions is about a Freedom of Information issue in the narrow sense (publishing the Attorney-General's advice). Six of the motions were about setting up independent inquiries; the main issues were a) finding the right forum of inquiries, b) were the previous inquiries sufficient or not, and c) when is the right time for an inquiry. In all of which cases, FoI is a side issue; unless there's further information, voting behaviour doesn't allow any deductions about the MP's attitudes towards FoI. Three of the motions counted do not appear to have any FoI issues attached to them at all.

In light of these problems, I will now replace the version cited above with a much shorter one that only lists the one FoI issue. Markus Poessel (talk) 13:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't even list the one remaining FoI motion. I had forgotten that, on the motion about the Attorney-General's advice Norris didn't vote "against", he was simply absent (which can mean a lot of things). So right now, the only thing remaining is the factual statement that Norris voted for MP's having to disclose their expenses. Markus Poessel (talk) 13:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

POV
This article reads a little like it was written by the man himself. A quick glance into the history shows that a lot of the stuff that sounds very strange, was written by someone using the cunning user name Dan Norris MP. Sorry Dan, tempting though it is, it isn't really etiquette to write your own article. We should definitely have a clean up, and make it sound less like a "VOTE FOR ME" article. 131.111.186.95 (talk) 09:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks like very little is left from Dan's additions in 2007/8. The remnants seem mainly to be "comes from a North East Somerset coal mining family.", the "Economic League UK" stuff - both of which are unsourced so are candidates for removal, I'll do that. Some of the children stuff dates from that time, but that is largely sourced. Rwendland (talk) 12:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I guess the bit that really made me think this (and that I removed myself as it was so obvious) was the bit about his Grandad's slow and painful death as a miner, which was pretty emotive. The rest isn't so bad I guess. Fair enough to remove the BBC article, a little specific, and pretty pointless in the scheme of things. 131.111.186.95 (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Reinstating additions of missing basic info
In September my additions of missing basic and seemingly uncontroversial info were repeatedly reverted by a single-article new editor, User talk:Edgekirov, giving the summary reasons "The contributor appears to have deliberately added misinformation or is ignorant of issues about which they write" and "appears to be intended to disrupt at a time when the subject is seeking selection as a candidate in the same area as the given home location of the contributor." I disagree that it was disruptive, as it was supplying basic info of a type already in many former MPs' articles, which another editor reinstating Edgekirov's revert gave the opinion my additions were "Content seems well cited and balanced". I do not believe there is any WP policy preventing BLP additions during an election/selection period, and in fact that is common-place for WP articles of politicians, and I believe the "home location of the contributor" is irrelevant as far as WP is concerned. Although I thought the reversion entirely unreasonable, I WP:DISENGAGE'd. Now that the selection/election Edgekirov referred to is I believe finished, I will be re-adding my additions which are the basic info:


 * 1) basic parental info
 * 2) ward name of councillor position held and correct years
 * 3) add names of PPS Ministers
 * 4) mention "due to being an assistant whip only spoke occasionally in the Commons" to balance and explain an existing somewhat effervescent "highest voting record of any MP" statement
 * 5) reinstated recently deleted long-standing info on having been on speaker list for Progress pressure group
 * 6) added Norris' most recent job mentioned in MSM
 * 7) minor: added cites and wl, removes dead extlinks

I am adding this here as the talk page discussion referred to in Dispute resolution. If the additions are still considered problematic, please discuss here per Wikipedia policy, identifying which of the additions are at issue and why. We can then leave in the uncontested material and concentrate on discussing the rest.

Thanks, Rwendland (talk) 16:33, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Request for discussion with User:BridgeBath re deletion of well sourced basic bio info
Hi User:BridgeBath. Please would you explain why you recently deleted my well sourced basic bio additions to the article, common in many Wikipedia biographies, so we can discuss some agreed position. The additions were a recent job and basic parental info, plus the minor correction of the year Norris became an Avon councillor and deletion of 2 dead extlinks. You didn't give an explanation in the revert description. Thanks. Rwendland (talk) 13:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As I went to the trouble of tabulating the series of essentially single-article editors on this article for the recent edit-warring report, I think it is worth recording here where it is easy to find in the future. They generally make edits removing info from the article (occasionally reasonably) or making promotional looking additions, almost always without without useful edit summary and sometimes refusing to enter into discussion offered by more established multi-article editors. The previous one User:Edgekirov was reported for edit warring on 16 November 2020, but the report was archived before any admin had time to take any action. The list is:


 * 1) User:Dan Norris MP (15 contribs 2007-9 May 2008)
 * 2) User:Accuracy Corrections (1 contrib 10 May 2008)
 * 3) User:Malky1935 (4 contribs 2010)
 * 4) User:Potent1000 (17 contribs 2011-2015)
 * 5) User:Edgekirov (25 contribs September 2020-13 March 2021)
 * 6) User:BridgeBath (27 contribs 15 March 2021-present)
 * Rwendland (talk) 12:35, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Avon councillor
The article currently says Norris was "councillor on Avon County Council from 1993 to 1996", however the 1993 results record shows he came second to a LD (by 34 votes) in the election. Also looking back at the 1989 election results, Norris didn't stand then. We have 2 cites saying he was an Avon councillor, but not specific on dates: I presume he must have got in on a by-election. Does anyone know anything more specific, preferably with a cite? Otherwise I'll change it to "in the mid-90s" per the Gloucestershire Gazette.Rwendland (talk) 11:34, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * "ex-Avon/Bristol councillor" The Guardian
 * "served on Avon County Council in the mid-90s"
 * To answer my own question, the Roth cite ([2] in article) says "Avon County Councillor 94-96", so I will go with this. Presumably got in in a 1994 by-election. Rwendland (talk) 11:39, 13 September 2022 (UTC)