Talk:Solidarity (Scotland)

Imbalance in Article?
This article is totally imbalanced - it only provides criticism and says little that is neutral or positive about the party. --SandyDancer 12:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with you Sandy. If you check the edit histories for this page, for the Tommy Sheridan article and the Rosemary Byrne article and various other associated articles, they seem somewhat suspicious. For example, a lot of non-NPOV stuff was added very early in the morning of the Sunday in which the NOTW ran that story showing the video which was supposed to be of Sheridan. When I lived in London there was a guy that sold Sunday papers early in the morning, but never _that_ early. I genuinely believe that the NOTW have been editing these articles. I might be wrong, of course, but I was involved in a thing a while back on WP where two competing American politicians were attacking each other using WP articles, so it's not unheard of.


 * I wish I had more time to sort out the articles, and then watch them VERY carefully. --Jim (Talk) 22:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right about the original video stuff being non-NPOV, but that was edited out relatively quickly afterwards. However Sunday papers are usually available in Glasgow and Edinburgh city centres from about 11pm on the Sat night and  News International have an extensive publishing portfolio which does not have the benefit of being able to edit the articles for balance afterwards.  I doubt if they are really very interested in Wikipedia.
 * I dont see the that the article is particularly imbalanced, the criticism is clearly labelled as such and very comprehensive references are given. If either of you think it is imbalanced however, then feel free to edit as you see fit. Ms medusa 16:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * How can you contend the article isn't imbalanced when most of it is given over to criticism? --SandyDancer 01:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess I just havent heard very much about it except in the context of the fraud in the highlands and the workers rights issue, apart from speculation about how the perjury investigation into Sheridan is likely to affect the party. The article has been edited by a fair number of people and the non-NPOV stuff has been removed. But again, if you feel that there is important information which is missing then edit it to make it more comprehensive. Ms medusa 10:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would disagree that the News International would be interested in Wikipedia: I think that WP has a suprising amount of influence. But, in the absence of any evidence, I guess we'll have to leave the debate there.


 * I have just rewritten the paragraph on the launch of solidarity, and once you get into the sources cited the sheer POV-ness (!) of the section is quite something. Before my edit it seemed to be trying to suggest massive fractures in Solidarity, and a tiny turnout at the first conference. But it seems that 250 out of 600 members turned out and, although there was a debate regarding the party's name (quite a sensible thing to have really) it seems to have been settled.


 * I'll do some more work on the article if and when I get the time. --Jim (Talk) 23:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In this article there is a section describing the launch of the party, and a section of criticism. And that's it. Of course the article is imbalanced. Just because the criticism section may be fairly written and sourced doesn't mean the article as a whole is balanced. --SandyDancer 11:16, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Major pieces of content removed - why?
Why have major pieces of content been removed from this article?


 * The whole of the issue around workers rights has been removed - the reason given is I am simply astonished this has been put in the article. Read the source and you will be too. Putting this hear is just a smear. The section documents an ongoing official dispute between Solidarity MSPs and the NUJ and the IWW.  The sources cited are a letter by the NUJ rep and the IWW website

* The section on similarity to the scottish socialist party has been removed, why? now checked sources - SSP has now changed their page.
 * The section on allegations of fraud has been edited to be more favourable - there is an ongoing police enquiry into the fraud in the solidarity H&I, yet the section now reads as if this is to do with current funding rather than the theft of SSP monies.

I entirely agree that there is leftie in-fighting going on when the page is radically changed to take out all reference to the ongoing industrial disputes and the investigation into fraud.

Sandydancer - you had previously said that the criticism was "fairly written and sourced" what has changed in the last week?Ms medusa 00:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ms Medusa, I thought about this and I do indeed think a ref should be made to the industrial dispute, but not in the way you have done. And you shouldn't use the expression "theft of SSP monies" in your comment above, as it shows you have come to a point of view which isn't supported by facts. because Solidarity's rival party have accused them of it does not make it true. --SandyDancer 11:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have rewritten the sections in a neutral manner. All the sources are still there. The wording there previously was extremely biased and gave undue weight to disputes which, objectively speaking, could well be a storm in a teacup. It is understandable that the SSP might well want to throw a lot of mud at Solidarity - who knows, some may stick - but until it does, Wikipedia shouldn't do that work for them. --SandyDancer 12:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The dispute over workers rights is over the redundency with no consultation of the workers formerly employed by Sheridan and Byrne. This is now an official NUJ dispute, which is considerably more than a storm in a teacup.  The fraud issue concerns the SSP funds of the Highlands and Islands region, not the Shetland Isles.Ms medusa 19:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I can understand where people are coming from when they talk about 'leftie in fighting' - but to put the dispute in context, not only has the NUJ - an established and credible TU - came out in support of the workers against Sheridan and Byrne, but the Scottish organiser of the NUJ actually testified for Sheridan in his libel case. So the NUJ can hardly be considered a sectarian or factional organisation.


 * Remember it is a trade union's job to stick up for its members regardless - action by a trade union does not necessarily mean there has been wrongdoing. It seems to me that its members here may just be victims of circumstances, or maybe they really are victims of wrongdoing by Sheridan & co. We can't say the latter is the case because we have no evidence to do so. These are just allegations. We need to be very careful here - we are dealing with a man with a track record of winning libel actions. --SandyDancer 20:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way it didn't escape my notice that an attempt was made to delete this source, the only one that presents Solidarity's own viewpoint on the whole dispute over funds. I reinserted it. --SandyDancer 20:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for comments
Can I suggest that this article is referred for comments as per *Requests for comment Ms medusa 23:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * there have been no comments left and despite stepping back for a week as recommended in the dispute resolution process, the details around the current industrial dispute were not accurate - it is not a dispute over funding but an official dispute involving two trade unions, and it is the Highlands and Islands Region of Solidarity is being investigated for fraud, not the Shetland branch. Reference to the links will make that clear Ms medusa 23:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Your wholesale reversion removed all the work I had done on sorting out the references section. You also, once again, removed the two newspaper article sources that present the Solidarity rebuttal of the allegations made against them in the Highlands & Islands.
 * I have trimmed slightly and reordered the section - but not reverted to my own edit (as you did). Instead I have worked on your wording. Every extra, unneccesary sentence you add to this article about the allegations made by the SSP makes the article imbalanced due to its small overall size - the effect of having multiple sentences about each allegation is to give over a disproportionately large section over purely to so far unsubstantiated smears. --SandyDancer 10:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * apologies for the deletion of sources and thank you for restoring them. I have made minor changes, however I'm glad that we appear to be reaching a consensus around this section.Ms medusa 12:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes we are reaching consensus. There is not, in fact, a significant difference of opinion. --SandyDancer 12:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Having reviewed your edits, I agree with them. I have made one very minor tweak (split ling sentence into two shorter ones). --SandyDancer 12:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

oh no!
commies in the scottish parliament! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.70.199.52 (talk • contribs).

well if youre so fond of pluralism surely 'commies' in the scottish parliament can only be a good thing? =D

Polling results
I would like to explain my removal of the section on polling results. Since WP is an encyclopaedia, we need to bear in mind that we cannot report every single poll that takes place, or even just the major ones. These are utterly insignificant facts. Maybe you could get away with it on Wikinews, but material that may be superseded within weeks really should be avoided. Even to include every piece of political polling in Scotland since the formation of Solidarity (which is what a serious NPOV treatment would require). While I thank the anon user for their reasoning, "Re-inserted section on plolling since highlights level of political support for Solidarity in Scottish society in absence of formal electoral evidence", I question whether WP should be pronouncing judgement on Solidarity's political support at all. It's one thing (and not even necessarily a good thing) to report that, say, the SSP have expressed doubts about viability, while Solidarity assert the opposite; quite another to go around picking up polls and hinting at conclusions. And frankly, there's no way we're going to be able present the evidence in an unbiased way - opinion polling is notoriously subjective, and it's not worth going to the effort of beating out a well-rounded section from a few bits of data. Therefore, I ask that the section not be reinstated. --Nema Fakei 00:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Platform (Scottish politics)
Since the distinctive Scottish use of this term left me puzzled, I've cobbled together this article. Please help me make it better. -- Orange Mike 01:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC) (in Milwaukee, home of America's only successful social democrats)

Fair use rationale for Image:Solidarity Logo.jpg
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BetacommandBot 02:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

links broken

 * 1) ^  The Herald - Transfer of funds to Sheridan’s party probed
 * 2) ^ The Shetland News - Shetland socialists call in cops
 * 3) ^ The Herald - Solidarity is cleared over funds ‘smear’
 * 4) ^ The Shetland News - Party fraud probe still ongoing

each referencing the same subject, seems a bit odd that all of them ceased working —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.224.133.171 (talk) 01:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I suggest that the Socialist Party Scotland page is merged into Solidarity. Socialist Party Scotland organises exclusively within Solidarity and is one of its most significant components—given that the Solidarity page is so short, and that the SPS page relies entirely on primary sources, I reckon it would make more sense to merge the page into a "Platforms" section in the Solidarity article. -Zcbeaton (talk) 17:19, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Given SPS only has 4 citations since 2002 I would question if it simply just needs updating or not. There have been a lot of elections since then. I would research the party before suggesting a merger. ---Drowz0r (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem like they're the same organization though. In fact, this article says that Socialist Party Scotland and Solidarity recently had had a falling-out. Charles Essie (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Given that the SPS have split from Solidarity and operated always as a separate entity it would be wrong to merge these pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.174 (talk) 10:48, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060930234910/http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/news%20stories/09_2006/shetland_socialists_call_in_cops.htm to http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/news%20stories/09_2006/shetland_socialists_call_in_cops.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060930233354/http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/news%20stories/09_2006/party_fraud_probe_still_ongoing.htm to http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/news%20stories/09_2006/party_fraud_probe_still_ongoing.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070304133745/http://www.iww.org.uk/about/updates/061115-solidarity/index.html to http://www.iww.org.uk/about/updates/061115-solidarity/index.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071024032717/http://www.iww.org.uk/about/updates/061123-solidarity/index.html to http://www.iww.org.uk/about/updates/061123-solidarity/index.html

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