Talk:Treaty of Union 1707

Merge or Redirect Discussion
I don't think that this article needs to be separate from Act of Union 1707. There is nothing here that wouldn't be better located on that page. Any comments? --JW1805 20:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that if you want to merge the articles, you must first give people at least a couple of weeks notice by putting up the notice at the top of the relevant articles. As a favour I'll do it for you. Of course Treaty of Union 1707 and Acts of Union 1707 are two different articles: one is an international Treaty. The other is the implementing legislation. If you really do insist on merger, then Treaty of Union 1707 is the proper title for the article. Without it, there would never have been two Acts!--Mais oui! 20:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The proper title of the merged article should be Act of Union 1707.  The Treaty of Union didn't actually do anything, and I don't believe it was ever legally binding (although a legal scholar may be better able to address that issue).  The passage of the Act in the two Parliaments was what merged the two kingdoms.  I don't think there is any point in having a separate article for the Treaty, just put it on the Act article.--JW1805 20:35, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * As yet further proof of JW1805's bad faith, he has been seiving through every wikipedia article that refers to the Treaty of Union, and either deleting the link altogether, or changing it to Act(s) of Union 1707. This type of behaviour is against Wikipedia policy.--Mais oui! 10:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Mais oui!, again I would direct your attention to No personal attacks, and Assume good faith. Wikipedia is a collaborative  effort, and you shouldn't be so sensitive with somebody changes something you wrote.  The fact is, statements like "the 1707 Treaty of Union merged the Kingdoms of England and Scotland", or "The Parliaments of England and Scotland were dissolved by the 1707 Treaty of Union" are not correct.  The Acts of Union passed by the two Parliaments were what dissolved the Parliaments and merged the Kingdoms.  It is important to be clear about things in an encyclopedia. --JW1805 15:42, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree- the article should be redirected to Acts of Union 1707. Astrotrain 17:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

While traditionally treaties have no legal force, it would be wrong to discount the Treaty of Union in quite such an offhand manner. It created a new legal order (much like the creation of the European Union) which is seen to be greater than the sum of its formerly sovereign parts.

I'd be happy to see Act of Union 1707 as the page title though, as it is far more commonly referenced as such in the UK. --Breadandcheese 17:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

confusion caused by page-moves, etc.
I am very confused. What page(s) did we used to have? What have they been renamed to now? What precisely is at debate here? Doops | talk 00:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I've pored over edit histories in an attempt to answer my own question, and I think this is the situation.


 * prior to August 2005 there was an article named Act of Union 1707
 * Acts of Union 1707 redirected to it; Treaty of Union 1707 didn't yet exist
 * In August 2005 somebody created Treaty of Union 1707; it wasn an un-encyclopedic rant/ramble;
 * it was quickly turned into a redirect to Act of Union 1707
 * then somebody else cut-and-pasted much of the text of Act of Union 1707 to Treaty of Union 1707 and made it a rival-article
 * debate raged during August and early September
 * There may have been some page-moves in this time; but they were quickly reverted and so are not reflected in the page histories


 * Is this brief summary assessment correct? Doops | talk 00:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is all correct. --JW1805 00:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * No, as I understand it that is incorrect. There was definitely a Treaty of Union article a couple of years ago. In fact, the basis of the article at Acts of Union used to be here. Not only has someone renamed it, they have actually managed to have the Treaty of Union page removed from history, with its edit history.--Mais oui! 05:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * There's a way to examine the deletion logs, although I've never done it myself. Poke around a little and let us know what you find. But that's really not here or there; the actual circumstances of this event are as I've outlined them above, right? Doops | talk 05:47, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe Mais oui! is mistaken. There was no Treaty of Union 1707 article before August 2005.  If there was, and it had been deleted, there would be a "view deleted edits" link on the history page, right?  There isn't.  Act of Union 1707 has been around since 2001. --JW1805 21:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, so that being the case, I am unclear on what the debate is about. It seems to me that the real question is should this article be located at Treaty of Union 1707 or Act of Union 1707 or Acts of Union 1707?; and that's certainly worth debating. ''Or should there be two articles, one for the treaty and one for the acts? (Without, of course, too much duplication of content between the two articles.)'' &mdash; another logical question. But instead of these debates, there seems to be talk of merging articles. What's there to merge? It's not as though there's ever been a long, detailed article at Treaty of Union 1707 whose data needs to be incorporated into the Act of Union 1707 artice. Doops | talk 02:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, see below to vote on the three options.--JW1805 21:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * So is there agreement to redirect to Acts of Union 1707 where the subject is discussed properly. I can't be bothered with yet another attempt by Mais Oui! to start an edit war over the matter, especially when he or she hasn't even discussed their views on the talk page. Astrotrain 11:07, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Vote
So here are the three options: Cast your votes here:
 * 1) Keep Act of Union 1707 and Treaty of Union 1707 as two separate articles.
 * 2) Have only one article called Act of Union 1707.
 * 3) Have only one article called Treaty of Union 1707.
 * I vote for Option 2, based on my reasons stated above. --JW1805 21:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I also vote for Option 2 Astrotrain 21:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Option 3. Wikipedia is not a democracy.--Mais oui! 21:54, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Option 2: I was tempted to vote for Option 1 simply out of a desire to "compromise at all costs" and end the fight once and for all. But then I noticed that there's precious little information on the treaty itself in either the main article or Mais oui's treaty stub. Mais oui, why don't you focus on adding this content first and put off the debates until there's something to debate? Doops | talk 23:49, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Option 1: the Treaty was the lead up, but the Act is still in force. --MacRusgail 16:03, 1 October 2005 (UTC)