Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northern Independence Party


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Going with deletes here. I'm happy to draftify if someone wants to merge anything from the article. However, none of the keeps really presented rationale behind sourcing aside from one user stating that it's been mentioned in regional publications. Thanks for keeping things civil and respecting this decision. Missvain (talk) 17:09, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Northern Independence Party

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Wikipedia is not a Gazetteer of Political Parties. This group are not-notable, is one of those parties which breaks GNG and ORG and similar policies. Notable coverage is minimal and editors appear to be broadly linked to the Party with little to no independent coverage. An article which is mostly promotion, and not achievement, is not an article to keep. doktorb wordsdeeds 12:41, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. doktorb wordsdeeds 12:41, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. doktorb wordsdeeds 12:41, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. doktorb wordsdeeds 12:41, 19 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete Not even registered (though that need not, in itself, be grounds for deletion) and seems to be no more than a wishful thought on the part of a person or small group. (And not all editors are "broadly linked to the Party", thank you.) Emeraude (talk) 13:17, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Already found five sources that help it pass GNG. Editors links to the party is pure conjecture. "Wishful thought" is a bit WP:CRYSTALBALL, isn't it? Nonsense nomination. ItsKesha (talk) 14:31, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Agree with ItsKesha. This may be a small movement but is certainly a notable movement as the media sources prove. "Wishful thought" is a entirly subjective opinion by Emeraude. NDNSWMI (talk) 20 November 2020 — Preceding undated comment added 12:50, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete, WP:NOTNEWS. Such new endeavors/ventures are may get some coverage, which is inherently trivial until the organization achieves something more tangible. I'm sure there are many cases of frivolous secessionism, it certainly has been in Norway as well, i.e. both Western Norway and Northern Norway which gained some news coverage, but nothing lasting. Geschichte (talk) 22:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Emeraude is incorrect to cite registration as a requirement for a political party in the United Kingdom. Even if NIP does not register with the electoral commission this is not a requirement for a party to form. "Registration of a political party is not compulsory and you can only apply to register a party if you have an intention to contest elections" . Moreover, Geschichte is incorrect to refer to the British television coverage (ITV) and a major national newspaper (The Independent) as trivial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vasey2020 (talk • contribs) 12:21, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * — Vasey2020 (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Reply: I did not "cite registration as a requirement for a political party in the United Kingdom" - it isn't. The point I made is antirely valid. Please do not misrepresent. Emeraude (talk) 12:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a legitimate movement growing at a pace due to the strong feeling of people who identify as Northumbrians. To delete this article would be tantamount to cancel culture initiated by someone who simply disagrees with the politics of the Northern Independence Party, which should not stop others learning about it. Kinkyfish (talk) 14:17, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep "I'm sure there are many cases of frivolous secessionism, it certainly has been in Norway as well, i.e. both Western Norway and Northern Norway which gained some news coverage, but nothing lasting." like has been said it not the job of wikipedia to foretell collapse of a movement if it fades to nothing then delete it if it achieves nothing before it fades but it is getting picked up by UK media and is gaining momentum --82.46.202.229 (talk) 14:51, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * — 82.46.202.229 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep It is clearly politically motivated to seek to delete an article on the claim that The Independent, ITV, Vice magazine, The Express, talkRADIO and a whole range of regional papers – including The Northern Echo – are not "Independent Coverage." NIP is notable as a new party having featured so strongly in a vast array of independent media. I would suggest it is this attempt to delete the entry that is politically motivated. I see no evidence that the editors are 'broadly linked to the party' Any commentator arguing the case for deletion that tries to suggest national press coverage in UK-wide newspapers and television is not good enough for Wikipedia, is very clearly politically motivated. The Daily Express is a national newspaper and right-wing – coverage is not only sympathetic.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vasey2020 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 21 November 2020 (UTC) Ambox warning pn.svg — Duplicate vote: Vasey2020 (talk • contribs)  has already cast a vote above.
 * Delete per WP:TOOSOON and WP:NOTNEWS. Apparently there's just a few YouTube and Twitter citations, which is a bad citation per WP:TWITTER; and has a few coverage. When I checked per WP:RS/P, there's some doubtful press like Vice, and The Independent. It also may fall under WP:RS. The registration as a political party itself is not meeting notability criteria.--Ahmetlii (talk) 15:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment apparently you're completley wrong about the sources being YouTube and Twitter. ItsKesha (talk) 17:36, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete after looking at the sources, this seems to fail WP:NORG and WP:NOTNEWS simultaneously, and seems largely promotional in nature. SportingFlyer  T · C  21:21, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment To refer to British television coverage, a national newspapers like The Independent and the Daily Express as "promotional in nature" is evidently incorrect. Vasey2020 (talk) 09:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm referring not to the sources but instead to WP:PROMO, which indicates an article should be deleted if it's promotional in nature and nothing would be left after cleaning up the promotional text. I think this qualifies at the moment, as it's just the political stances of an unregistered political party. There's also recentism/WP:NOTNEWS concerns. Finally, the reference you've added doesn't significantly cover the party - it just asks the founder a couple questions, and doesn't count towards WP:NORG's heightened notability standards. SportingFlyer  T · C  11:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Create Northern independence or Northern England independence page similar to the London independence page; merge  and have a section dedicated to the party. — (Not logged in at the moment) 21:26, 21 November 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58C:C100:32B0:F570:F027:FE64:4DCB (talk)
 * Merge relevant parts to new Northern England Independence (or similar) article. The wider movement seems notable in itself, but the party (which isn't even registered with the Electoral Commission) is definitely not. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:54, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment There is now an article for Northern Independence, which covers historical and recent pushes for autonomy and independence for the North of England - Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:30, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Strong keep pass GNG and sources are GTG. Mr-5  / M ✉  /   C🖋 09:59, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. There's been a lot of discussion so far about the sources given and GNG, so I used this tool to make the following table to evaluate the sources in the current version of the article. From this, I don't think these sources are good enough to demonstrate notability per WP:ORG or WP:GNG. The few sources given that appear acceptable are from local newspapers, which makes me think this is a case of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ROUTINE - as these 'good' sources seem to be news articles about the formation of the party, (mainly in light of the Andy Burnham vs UK Government stand-off over tier 3 funding etc). @ above raised the issue of WP:TOOSOON which I agree with - this may become a more notable political party, however, it's too soon to say if it will or not.  Seagull123  Φ  16:32, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Question sorry, are you actually using Twitter followers as a measure of reliability? If so I'll see if I can get Katy Perry and Rihanna to comment on the issue. ItsKesha (talk) 17:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * the reason I mentioned the number of Twitter followers - which I admit I didn't explain before - is due to the reason that I had never heard of the websites before, and I couldn't find anything about those websites elsewhere. Therefore, I looked at their social media accounts to see what they were saying/what was being said about them. For example, the "Redaction News" one, as it has only around 400 followers, this suggests that it isn't a reliable source, as if it was, it would likely have more. I know this isn't an 'official' way of measuring reliability; but in the absence of anything else I could find about these sources outside of their own websites/social media accounts, it is useful in demonstrating that these are likely just low-traffic blog-style 'news' sources.  Seagull123  Φ  17:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, to add to what I just said, there's nothing (that I could find) which suggests that Yorkshire Bylines, Red Pepper, Redaction Politics, or The Alternative UK are reliable sources for Wikipedia's purposes - that's why I marked them as of questionable reliability, as there was also nothing I could find which suggested they're definitely unreliable.  Seagull123  Φ  17:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * BRB, just checking if the Daily Mail (2.5 million Twitter followers) has said anything yet. Oh. Why not simply take the sources in good faith until you find something which suggests otherwise? And if you're accusing these sites of being unreliable, are you also accusing me of being an unreliable editor for using these sources? If you've found a reason these sources are unreliable, other than "I've never heard of them, they have a low number of Twitter followers", I'd very much love to read it. Because this just seems like needless gatekeeping to me. ItsKesha (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Daily Mail is a deprecated source on Wikipedia so we would likely discount them anyway. and  - if you haven't heard of those websites before, they are likely not notable enough. My Spidey senses are tingling in regards to "The Alternative UK", in particular. Just because an article has tonnes of sources doesn't mean it should be kept: those sources could be rehashed press releases or blogs, both of which shouldn't satisfy AfD decisions either. doktorb wordsdeeds 20:46, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter if the sources are notable, that's not even the debate here. Whether you've heard of a source does not affect the reliability of the source. ItsKesha (talk) 23:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, yes, if the sources are not notable (blogs, unknown or obscure sites, self-published resources etc) then they hold less credibility and weight than notable sources (established newspapers, periodicals etc). A press release rehashed across hundreds of sites, perhaps word-for-word, is not likely to do the case for GNG any good. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:32, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll help you all out here - Yorkshire Bylines is a Northern (ooh, biased!) offshoot of Byline Times, which was set up by Peter Jukes. The Alternative is an English offshoot of Danish political party Alternativet, set up by Uffe Elbæk. And RedAction is a new media with a full team of editors and journalists who have written and worked for other reputable sources. The information is easily available on all three websites. But you know, they don't have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter! ItsKesha (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * just to make it clear - I am not accusing you of being "unreliable", I can't see that anyone else has accused you of such, and I have never done so. To address the issue of whether these sources that we're discussing can be considered reliable or not, I've looked at WP:SOURCE (part of the verifiability policy), and according to this, we should [b]ase articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy - I have seen no evidence so far that the sources we're discussing here have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (emphasis added). Per 's description above of what these sources are above, they appear to be more in the style of political blogs/alternative media, which - while useful as sources for what their publishers/writers believe on a subject - I don't believe count as reliable sources for WP:GNG's purposes: as they are unlikely to have a reputation for fact-checking, they may have issues with not being fully independent, and it's possible they may (correct me if I'm wrong) be self-published sources. <b style="background:#304747;color:#BED6D6"> Seagull123 </b><b style="color:#304747"> Φ </b> 17:26, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: PINGing as they accepted this article from a draft through WP:AFC, and therefore may be interested in this discussion. <b style="background:#304747;color:#BED6D6"> Seagull123 </b><b style="color:#304747"> Φ </b> 16:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Thank you for the ping. I do believe that this passes WP:GNG, and I think WP:THREE is helpful in determining that. I do not think WP:ROUTINE applies here, mainly because of the WP:INDEPTH coverage given, much more than a routine announcement. The coverage is primarily local, but the mention in the Independent helps in establishing national significance as well. Zoozaz1  talk 17:13, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Independence piece was only an interview with the founder. It's not WP:SIGCOV and doesn't pass WP:NORG. I understand why you accepted, but I would have declined this at AfC. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:56, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Re: Merging, I thought it might be worth pointing out the Separatism in the United Kingdom article. It has a (I assume new) section on Northern England independence as a movement. — (Not logged in at the moment) 04:20, 23 November 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58C:C100:32B0:9DAC:871F:9AF4:B909 (talk)
 * Keep, as it passes WP:GNG, the local newspapers this party received coverage in, such as the the Blackpool Gazette, serve areas with large enough populations to be considered reliable in my view. Devonian Wombat (talk) 03:18, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Borderline keep. Multiple RS sources referring to this party, and plenty of regional papers. Seems to be a legitiamte lobby group for a noted and current issue. The Northern movement, however impractical and unlikely, does have some legitimate support. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep This seems to be a pretty clear Keep to me - informative references, seems to pass notability without that much question. I also fixed the piece that was tagged as unreferenced, as the sentence in question comes from the article in the Sunderland Echo.--Concertmusic (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Missvain (talk) 20:37, 4 December 2020 (UTC) <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Ignoring the canvassing, non policy based voting, spas getting bo weight and pure assertion this come down to source analysis that the Keep side has yet to do. I strongly advise someone arguing keep to actually list the best 3 and demonstrate how they meet RS
 * Comment Please note that I have already provided my input and vote above. Having said that, I would like to attempt to address a couple of points made early in the debate. There is a reference to TOOSOON, as well as one on 'frivolous secessionism' and 'wishful thinking'. Please refer to the recognized and significantly funded initiative Northern Powerhouse, which is connected to this party and its goals per this source, which is not yet incorporated into the article. I would argue that there is a clear recognition of the real dangers of a northern movement in the vein of the NIP. Maybe food for thought to alleviate those concerns.--Concertmusic (talk) 20:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Notable and relevant. Wjfox2005 (talk) 12:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Think it passes GNG. — <i style="color:#8000FF">Czello</i> 08:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 22:42, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep -has received significant media attention and is clearly notable at this point. Chessrat  ( talk, contributions ) 15:04, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - as other editors have mentioned, Northern independence now exists, though it is itself being considered for deletion - my personal thoughts are that, as suggests on the AfD page, something like Devolution to the North of England or Devolution of Northern England would be a better choice of article title, as it's more exacting whilst covering a range of opinions on devolution at the same time. 'Northern independence' is pretty generic. As the 9th Doctor said, lots of planets have a North...
 * In regards to this article - two of the sources are for the flag colours, the rest seem to be general "what would an independent Northern England look like?" pieces, and the rest just seem to mention the party's new existence. It'd be much better suited to a subheading on an article thoroughly covering the different viewpoints and movements for devolution of some kind in the North of England. If NIP go on to be more notable, then this article will likely be re-created, but for now, as none of us happen to be Mystic Meg, I cannot see it being notable enough to stay.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Final relist, in the hope that some more !voters are willing to discuss which sources confer notability; the AfD closer cannot be expected to evaluate all the sources present on the page. If this does not occur, I would recommend a no consensus closure and speedy renomination with a semi- or EC-protected AfD.
 * Comment As the nominator of this AfD I feel I should say two things. Firstly, I still believe this article should be deleted. Secondly, I can't remember any of my previous AfD being this contentious and I thank editors for remaining (mostly) civil. doktorb wordsdeeds 19:34, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I will note that while Northern Independence now has its own article (I created it), its likely to have it's name changed and the focus changed, away from Northern Independence specifically (as part of the conditions of the AFD)....which means merging this article with it *may* not be such an obvious solution to deleting this article. Deathlibrarian (talk) 04:06, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. It's a close call but I don't think this group quite meets the notability standard yet. Most of the sources are either unreliable sources, or are passing mentions in articles about the more general concept of northern cessationism. I'm leary of local newspaper references conferring notability too, sources like this can certainly be useful for adding information, but if you open a new bar your local newspaper will dedicate an article to it, and that won't be notable either. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 09:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment Still a delete - I don't know how someone could close this as delete, but it still should be deleted. This is a non-notable fake political party that still fails WP:NORG and that has fallen out of the news cycle. SportingFlyer  T · C  18:22, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde (Talk) 00:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge into Northern independence. An interesting AfD! I'm willing to accept the references, however, have a problem with what we'd be preserving if this closes as keep. The article is brief and should still be shortened as it contains unnecessary comparisons. Meaning there is almost no there there. In addition, this "party" isn't really a party, it's unregistered and has never participated in anything. Meaning that there's absolutely no there there. This leads me to the conclusion that the contents belong with the greater movement and idea for Northern independence, where it is already mentioned and discussed. Until anything is official should not be recreated either! (for clarity: in a keep or delete dichotomy, this would be a delete but I strongly prefer merge over delete!) gidonb (talk) 01:24, 24 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.