Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Scottish Labour Party leadership election, 2014/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 13:29, 20 September 2015.

Scottish Labour Party leadership election, 2014

 * Nominator(s): This is Paul (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

This article is about a chapter in the unfortunate history of the decline of the Scottish Labour Party, a once dominant force in Scottish politics. Although Labour had helped to win the argument for keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom at the 2014 independence referendum, the closeness of the result in some Labour strongholds prompted internal party speculation about the future of its leader. When she resigned, accusing the UK Labour Party of treating its Scottish counterpart like "a branch office of London", an election was held to find her successor. But less than six months later the new leader presided over Labour's worst ever election result in Scotland, and was forced to resign himself.

I've written this article from scratch, successfully taking it through the GA process. It has also received an extensive copy edit. Sadly a peer review request was much less fruitless, as often politics articles do not seem to get the attention they deserve at PR. I think this could be close to achieving FAC status though, so am putting it forward for consideration. I look forward to your comments. Do be aware, however, that I may have some difficulties when it comes to issues concerning images, tables, and other graphics, so please be ready to help with such edits if you feel any changes of that type are necessary. Cheers, and happy reading. This is Paul (talk) (disclaimer) 20:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Support. I did the GA review for this article, and my concerns were satisfied there. Good luck! --Coemgenus (talk) 11:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, This is Paul (talk) 14:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Image review
 * File:2014_Scottish_Labour_Leadership_Election_Westminster_Nominations.svg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Have checked the article and the image, but nothing is jumping out. Can you be more specific about the link that is dead? This is Paul (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This one from the image description page. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:13, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that seems to be gone. The closest source I can find is this from LabourList that contains the same information. Hopefully this is a reliable enough source, but if that isn't the case then the diagram can go. This is Paul (talk) 18:27, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Done, with many thanks to samtar. This is Paul (talk) 19:17, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Also a Wayback link of the original c/o We hope if the original is preferable. This is Paul (talk) 20:21, 22 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * Lead has too much nitty-gritty: " On 28 October, Sarah Boyack became the first person to confirm that she would be standing as a candidate for party leader. She was joined by Neil Findlay and Jim Murphy, who both declared the following day. Katy Clark and Kezia Dugdale entered the deputy leadership race on 1 November and 2 November, respectively." - drop the dates here.
 * Done


 * In general, some paras and sentences are much too long, especially in campaign/policies section.
 * Done. I've levelled the paragraphs out a bit in Campaigns, and taken out superfluous words. There's a lot of ground to cover there. Shall I split the policies paragraphs into two?
 * On sentence structure: Because of the article's length I'm using text-to-speech software to read through it. This doesn't always distinguish between certain forms of punctuation (for example full stop and semicolon), so let me know which sentences are too long and I'll take a closer look.


 * "Background" needs more on what a narrow squeak the referendum victory was, & how traumatic for Labour, and especially how they were blamed for "propping up the Tories" etc. Then a bit on that in the lead.
 * Done


 * "Election details" - needs some figures: Pop. of Scotland, # of party members, potential trade union votes. "Sarwar said that voting would be held using the three-tier electoral college" - how does this work, actually?
 * I rephrased the electoral college sentence slightly to explain that each of the three groups made up a third of the electorate. I doubt all of the figures you mention would be available from one source (it was only a party election after all), so surely adding them could be seen as original research. Let me know if that wouldn't be the case. Also Labour were very reluctant to confirm exactly how many people were eligible to vote. Writing on 9 November, Paul Hutcheon of the Sunday Herald quotes a source suggesting 13,500, but there's no breakdown of that.
 * Have now mentioned the voter turnout for the referendum in an earlier section, which should hopefully help to address the population bit. This is Paul (talk) 21:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * "Jim Murphy": "...became a prominent figure in the Better Together campaign during the 2014 referendum, when he toured 100 towns in 100 days to campaign for a No vote." - considerable understatement, surely? Apart from Darling, and Gordon Brown's descent from the clouds at the end, he was by far the most prominent Labour campaigner among those likely to stand. Sources must say this, no?
 * No, they did not specifically state this. The article now reads "was a prominent figure" since he was a prominent figure before the campaign.


 * " In the deputy leadership race, Dugdale secured 62.9 percent of the vote compared to 37.1 percent for Clark." - presumably in Round 1, but say so.
 * As you wish, although since only two of them stood in the contest there was no need for a round 2.
 * Do try to distinguish between what you know and what the average reader can be expected to know! Johnbod (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Perhaps mention in her bio bit where Dugdale is now.
 * This is covered in the last section. Quick question though. Should we not stick to the biographies as they were at the time of the events being discussed?


 * Generally a rather dense read I must say. But thorough, apart from the points mentioned. I suppose there are no books yet? The Strange Death of Labour Scotland was used too soon I see.
 * Sadly it's probably a bit too soon, but give it a couple of years ...


 * More images would be nice - none at all of the deputy crowd - their bios have them.
 * Done. Wish there was a photo of SLP headquarters or something like that, but we don't seem to have one.


 * You hadn't actually linked either of the deputy runners (done once - again at their bio might be good).
 * They're linked twice already - in the lede and in Declarations. Do you want that changed?

Johnbod (talk) 16:01, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * a general "where are they now" update for after the 2015 massacre would be good, for the candidates and their predecessors.
 * I mentioned a couple of people that I'd missed, but the aftermath of the leadership contest is already discussed at length, as well as what happened to the major players. Surely we need to be careful not to go "off topic" by including too much subsequent detail. This is Paul (talk) 18:38, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the review, some good comments here. Not sure how easy some of the figures will be to obtain since Scottish Labour were very reluctant to confirm exactly how many people were eligible to vote. Paul Hutcheon of the Sunday Herald quotes a source suggesting 13,500, but there's no breakdown of that. Also will need some help with the image thing, especially if you want them to appear in the infobox. This is Paul (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, not in the infobox (where they are too small anyway). The rest of the article is pretty bare. Johnbod (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ok, that's doable. This is Paul (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , I've addressed a lot of your points, but have one or two small queries. This is Paul (talk) 16:57, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Coordinator note: Unfortunately this has failed to gain consensus for promotion after being open for over a month—it will be archived shortly. You may renominate after the standard two-week waiting period. -- Laser brain  (talk)  13:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  13:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.