Talk:Jim Allister

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Editing issues

It is highly unlikley that the issues will be resolved by a discussion here, as the vandal is anon, however the edit reverts are clearly POV as they are trying to present Jim Allister as the most effective NI MEP on the basis of ho much noise he makes in the parliament. This is not and never had been accepted as a true measure of public representation.Traditional unionist 14:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - time spent speaking in Parliament is not regarded as a definitive yardstick of a public representative's performance in either jurisdiction in Ireland. In both parts of Ireland a clientelist political culture exists in which people often prefer to see their politicians working locally rather than speaking at distant parliaments, whether in Dublin, London or Brussels.Pondersomething 15:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

—Preceding comment was unsigned, probably by mistake

Political bias being shown

I have just read the amount of recent edits on this page, and it is clear that on both sides there is political bias being shown. I personally do not believe that saying Jim Allister has spoken more times in Parliament is saying that he is the best - or the one who works hardest - MEP. Nor do I believe the readers of Wikipedia who have access to a wealth of information through the Internet and the other MEPs' pages would actually assume this to be true. In my opinion, it is just a statement, with references given to back this up. But, by saying that the effectiveness of an MEP should be calculated through constituency work etc, you are implying that Jim Allister does not have a good relationship with the constituents. It goes without saying that all elements of any politician's job should be used to work this out, but by bringing attention to this you are not being neutral to Mr Allister.

This has led to reckless abusing of Wikipedia's powers from both pro and anti-Jim Allister editers. Wikipedia should be a neutral environment, and not used to forward anyone's political views. Therefore, instead of tit-for-tat edits, I propose that we delete the recently added sections surrounding the effectiveness of the MEPs. Otherwise, where will this end?

A lot has also been recently added concerning the DUP leadership election(if there ever is one!) I believe there is already such a page dedicated to it, and reasons why certain candidates take such stances, and their support should be left on that page instead of individuals'.
Joe Mangel

We should either leave reference to his speeches out altogether or balance it with qualifier that number of speeches is not regarded as a measure of hard work, particularly when the parliament in question is so far away.

You wouldn't rate your local Congressman on how often he spoke in Congress, you'd be more interested in what he was doing for communities on the ground.

So either leave it out, or balance it with the appropriate qualifier.

--Pondersomething 11:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Accusations

Pondersomething is not me.Traditional unionist 13:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not TU, my interest is in seeing that this page reflects a wide perspective, and isn't a sanitised propaganda piece for the DUP.

The anonymous contributor who insists on reverting all edits to the page - presumably Allister's DUP bag-boy - should recognise the encylopaedic nature of Wikipedia - this is *not* an extension of Jim Allister's homepage but rather an encyclopaedic entry on the politician in question which needs to reflect a wide perspective.

I will take this through the full Wikipedia dispute process if necessary. Wikipedia is not your propaganda platform.

--82.29.235.182 19:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral Point of View

I have reverted the page (again) to Aaron's last edit. If the anonymous DUP operative vandal continues to revert this page to his/her preferred sanitised version I will initiate a Neutrality Dispute, according to the rules of Wikipedia.

--Pondersomething 19:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 06:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resignation from party

Is there any source stating he resigned outright from the party in 1987, as opposed to just dropping out of active politics? Timrollpickering 13:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[1] :)Traditional unionist 13:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Jim Allister, a leading DUP member, has resigned from the party in protest at not being allowed stand against the sitting Official Unionist MP. He has said that he is finished with politics." http://www.emigrant.ie/article.asp?iCategoryID=200&iArticleID=4049 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.179.158 (talk) 22:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Queen's Counsel

For discussion of the paragraph "Queen's Counsel", created in April 2024 by the editor Athousandcuts2005.

The initial content of the paragraph is as follows: "Allister represented Loyalist Volunteer Force member Clifford McKeown in court in 2003.[23] McKeown, who was already serving 12 years for gun possession, was ultimately found guilty of the murder of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick in 1996, said to have been done as a "birthday present" for Billy Wright.[23] Allister said that McKeown would be appealing against the conviction.[23]"

Here is the newspaper source cited in the edit. BrownBowler (talk) 08:20, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If Athousandcuts2005 (or anyone else) has any opinion on the following then I'd be happy to discuss.

I've got a couple of reservations about the content of the edit and also a suggestion about how any "Queen's Counsel" section of this article could be structured.

Firstly, how is the fact that McKeown was serving prison time for gun possession or that he had claimed to murder Mr McGoldrick as a "birthday present for Billy Wright" relevant in an article about Mr Allister?

The newspaper source you cite mentions Allister once: "McKeown showed no emotion as he was led away. His lawyer, Jim Allister QC, said he would be appealing against the conviction." The source is really about Mr McKeown and his crimes. Mr Allister was not related to those crimes, he was hired to defend McKeown in court.

Wikipedia has some core guidelines; one of which is that editors should "cite sources focused on the topic at hand, where possible" [2]. The subject of this Wikipedia article is Mr Allister. The article you cite and the edit you made, relate mostly to Mr Allister's client, Mr McKeown. I note that you added a similar edit and cited the same source in two other Wikipedia articles Murder of Michael McGoldrick (Mr Allister wasn't involved in any way in the murder of Mr McGoldrick) and Democratic Unionist Party (The Democratic Unionist Party isn't mentioned in the source you cite, nor was Mr Allister a member of the Democratic Unionist Party when he defended Mr McKeown in court in 2003).

So, my view is that your edit takes this article away from its subject (Mr Allister), giving more attention to the extraneous subject of Mr McKeown. Your edit therefore exhibits a degree of what Wikipedia calls Coatracking.

Secondly, given that this article is a Biography of a Living Person, we are asked to "take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page" and to "document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects". We are also reminded that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid".

In summary, I'd be inclined to excise some of what you included in your edit on the grounds that it may spuriously imply a connection between Mr Allister and the crimes of McKeown. Here is what I think might be a reasonable and fair substitute:

"Allister represented ex-Loyalist Volunteer Force member Clifford McKeown in court in 2003 in a case regarding McKeown's alleged 1996 murder of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick. McKeown was found guilty of the murder by the court. Allister said that McKeown would be appealing against the conviction."

Finally, this new section "Queen's Counsel" is putatively devoted to Mr Allister's legal career, yet begins not at the beginning of that career but at the end and only mentions a single legal case. Was there a particular reason for doing that? If this article is to have a section devoted to Mr Allister's lengthy legal career then I'd suggest it should be more comprehensive than the one you have created but also not overlong, since whatever notability Mr Allister has for inclusion in an encyclopedia comes from his political career and not from his professional career in the Belfast Courts. BrownBowler (talk) 17:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The two contentious phrases, viz., "who was already serving 12 years for gun possession" and "said to have been done as a "birthday present" for Billy Wright" were removed by editor Athousandcuts2005, without discussion. The same editor also re-named the paragraph from "Queens's Counsel" to "Legal career". BrownBowler (talk) 18:02, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]