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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 of the debate was keep. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Association of British Counties

[edit]

Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you the Association of British Counties, a pressure group which wants to restore the "historic" counties of Britain such as The Kingdom of Fife Fife. Google finds <1000 hits, of which their website is top and Wikipedia second. Google News finds no hits. I am a Briton with a strong interest in politics and not only have I never heard of them, I had never heard of the much more widely discussed County Watch either, which is probably an indication of just how effective their campaigning has been to date. The fact that Russell Grant is president is probably the most notable thing about them. The chances of their campaign succeeding are this: zero. They are a political King Canute. And one which has achieved, to date, no obvious outside notice. Be quick, the website apparently doesn't usually work after midnight GMT! Just zis Guy you know? 19:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Keep - I agree with practically all your comments - it does seem to be a decidedly unsuccessful organisation, and it does hold an unusual and extreme POV. In all likelihood, they will never make a dent on British politics. However, none of these are sufficient causes for deletion! There are many articles on unsuccessful political campaigns, and political campiagns almost by definiton are POV.
As regards notability, I have seen their material quoted fairly widely in the regional media (especially in Saddleworth, one of their favourite battlegrounds). The ABC are also mentioned with amazing frequency on the Talk page of any article referring to the counties of the UK - if nothing else, it's worth keeping just so there's a reference for people reading any of these talk pages.
If you look through the category Lobbying Groups, you could apply your argument to a lot of other such articles - I think it would be unfair to get rid of the article on the British Weights and Measures Association, for example, but it has as much standing as the one in question here.
Overall; let it stand to demonstrate what the organisation is, and why it won't feature too heavily in British politics in the future! Aquilina 19:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your points, but there is a much more significant group, County Watch. This bunch appear to have scored virtually no media attention, membership is "unknown", and there is absolutely no evidence of notability. There are significant lobbying groups on this issue, but this is not one of them. Their website is probably hosted out of somebody's house on an ADSL line. They get fewer oogles than I do - in fact, if this is more than one man and his dog I can't find any evidence to prove it! Just zis Guy you know? 00:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep but Strong cleanup if kept. I don't know much about this sort of low-level British politics, but the article's been around for eighteen months now, and while it only has a few hundred Google hits, they seem to come from a relatively diverse and meaningful set of sites (links from the BBC, etc.), so I'm going to be generous and guess they're probably a bit more notable than the web gives them credit for. But the article needs fixing, without question. --Aaron 20:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I've heard of 'em. Jcuk 23:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I agree with nominator's assessment of this organisation and yes they have a snowball's chance in hell there's effectively zero chance of this organisation's agenda being fulfilled. However, I do not think these points are either necessary or sufficient reasons to delete. The organisation has managed to get mentions on academics' web pages, here for example, was referred to in Hansard, and on the letters page of The Telegraph. Sliggy 00:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
... By poking around at the Hansard link I give above I see that they are perhaps more effective than I first thought. The 1994 debate in which the AofBC was mentioned was on a bill, given a first reading in the Commons, that would have put many of this group's ideas into law.... Presumably the bill got spiked later. Sliggy 00:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I checked out the references. They are: an add-it-yourself directory, a letter in the Telegraph, and a namecheck by one MP. There is no dispute that a small movement exists to promote the "historic" counties, but there are other more significant organisations doing this as well. I still cannot find a single reliable secondary source from which to verify the data in this article, and the number of genuinely significant organisations whose website is only available before midnight GMT is vanishingly small. We do not know the membership, we do know that they score zero on Google News and under a thousand Googles. Where is the evidence that this group is of any importance? Just zis Guy you know? 11:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your point regarding the lack of reliable secondary sources is important, I think. There is no reason to believe that the bill I uncovered is anything to do with the organisation, it is coincidence until proven otherwise. I've just spent (far too long) trawling through Google hits to try and find a confirmatory, reliable secondary reference for the information in the article. I can't find a single one. So, delete for the reason that the article lacks verifiable sources (specifically not because of its success or lack of it). Sliggy 19:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I was beginning to think it was just me. Just zis Guy you know? 19:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I'm not convinced we violate WP:V either. I quote:

Self-published sources and other published sources of dubious reliability may be used as sources in articles about themselves. For example, the Stormfront website may be used as a source about itself in an article about Stormfront, so long as the information is notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, and not contradicted by other published sources.

and from [WP:Reliable Sources]:

Partisan political and religious sources should be treated with caution, although political bias is not in itself a reason not to use a source

and

Groups like these may be used as primary sources only i.e. as sources about themselves, and even then with caution and sparingly, or about their viewpoints.

In this article, the only facts we are trying to establish are what this group believes. Whether what they believe is "true" or not is another matter entirely - but their website is a perfect source for details of what they claim to believe in. As long as the information is qualified as per WP:V, it's a verifiable source anyone else can check. If instead we are worried that they do not really believe what they claim to believe, [1] is a good example of the ABC actually "in action"; an offically submitted and published (ie verifiable) document showing how they apply their beliefs to a practical situation.

The job of any wikipedian who contributes to political and historical articles is to produce NPOV articles from POV sources. This can be done; indeed it is the goal of every successful historian.

Further, an article on a lobbying group without a long of Hansard links tells of a group and its lack of success. No article at all would inform nobody of anything. A membership figure would indeed be fantastic to put the "scale"(!) of their activities into context, but its omission is neither sufficient nor necessary for deletion.

I'd also like us to bear in mind that research is not confined to the world wide web, and sources are not confined to Google. If Wikipedia ends up a mere subset of that information which is Googlable, then it will never achieve full potential as a tool of scholarship, and it has acknowledged as much [2]

This is all quite subtle, and mostly very meta. I can't believe how much of my life is going into defending a tinpot organisation with whom I do not agree whatsoever, but the principle, for me, remains. Aquilina 21:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


See the comment above - one add-it-yourself directory, one namecheck by one MP, one letter in the Telegraph (I've had about thirty published in the national press). Just zis Guy you know? 11:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep they are an umbrella organisation for many other organisations such as Friends of Real Lancashire. They have had plenty of successes such as getting the Royal Mail to add traditional county information to their Postcode Address File; They are constantly involved in government plans for local government reorganisation and ceremonial arrangements; The size of the membership is completely and utterly irrelevant, and the fact that they don't display this information on their web site is of no consequence whatsoever and is probably in line with the Data Protection Act. Comparing ABC with County Watch is laughable. County Watch is a relatively new collection of five or so individuals who hit the headlines by using direct action, whereas the ABC have been around for much longer and are involved in lower-profile government lobbying. Owain (talk) 12:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep An organisation's success does not determine whether it stays or goes. If the facts on the page are accurate, without constantly falling victim to the typical revert-wars, then it deserves to be included MonMan 14:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What claims? The content of the page describes what the ABC themselves believe. This information is mostly paraphrased from their own site. I don't understand what the problem is here. Owain (talk) 10:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The claim that it is significant, for starters. How many members? What affiliates? I can't find a single reputable secondary source for these things. Actually nothing meeting WP:RS which objectively supports its existence as a group rather than a single person. Just zis Guy you know? 14:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How many members? Write to the membership secretary and ask. If you want affiliates then you can ask that too. Off the top of my head, how about: Friends of Real Lancashire, The Huntingdonshire Society, The Yorkshire Ridings Society, Saddleworth White Rose Society, Unite Craven... or perhaps you could just accept that it exists as a legitimate association. Owain (talk) 14:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great idea - to get over the lack of verifiability from reliable sources, we should do some original research. Why didn't I think of that before? Just zis Guy you know? 11:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not be so patronising. Asking the membership secretary for the membership is hardly original research - it's common sense. Just because you can't find the information on the world wide web does not mean it is unavailable. Owain (talk) 12:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Come on, be honest, just because you don't believe in their policies doesn't make them non-notable. Where is your evidence to support your view? Owain (talk) 10:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above: total absence of any significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. Just zis Guy you know? 11:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above: mentioned in Parliament. Owain (talk) 12:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.
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