Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wales Green 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 merge to Green Party of England and Wales. The nomination for deletion is based on lack of independent reliable sources. This is countered by haminoon's statement that a news search provides such sources. This appears to be true. Most of the AfD discussion involves consideration of the autonomy of the Wales Green Party. That is interesting and worthwhile, though our guideline on local branches of larger organisations (WP:BRANCH) deals with the coverage of such branches in reliable sources, rather than how autonomous they are. It is not about who or what controls the organisation, but how independently notable they are within Wikipedia's guidelines. The statement that there is coverage in reliable sources needs to be balanced against the guidance that the coverage should "extend beyond the chapter's local area". While the news sources that talk about the Wales Green Party are mainly Welsh - South Wales Argus, Wales Online, etc, there are some national sources: ITV, BBC, but not many, and the coverage is barely significant. The Wales Green Party exists and is verifiable. It has attracted some coverage, though mostly limited to its own territory. There are suggestions to merge or simply redirect the title to Green Party of England and Wales, and this seems an appropriate outcome. Though the majority of ivotes are for "Keep", the lack of significant enough national coverage weighs against that option at the moment. A merge into the Green Party of England and Wales would allow the main points about the Welsh branch to be available to readers, and that information, if it builds, and gains national coverage, can later be split back out into a standalone article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:52, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wales Green Party[edit]

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Wales Green Party is not a Party within a Party as the article states. That is not possible. Similar size parties such as UKIP do not have a page for each of their regional sections. Greens have no MEPs, AMs or MP representation in Wales, and have not featured in the media.

Absolutely zero independent or reliable citations. In four years no one has added a single citation. Much of the information is the Generic Green Party of England and Wales information. Other pieces of information, such as the founding year are simply incorrect, GPEW was founded in 1990, the Wales Green Party Branch itself some time after became official, yet the date listed for WGP is 1973

In short. Much of the information is wrong. No citations, no notability, not in the media, no representation in government. No need for the article. I would say to anyone wanting to save it that they find citations and it be merged into the GPEW page. Drowz0r (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Green Party of England and Wales. According to their website, Wales Green Party is part of their organization. They list Green Party of Northern Ireland and Green Party of Scotland as "sister" organizations. I can't find any information that supports notability or that they run under their own name, even for upcoming election I think they are registered under "Green Party of England and Wales." —Мандичка^YO 😜 05:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect ^I find this the most agreeable outcome. Any useful information that can gain citations can be placed on the E&W page.Drowz0r (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Without regurgitating all of my comments from Talk:Wales Green Party - the Welsh party is indeed part of the GPEW but it is different to the English regions as it has its own leadership. It is simply not true to say the Welsh Greens have not featured in the media, there are plenty of stories about them.

If the article is devoid of citations or some of the information is incorrect, that is grounds for improvement not deletion as per the deletion policy. There are separate pages for Welsh Labour, Welsh Conservatives and Welsh LibDems, who all operate as semi-autonomous parts of their respective UK parties.Frinton100 (talk) 08:10, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If it is not true to say they have not featured in the media, then where are the citations for the last few years? This delete request has been open for quite some time and while I accept you may have seen them in the news somewhere, I can see no record of it. Like you, at the risk of repeating myself, the only stuff in the media is about the Spokesperson (Leader?) and it's mostly about how she once appeared on Come Dine With Me. Drowz0r (talk) 22:16, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm wondering if the nominator could clarify some things for us first. My understanding is that Wales is a country rather than a region, and that this article is similar to the Scottish Labour Party. -- haminoon (talk) 10:36, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I"m not the nominator but I'll explain - England, Scotland and Wales are constituent countries of the United Kingdom and each have their own parliament. But obviously England and Wales are more likely to be cooperative in some things it seems (probably because England and Wales have been united for so much longer) and it seems for some things they are united, for example, the footer of this charity states it is "Registered as a Charity in England and Wales (No 211015) and in Scotland (SC037789)." It seems like the Green Party is so small and (at least in Wales) rather insignificant that it has not needed to operate independently in Wales. —Мандичка^YO 😜

N. Ireland has a substantial amount of devolved powers, Scotland being a close second. Wales has almost no devolved powers by comparison, which is why you often see places like Scotland mentioned separately while Wales and England are often grouped together. We get it with most data reporting too, E&W crime or prison figures for example. That's not to say Wales and England are the same country but from a legal perspective there are very few differences in the law between England and Wales, certainly when compared to Scotland and N. Ireland.

This video explains some stuff about how the UK and stuff is set up - but it doesn't go into the differences between Wales, N. Ireland, Scotland and England.

Wales is a country, within the UK, but it is also a principality which is treated like a region. Drowz0r (talk) 22:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not quite true to say that they don't operate independently in Wales. They have just taken the decision not to be a completely independent party like the Green Party in Scotland. The Greens are unusual in the UK in operating as three separate parties (Eng&Wales, Scotland, NI). Most national-level parties either operate in one constituent country only (e.g. Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru or Ulster Unionist Party), or across all of Great Britain, or the whole UK. As mentioned above, the Welsh Greens operate like Scottish Labour or the Welsh Conservatives, maintaining a degree of autonomy while still being part of a larger party. Frinton100 (talk) 00:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They do not operate independently in Wales. They might have a certain degree of autonomy but so do every other branch of every other political party. They do not all get a regional page that is excluded from the citation rules. Drowz0r (talk) 22:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true. The English regions of other parties (or indeed of the Green Party) do not have the same level of independence. They don't have their own leaders for example, or have their own party descriptions registered with the EC. The way to make the page fit in with the citation rules is to add more citations, which I have been doing over the last few days. There is still more to do, and plenty of available RS to add. Frinton100 (talk) 00:05, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is true but I don't see why you're bringing in an English comparison when Ireland, Scotland and Wales have perfectly fitting comparisons. England is the exception, so that's a little misleading to bring up English Independence. In fact the video I linked above explains how England is the exception when it comes to devolved powers. The way to make the page fit is for it to be merged into the main GPEW page or deleted. The citations you have added are only events for the GPEW which have happened in Wales. Again UKIP have all of this AND more but no-one thought it a good idea to give them their own Welsh regional page - because it doesn't fit in with the citation or notoriety rules of wiki. Drowz0r (talk) 00:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I never mentioned English independence, so I'm not sure why you brought that up. The reason I am comparing to England, is because we are talking about a section of the Green Party of England and Wales. GPs in Scotland and NI (which is what I assume you meant by Ireland) are of course independent parties, so are not relevant. The point about the Welsh party is that it is different to the English regional parties, for the reasons previously outlined. It is therefore wrong to argue that because the English regional GPs don't have their own article, then the WGP shouldn't either.

The citations I have added are a mixture of election results, information on leadership elections, and Welsh campaigns for which clearly the Welsh leadership have taken the lead. There is still more work to be done. I have some other articles which I intend to cite and there will probably be others that I have not found yet. Frinton100 (talk) 04:25, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - No reliable sources are provided to support any of the assertions. The article has existed since 2004 - certainly enough time to reference reliable sources if any existed.--Rpclod (talk) 13:00, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Its clear this isn't a regional section but an autonomous national section. Having an elected leader gives a section real autonomy. I doubt UKIP has a similar setup so that comparison is invalid. Saying it is not a party seems to be contradicted by all the media coverage calling it the "Wales Green Party". A quick news search for the leaders name brought back a larger number of reliable sources referring to "Wales Green Party", and sometimes just "Greens" in the Welsh media. Obviously theres a lot of work to do on the article but I can't imagine anyone would want to do that when it could get deleted soon. -- haminoon (talk) 00:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

UKIP do have a similar set up but they don't get a regional page. In fact, they have an elected Welsh Leader who is also an MEP, which is more than the Greens in Wales can say. I do not see how it can be justified that the smaller party in Wales, gets a page, excluded from the citation rules, when parties like UKIP do not.--Drowz0r (talk) 22:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's had several years to be improved. I doubt this deletion tag is the reason it hasn't been updated. The elected "Leader" wasn't elected as a leader, she was elected as a Spokesperson. Frinton and the wiki page shows her as Leader but I cannot find any evidence to this effect and the results of the election are seemingly impossible to find too. I cannot find any reason as to why Spokesperson became Leader without another election or how this happened, so I would question the legitimacy of them having a Welsh Leader. Drowz0r (talk) 22:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On further inspection, it seems they do not have an elected leader. To quote the Green Party England and Wales wiki page "Also differently from the full party, the Wales Green Party (and the North West region of England) elects a Principal Speaker who may refer to themselves as the 'Leader' of the Wales Green Party, although, like the Green Party of England and Wales' former principal speakers, they have no powers of leadership. The current leader of the Wales Green Party is Pippa Bartolotti.[98]." Drowz0r (talk) 22:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble is, there is no source to back up the claim on the GPEW site that she is only a spokesperson - wikipedia is not a RS(WP:WPNOTRS). There are press releases and articles from the WGP calling her (and her predecessor) "leader", and calling Slaughter the "deputy leader" and similar stories from other RS (BBC, Daily Post, Penarth Times) which I have provided on the WGP page. Before the GPEW changed their structure from having Principal Speakers to a Leader, they never referred to the Speakers as "Leaders", so I find it strange that they now would do so in Wales. Still, as I said right at the beginning of this debate, I am not a GP expert, and the leadership section could certainly do with some attention from someone who is (and probably renaming too - "Structure" would be more appropriate, with some further details on how they operate and their relationship with the GPEW). Frinton100 (talk) 01:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if you look into the campaign period, on the internet or indeed look up her competition, you'll find they were competing for the role of Spokesperson, as mentioned on Andy Chyba's blog here. Drowz0r (talk) 00:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what he actually says is "Spokesperson (aka Leader)", so he is using both terms simultaneously. We still have no clarification as to the official position, and whatever the official position, "leader" and "deputy leader" are widely used in news reports and the WGP's own communications. Frinton100 (talk) 04:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wales-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Their manifesto says to be read in accompaniment with the GPEW manifesto, their whole website is a subsite of GPEW site. They appear in every way to be a subgroup of GPEW. SPACKlick (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There is a page for Northern Ireland Conservatives even though it is quite clear that this opeates as a regional/national section of the UK Conservative Party. Northern Ireland Conservatives do not even have a single elected local councillor. Welsh Labour and Welsh Conservative Party have separate wiki articles, even though these are not separate organisations. My preference would be for an article for an organisation as wiki shouldn't be used for free party political advertising. However I think there needs to be consistency and it seems undemocratic to delete the Welsh Green page when other political party's extra articles are kept. This is the link to Welsh Green Party that I found http://www.walesgreenparty.org.uk/ which could help with updating the page. Isthisuseful (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland has a very different political situation to the rest of the UK. The rules are very different there and the Conservatives are the oldest political party in the UK. To suggest the Greens and Cons are in the same league is a little off... but even if this were true, the citation rules still apply. Drowz0r (talk) 00:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But I think Isthisuseful's point was that the NI Conservatives' support base is very small (far smaller than WGP - about one-sixth the vote share at the 2014 European election) and yet they - rightly - qualify for a page. The age of the party is irrelevant.Frinton100 (talk) 04:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I am for the lowest possible barriers to inclusion for articles on political parties, their leaders, and their youth sections regardless of size or ideology. This is the sort of material that needs to be in a comprehensive encyclopedia, and I think there is all Ignore All Rules case to be made for each. Beyond that, this is a national division of a multinational party of substantial size, seemingly an easy call. Carrite (talk) 18:52, 20 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Substantial size, do you have evidence of that? There is literally no data on how large the Wales branch is because they do not publish their membership figures or anything else, as a normal party would. Drowz0r (talk) 00:21, 22 June 2015 (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.