Talk:Iain McNicol

Requested move 1 July 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus is that the current title is acceptable. WP:NCPEER has been considered, with the view that it does not mandate a move. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 11:12, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

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Iain McNicol → ? – This article should either be moved to Iain McNicol, Baron McNicol of West Kilbride or be kept under the current title Iain McNicol. Under WP:NCPEER, article title for a peer should include both personal name and peerage title, but there are some exceptions to that. If a peer is very well known by his personal name and received title after he retired, only personal name is used in the article title. The Lord McNicol of West Kilbride received his peerage after his resignation as General Secretary of the Labour Party. Is he enough well known (very well known) by his personal name that this article would be under the exception of WP:NCPEER? Editor FIN (talk) 10:20, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd say the WP:NCPEER "almost exclusively known by their personal names" criteria applies, so it should not be renamed. Doing a google news search his elevation seems entirely unreported by the MSM - I added the only decent media cite I could find (Politics Home), and that was actually from before the actual elevation. At the least we need to wait to see some significant use of the title. Rwendland (talk) 13:22, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that that exception doesn't apply here. In WP:NCPEER, Bertrand Russell is mentioned as an example for that exception and he was known by his name in almost all situations also after he became Earl Russell. Creations of peerage titles are seldom reported in the media and backbench peers get also generally quite little media coverage. Your interpretation of WP:NCPEER would make an exception the default form for article titles for new peers, instead of the standard form (name and title) under WP:NCPEER. I think that the exception "Peers who are almost exclusively known by their personal names" should be applied, if a peer has been almost always referred to by his or her name in the media and other sources after he or she has become a peer. --Editor FIN (talk) 08:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The exception "Peers who are very well known by their personal names and who only received a title after they retired" have been applied for for example former MPs and retired Chiefs of the Defence Staff, who became widely known by public during their careers and were created peers after their retirements. Could Lord McNicol of West Kilbride, former General Secretary of the Labour Party, be contrasted with them? --Editor FIN (talk) 08:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd say keep the article where it is. The only reason he has an article at all is because he was General Secretary of the Labour Party, so that's his primary notability. I think the comparison with retired MPs is a good one. Opera hat (talk) 10:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Keep as is. Following on from discussion above: Bertrand Russell is such a well known figure, I don't think that makes an easy comparison. How about the roughly similarly well known and aged Sarah Montague who wasn't renamed after becoming Lady Brooke. She continued her career as Sarah Montague, so the article was reasonably not renamed. At age 48, McNicol is likely to continue in a job - I'd say wait and see what he does next and what name is used before making a change. Particularly as so far there seems absolutely no secondary citable usage of the Lord McNicol name. Rwendland (talk) 10:25, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Sarah Montague, Lady Brooke is not a peer or wife of a peer. Her husband is a baronet. It is logical that a title is not used for baronet's wife in the article title as baronets usually have only their name in the article title according to WP:NCPEER. --Editor FIN (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Page can be moved back, if it seems that peerage title is not used. I don't see that the exception "Peers who are almost exclusively known by their personal names" would apply here, at least yet. --Editor FIN (talk) 16:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Keep as is. Not known because of his activities as a peer, but because of his activities before his ennoblement. Since disambiguation isn't an issue, per WP:NCPEER it doesn't need to be moved. There have been far too many instances of articles on newly-created peers being moved unnecessarily (and even many longstanding article titles that incorporate the peerage title unnecessarily). Many should be moved. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Leaning towards keep as is. The peerage in this case is basically a postscript. bd2412 T 13:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Keep for now McNicol effectively falls into the retirement honour category so should follow the personal name rule for now. I think there's a slight wording problem in WP:NCPEER as "Peers who are very well known by their personal names" implies the person either had a nationally famous career pre-enoblement or has been high profile in a non-political role with their peerage almost incidental to that (former Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers fall into the former, writers such as Ruth Rendell into the latter). McNicol isn't a household name but his notability at the moment rests clearly on his party career. Given the high turnover on the Labour frontbench it's entirely possible he could go on to be prominent in the Lords so we may want to revisit this case in future. Timrollpickering 08:54, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Allegations which need a decent source

Re my revert https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iain_McNicol&oldid=953024059 In a recent RSN discussion, The overwhelming majority of editors agreed that The Canary is not a reliable source. For a sensitive issue in a BLP article, we should be doubly careful. I don’t think that’s controversial but if it is maybe we need to take up at the RAN again and/or the BLP noticeboard. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:59, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion looked fairly ambiguous to me about whether it could be used in the right context. This seems to be a context it could be used in. G-13114 (talk) 12:55, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the Canary can be used in general. There is nothing in its article to suggest it is systematically inaccurate. By comparison, The Jewish Chronicle has a number of regulatory and legal judgements against it for inaccuracy. The Canary has a clear political line, but so do most other media outlets. Moreover, most UK media outlets in the UK are conservative; suppressing all use of the Canary means suppressing one of the few publications which will report the left wing side of events. Each story should be judged on its merits. Regarding this particular story, McNicol is only cited as a defendent because he is general secretary: I do not think it is relevant to his article.Jontel (talk) 11:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Negative information on a BLP absolutely needs a much better source than Canary. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that LabourList is reliable for what it's being used for here. buidhe 11:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Re LabourList, I would say that comment pieces on it, such as Landsman's, could be used as sources on their authors' views if noteworthy and due, while news articles, such as Rogers', are probably reliable sources for information on specialist internal Labour-related information as its news articles are generally considered non-partisan on these kinds of things, but I don't have strong views on this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)