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And is he any relation to Patrick Mercer, the other Army officer turned Tory MP? If not, it should say not, since many people would like to know.
Valetude (
talk)
23:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)reply
There have been substantial edits to this page by
Impsfan on 10/10/18 - though they are well sourced, they may have been made specifically to undermine the character of the subject of this page. Checking
Impsfan's activity, it appears they have a habit of activist editing of Conservative party politician profiles.
This calls into question the likelihood that the edits have been made in keeping with the guidelines on
Wikipedia:Point of view
As such I am conscious that these edits (particularly under "Controversies" which appear to be particularly questionable in terms of bias) may need revision (but of course willing to enter a discussion with Impsfan about this).
You are partially correct. A while back I read a lengthy newspaper profile regarding an MP and then googled them for information. I read the Wiki age for them and realised it was really out of date and just included text copied verbatim from their own website. Since then I have been updating pages so they don't arbitrarily stop at the date someone was lost bothered (often circa the 2015 general election!) and including other information for balance. You will note everything is sourced and I provide the counter-point on all occasions where there is one. I have included positive information, such as promotions, election wins and membership of committees, and neutral information, such as past career and dates of birth etc. Although I have done a couple of edits to MPs from other political parties, there is a bias towards the Conservative Party because I have ended up doing it thematically and it is more efficient to included links from that context. Rest assured, I have just about come to the end of the MPs from that party and the next stage will be more edits to update those from the other ones.
Impsfan - I appreciate the response, thanks for the detail. Hope you take no offence if I may have a tinker with this some other time when at a loose end!
libsec Far from taking offence, I would value it. Inevitably, in trying to 'balance' things on a page about a politician I run the risk of it going too far the other way, so a critical look is good.
Impsfan (
talk)
20:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)reply
Problem with medal ribbon - wrong photo but I can't see why
Hi all, the photo shows a plain ribbon - it should have the rosette, But the file name seems correct for the rosette version. Can anyone assist?
Springnuts (
talk)
22:22, 11 February 2019 (UTC)reply
Defending his wife's honour
There's quite a few reliable sources about the time the subject of the page attempted to defend his wife's honour after she was called a prostitute in the comments section of the Plymouth Herald which led to the Plymouth Herald trending on twitter. Does anyone have any objections to me adding this to the page? Sources:
Can we add the line "In October 2018, Mercer took to Twitter to defend his wife's honour after she was labelled a prostitute in the comments section of the Plymouth Herald. This led to the Plymouth Herald trending on Twitter." See the Talk Page for list of sources, including national newspapers, that covered this.
80.47.137.128 (
talk)
17:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Stating
WP:ONUS on it's own is not sufficient reason. Please see
WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS which states "All edits should be explained (unless the reason for them is obvious)—either by clear edit summaries indicating the reason why the change was made, or by discussion on the associated talk page."
80.47.137.128 (
talk)
22:32, 24 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Controversial Twitter activity
Mercer's tweets in late December surrounding his pledge to end veterans' homelessness are newsworthy and of public interest. A well worded and referenced section was added to cover this, but was removed a few hours later.
I propose that the section be reinstated.
94.198.176.38 (
talk)
15:28, 29 December 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Martinevans123, I didn't see any inline sources in the article supporting either though and I'm not sure what value either add. I wouldn't object to his middle name being included, if supported by a good quality RS, but can't imagine what use his service number is. --
DeFacto (
talk).
19:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply
I don't know. I wouldn't use the PlymouthLive article as its infobox mirrored pretty closely what the Wiki article then said - so do we know that it didn't use Wiki as it's source? Business Insider is reporting what Russia's foreign ministry called him, so we'd have to attribute it to them if we used that. Does the LBC podcast intro page qualify per
WP:BLP as a "high-quality" source? --
DeFacto (
talk).
21:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Yes, PlymouthLive might be a wiki-mirror. You think an attribution to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia) will clarify this fact for the reader? Or using
LBC? Hahaha. That his middle name is "Luther" is just a simple fact. We both know that, don't we? Good job we have the trusty The London Gazette entry (compete with Service Number)!
Martinevans123 (
talk)
21:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply
The fact that it's in the template doesn't justify including it, even if it was supported in the article body somewhere, does it? --
DeFacto (
talk).
20:05, 27 March 2024 (UTC)reply