A fact from Mhairi Black appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 July 2015 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or
poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially
libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to
this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.
This page is about an active
politician who is running for office or has recently run for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at increased risk of
biased editing, talk-page
trolling, and simple
vandalism.
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following
WikiProjects:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to
join the project and
contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the
documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is of interest to WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all
LGBT-related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, please visit the
project page or contribute to the
discussion.LGBT studiesWikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studiesTemplate:WikiProject LGBT studiesLGBT articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Scotland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Scotland and
Scotland-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ScotlandWikipedia:WikiProject ScotlandTemplate:WikiProject ScotlandScotland articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
This article was created or improved during
Wiki Loves Pride,
2017.Wiki Loves PrideWikipedia:Wiki Loves PrideTemplate:Wiki Loves Pride talkWiki Loves Pride articles
Already an MP?
Is she an MP the moment the election is over? If not, she shouldn't be listed as one quite yet. I don't know the system, so it's an honest question.
24.0.139.28 (
talk)
04:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Yes she is - victorious candidates become MPs the moment the returning officer declares someone elected. There are formalities before they can take their seat (e.g. swearing the oath of allegiance to the queen, which Sinn Fein MPs refuse to do and so cannot take their seats but e.g.
Pat Doherty is still an MP).
Thryduulf (
talk)
04:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Though she isn't now.
Young MPs
Is there a list of the youngest MPs somewhere? Say, anyone aged less than 21?
Baby of the House only goes back to 1880, and
Records of members of parliament of the United Kingdom only mentions the most extreme examples (which is what seems to have misled the press, and once one made the mistake, they all copied it; I've now added some of the more recent examples, and the references that were deleted from this article).
It is extrordinary the number of sources now saying that she is the yougest MP since 1667, or for 350 years, both claims which are patently untrue. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
213.205.251.112 (
talk)
07:31, 9 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Nationality
There is not currently a consensus that citizenship is the same thing as nationality in general, let alone on this specific page. If you wish to make the case for changing Scottish to British, please do so here.
GideonF (
talk)
15:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)reply
I see no "vote" anywhere, and in any case consensus is established by discussion and quality of argument, not votes. I therefore think
this edit is inappropriate. Since she was born in Scotland, represents a Scottish constituency, is a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party and is on record as supporting Scottish independence, it is safe to say that she self-identifies as "Scottish" rather than "British".
MaxBrowne (
talk)
02:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Perhaps as a compromise: Scottish for nationality, UK for place of birth. A
nation is an "ethnic community", a group of people with a common identity, so Scottish is within the bounds of the term nationality. Place of birth, on the other hand, is a statement of fact and the UK is the correct legal entity in this case; which will remain true whether or not Scotland secedes from the Union. -
AdamBMorgan (
talk)
00:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)reply
As there was no objection, I have gone ahead and made this change. Additional to my reasoning above, the documentation for {{Infobox person}} says "city, administrative region, sovereign state. Use the name of the birthplace at the time of birth..." Scotland is not a sovereign state and even if it becomes so the UK would be correct at time of birth. -
AdamBMorgan (
talk)
15:23, 11 June 2015 (UTC)reply
I have just reverted an IP user who changed the infobox to British but did not change the prose. I do not care which is used, but consensus should be formed for one or other, and the article must remain internally consistent until that time. It is solely to maintain consistency that I chose to revert. I debated protection, but semi-protection will not solve the issue and I don't think full protection is justified at this point - if the edit warring continues though it will be applied until consensus is formed.
Thryduulf (
talk)
19:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Scotland is a country; The
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a nation. People who are citizens of The UK of GB&NI have British nationality, not nationality of their respective countries. While I'm sure that many Scots are proudly "Scottish (not British)", I don't believe that treating nationality as a "self identifiable" property improves the encyclopedia. -
Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'17:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)reply
Since Scotland has a Parliament of its own and a quite distinct legal system with a distinct set of rights and responsibilities for people who live there, often different to those living in England, I don't see why you have such a problem about allowing people to define their own national identity in this case. Notable people born in Scotland tend to be known by sources more often as 'Scots' rather than 'Brits' - it is part of their identity and we would lose some colour and flavour of biographies if we try and squash them into compliance with our own strict ideas. --
ℕℱ18:07, 11 June 2015 (UTC)reply
Hi
NF, Many thanks for your response. I do acknowledge that Scotland has its own Parliament, and distinct legal system (including the elegant "not proven" verdict), and that there is a strong and well documented identification of Scottish peoples with Scotland, as opposed to Britain. Notwithstanding this, Scotland is not yet
the nation again; and the nationality field in the Infobox should reflect this. I do not mean to suggest that we should not include within the text of this article (or any other article on a person from Scotland) that the subject is Scottish; it would be ridiculous to leave that out or to misrepresent it.
Similarly, I don't believe that we should include "Italian American" or "Basque" or "Orcadian" or "Manx" in the nationality field within Infoboxes; if we wish to include ethnicity or country details then we should have those as fields.
I suggest "Scottish" in the text, and "British" in the nationality field; and, given the rather unique nature of the UK, I don't see this as incongruent. I hope that this helps to clarify the intent of my previous comment. -
Ryk72'c.s.n.s.'00:45, 12 June 2015 (UTC)reply
Might we not follow some precedent in the infobox or at least find out what that might be? Sean Connery's article for example gives his place of birth as 'Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom' (incidently how you'd also address letters/parcels in the UK if sending from country to country). Yet others such as Ewen McGregor & Alan Cumming are both just 'Perth, Scotland'. I'd also consider nationality accurately as Scottish, as on the official census it is listed as one of the options (i.e, 'Scottish Only'). National identity is separate and distinct from citizenship.
Eziser (
talk)
08:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)reply
She apparently pronounces it "Mary". There are lots of citations for that; I looked when I first read this article and added a note so others didn't have to. I've only included one citation here because it shouldn't really need much to back it up but that are more if you Google. -
AdamBMorgan (
talk)
21:58, 13 May 2015 (UTC)reply
"It shouldn't really need much to back it up"?! The linked article seems unfindable, but what a quick google does turn up is this
tweet from Mhairi herself saying it's pronounced (as one would expect) to rhyme with "marry". This might seem to be as clear as it gets, but it requires a caveat for American or other English speakers in whose accent "Mary" and "marry" are homophonous -- not in hers. She means /'mari/ not /'mɛri/ (RP equivalents /'mɑːri/ or /'mæri/ not /'mɛəri/). I've altered the IPA accordingly.
Flapdragon (
talk)
00:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Regarding the [əˈvaːɾʲɪ] pronunciation, my guess is she decided at some point not to go through her entire life explaining that "mh" is pronounced "v" in Gaelic. Maybe her family use that pronunciation, who knows?
MaxBrowne (
talk)
03:18, 23 May 2015 (UTC)reply
I'm puzzled as well. I'm sure I first read that she pronounces it as "Mary", but more recently that it's "marry". But the pronunciation now given in the lead is neither, and there's no indication of where it came from. (There was a girl at my primary school called Mhairi-Claire - I usually heard the first part pronounced as "marry", but we can't draw any conclusions from this.) Is there any evidence of how her parents pronounce it? Who should be considered the authoritative source - Mhairi herself, her mum, her dad, or someone else entirely? —
Smjg (
talk)
21:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)reply
Some anonymous pedant has added "the correct Scottish Gaelic pronunciation" to the lead of the article. What right have we to correct how she says her own name?
NRPanikker (
talk)
03:02, 6 December 2022 (UTC)reply
Sexual Orientation
In compliance with
WP:BLP, I don't think she should be classified as LGBT on the basis of a single article in the New Statesman. NS is a reliable enough source, but the article itself was written by a US University professor who mentions it only in passing and offers no other evidence. The NS article was picked up by the Daily Mail, but this is one of the world's worst newspapers and shouldn't be used as a source for anything.
MaxBrowne (
talk)
23:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)reply
It's said that she is the youngest MP since the 1600s, but the Parliament of Great Britain didn't exist before 1707. Before that, England and Scotland has separate parliaments. Shouldn't this be noted? (And if true, doesn't this make her the youngest MP in the history of the parliament of Great Britain?)
76.105.179.191 (
talk)
05:17, 16 May 2015 (UTC)reply
The link to the 1903 Porritt & Porritt book makes it plain that there were many underage people elected in the 18th century, and the rules about members under age 21 were frequently ignored if they only took their seat and only spoke in the Commons, but if they voted and somebody brought the matter up they could be fined £500 and lose their seat. -
Arwel Parry(talk)09:50, 24 May 2015 (UTC)reply
Mhairi Black MAY not even be the youngest MP of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (i.e. since the union with Ireland in 1800).
Lord John Russell was 20 years old when his father, the Duke of Bedford, instructed the voters of Tavistock to elect him as their MP in 1813. Whether he was younger depends on the exact date of the election, which I don't have at hand.
NRPanikker (
talk)
12:44, 20 May 2022 (UTC)reply
Online views of Maiden Speech
A substantive link to an article which discusses the algorithms used by some social media platforms when calculating "views" is being removed without comment by the same user. The 10 millions claim comes from platforms such Facebook which do not calculate according to individual or full viewings as conducted by Youtube: it can be as little as three seconds on a newsfeed of someone who did not knowingly view it. If this is to be removed, then so should the whole claim as it arguably creates a misleading impression.
@
Caithness: If you look at the revision history for the article
page history perhaps you will be able to see that two different users reverted your change, and in each case a suitable comment was given as to why. See
WP:BRD for how things are meant to work. Firstly users are welcomed to make 'bold' changes to an article. If a second user disagrees with that change, then it is correct for them to revert it, which should then trigger a discussion on the talkpage concerning the merits of the proposed change BEFORE any further edits or reversions are made. It is not OK as you have done to try to remake a change several times without further discussion on the talkpage, and this is considered to be edit warring. Now, to the merits of the change. As I pointed out in my edit description, the change you are making is technically a form of
WP:SYNTH. There are two statements that are sourced, A: Mhairi got 10m views, B: in general questions have been raised about the accuracy of page view estimates. You are effectively using these on this page to draw the conclusion that C: there is a question mark over the accuracy of the 10m views for Mhairi's maiden speech video. This is not however a conclusion that is specifically drawn in either of the reliable sources cited. Therefore it represents a form of
original research on your part. If you find a reliable sources which raises questions about the specific case of these 10m views then by all means we can look at including that, but without that it isn't correct to add it here. --
ℕℱ19:14, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
There doesn't appear to be any basis to remove the figures currently included in this article. I see that the "10 million views in 5 days" were the figures used by the
BBC News in their coverage. The figure would appear to reflect the substantial interest that there was in her (much anticipated)
Maiden speech. It was a speech that had received significant coverage from every UK news outlet and also from a range of international agencies, which was presumably a factor that was fuelling the viewing figures. For example,
Time had picked up on the story within hours, see here:
Watch This 20-Year-Old Legislator Completely Own the U.K. Parliament With a Dazzling Speech. @
Caithness: had posted a link to
this article from 2014, which briefly looks at different ways that people can share links to video clips (and whether publisher's profits would be affected by click-through rates). That article does mention a change in an algorithm to push news feeds, but it doesn't discuss this in any detail. Also, that article doesn't have any direct connection to the interest shown in Mhairi Black's speech. Perhaps this would be better explored somewhere like the
Viral video article, which does begin to consider what might constitute a "view".
Drchriswilliams (
talk)
19:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
I'm slightly confused, since nobody had suggested removing the figures. --
ℕℱ 19:43, 20 July 2015 (UTC) Nope I see that they have now, ignore me. --
ℕℱ19:45, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
@
Nonsenseferret:,@
Drchriswilliams: Fair enough if I got lost in the brief edit summaries, but the 10m claim emphatically is being presented as 10m individual views which cannot be substantiated. The BBC article does not specify this and appears not to have conducted its own research, instead accepting the claim uncritically arising from lack of appreciation of newly developed algorithms. The claim has become self-referencing, and frankly is no more or no less reliable as the HuffPo link which comes from another recognized reporting agency. My link also makes reference to Facebook's own guidelines which state that this derives from something other than individuals viewing their videos in their entirety. It could be one Facebook user with x00,000 'likes' posting the video on their timeline, and it appearing on hundreds of thousands of individual newsfeeds. Facebook would dispute 10m individual views.
User:Caithness (
talk)
19:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
To put this into context, if I said that a billboard on Piccadilly Circus had been viewed two thousand times in one hour, would you think that two thousand people had looked at it intensely and taken in the full design? Or would you suspect that two thousand people simply had walked past it and glanced in its direction? The first is equivalent to the way "online views" is being presented to people without an appreciation of what they mean, but the second is plainly closer to the truth.
User:Caithness (
talk)
20:02, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
The thing is, wikpedia isn't about us doing our research to work out the truth of the matter, we simply summarise what independent reliable sources say about a subject (see
WP:TRUTH). In this case a large number of well respected sources have reported the 10m figure of views, and indeed the Herald Scotland is already putting the figure close to 11m. None of these sources have questioned the figures, so until they do, we don't have a basis for doing so either because to do so is substituting our personal opinions ahead of what reliable sources say. --
ℕℱ20:08, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
And my point is that this claim is not dispassionate. It originates from from Black's own publicity team as a reading of the BBC News article should indicate, and has been challenged from within the BBC itself. Putting it out there without comment only serves to make a non-science/technology readership more ignorant by not explaining essential concepts for the full understanding of the claim. If a Wikipedia article is going to refer to something gathered from Facebook, then surely it should offer clues as to how Facebook conducts this gathering?
User:Caithness (
talk)
20:14, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
The claim is made by independent reliable sources
ITV,
Independent,
The Sunday Times,
Herald Scotland. It is reasonable for us to rely on the widespread reputation for fact-checking and accuracy enjoyed by each of these. None of them have questioned the figures that I can see. Unless there is such a source, it is incorrect of us to try and draw our own conclusions separately from the sources and insert them into the article, that is the very definition of
original research. That sort of thing is important and appropriate for blogs and the like, but is not appropriate for wikipedia. --
ℕℱ20:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
Secondary sources which have all taken it from the same place through self-perpetuation iirc a factually wrong claim made on to Andrew Neil on the BBC when he immediately challenged it. It has become compounded by lack of understanding of what an "online view" is. I note that even this article does not use that phrase but simply states "views". This is the equivalent of a mischievous edit on Wikipedia becoming accepted as fact through appeal to authority.
User:Caithness (
talk)
20:39, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
Can you provide an independent reliable source which raises questions about this figure? Again I can only point you to
WP:TRUTH. You might well find wikipedia's reliance on independent secondary sources to be unsatisfactory, and indeed many people are uncomfortable with that, but that is the policy we have to follow. No matter how true you believe a claim is, if it cannot be verified by reference to a reliable source, then it isn't appropriate for wikipedia. --
ℕℱ20:46, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
The HuffPo article should be an independent reliable source as are the Facebook guidelines it mentions. These are not random amateur blogs but just as reliable - or not - as BBC News. Nor are they discussing the video itself, but the reality of "online views". If a Wikipedia article is going to mention this it should allow mention of what it actually is instead of pandering to the misleading impression that it is an individual dedicated view. The Andrew Neil recording is not online afaict but
here are
just two comments from his verified Twitter feed. I also note that I have difficulty finding a single MP's Wikipedia page which goes into this much generous detail about maiden speeches, including uncritical comments from their own colleagues: this is where hagiography starts.
User:Caithness (
talk)
21:03, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
You are running around in circles. The HuffPo article does not mention Mhairi or her speech. To use it in this context to draw a conclusion that no reliable source has done is therefore
WP:SYNTH as I've said several times. Leaving aside the fact that twitter, and other social media, are not regarded as reliable sources due to the lack of editorial oversight, the tweets say that the hits were not on youtube - the video was hosted in multiple places. Nobody has claimed in this article that they were only on youtube. We can't substitute our own subjective opinions on how much coverage particular MPs should get. For the purposes of wikipedia we objectively look at how much coverage there is in reliable sources. Like it or not, and I personally do not like it, the independent reliable sources have given many more column inches to discussing the details of her speech and its reception amongst the public than to any other maiden speech that I can remember. And it is that which provides the objective definition of importance for wikipedia's purposes --
ℕℱ21:17, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
Would you be happier to see a direct quote such as "The BBC reported on 19 July that "The maiden speech by Westminster's youngest MP Mhairi Black has been viewed online more than 10 million times."" per
BBC. --
ℕℱ21:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)reply
Twitter usage
Is the section about her tweets prior to being elected MP relevant in any way? Teenagers swear, drink, party and complain. Why include it as part of her bio?
sikander (
talk)
20:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)reply
It has come up in reliable sources (
example), furthermore the quotation involving half a can of Tenants and a pizza doesn't appear to have been received negatively, quite the reverse. Sources seem to suggest the old Tweets simply prove she is more in touch with "normal" people than most MPs.
Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:52, 8 September 2017 (UTC)reply
I have just modified 3 external links on
Mhairi Black. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit
this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with
this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with
this tool.
With respect to footnote 12 and "[a]ccording to The Tablet she is a Catholic.[12]", at around 1:01:10 in a talk she gave Apr 5th, 2018 Mhairi Black asserted she is a "staunch atheist".