Talk:Democratic Unionist Party

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Democratic Unionist Party article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 90 days

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Conservatism Mid‑importance

	Conservatism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Conservatism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of conservatism 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.ConservatismWikipedia:WikiProject ConservatismTemplate:WikiProject ConservatismConservatism articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Unionism in Ireland (defunct)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Unionism in Ireland, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.Unionism in IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject Unionism in IrelandTemplate:WikiProject Unionism in IrelandUnionism in Ireland articles

Politics of the United Kingdom Mid‑importance

	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
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Ireland High‑importance

	Ireland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ireland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ireland 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.IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject IrelandTemplate:WikiProject IrelandIreland articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics: Political parties

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics 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.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Political parties task force (assessed as Low-importance).

Northern Ireland High‑importance

	Northern Ireland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Northern Ireland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Northern Ireland 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.Northern IrelandWikipedia:WikiProject Northern IrelandTemplate:WikiProject Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland-related articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened:

June 4 to 10, 2017 (5th)

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Nagesh, Ashitha (9 June 2017). "DUP Wikipedia page locked to stop people pointing out the party doesn't believe in dinosaurs". Metro (website). Retrieved 2017-08-22. The DUP's Wikipedia page has been locked down after people edited it to point out that the party doesn't believe in dinosaurs. {{cite news}}: no-break space character in |title= at position 85 (help)

Warning: active arbitration remedies

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to the Troubles, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:

You may not make more than 1 revert within 24 hours on this article (except in limited circumstances)
Neutrality: All editors on Troubles-related articles are directed to get the advice of neutral parties via means such as outside opinions.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

OLoughlin, Ed (June 10, 2017). "Britains Election: What the D.U.P. Is, and What It Wants". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

Controversies

Why is there no mention of Scandals in the Controversies section, such as Cash for Ash? 2A02:C7E:2D5F:9500:2C76:8632:707A:3737 (talk) 16:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Social conservatism

I it needed in the infobox, as it already has national conservatism in it. I'd call for British nationalism to be removed, but as it's an article, instead of nationalism in general, I won't for its removal. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2024 DUP leadership election

There was a Wikipedia page for the 2024 DUP leadership election but it seems like it has been deleted. Does anyone here know why? Tagging Moondragon21 as I see you moved the page "2024 Democratic Unionist Party leadership election" to redirect to this page. Helper201 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Helper201 - Wish I could help but I do not know why it was originally deleted. Moondragon21 (talk) 20:03, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moondragon21, no worries. Thanks for the reply. Helper201 (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Associations with loyalist paramilitaries

For discussion of an edit to the paragraph "Associations with loyalist paramilitaries". The edit was made in April 2024 by the editor Athousandcuts2005.

The content of the edit is as follows: "Former DUP member Jim Allister represented loyalist Clifford McKeown in court in 2003.[195] McKeown, who was already serving 12 years for gun possession, was ultimately found guilty of the murder of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick in 1996, said to have been done as a "birthday present" for Billy Wright.[195] Allister said that McKeown would be appealing against the conviction.[195] Allister rejoined the DUP in 2004, and served as an MEP for the party from 2004 to 2007, before leaving to form the Traditional Unionist Voice, a party opposed to the St Andrews Agreement of 2006. "

Here is the newspaper source cited in the edit.

If Athousandcuts2005 (or anyone else) has any opinion on the following then I'd be happy to discuss.

I have several reservations regarding the inclusion of this edit in the article.

The newspaper source cited does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party at all. The source is, in fact, a tabloid newspaper article about a legal trial regarding a murder in which a Loyalist terrorist called Clifford McKeown was the defendant. The trial took place in 2003, the murder in 1996.

However, the edit contrives to associate the DUP with this legal case by mention of the Northern Irish unionist politician Jim Allister who, in his professional life, was a barrister at law and acted as defence lawyer for Clifford Mckeown at this trial in 2003. At the time of the trial, Mr Allister was not a member of the DUP. In fact, I believe that in 2003 he wasn't a member of any political party. The edit describes him as a "former DUP member" and then tells us that he rejoined the DUP in 2004, before proceeding to give some further information on Mr Allister's political career. Note that the source mentions only that Jim Allister was Clifford McKeown's legal representative but does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party nor Mr Allister's prior or later membership of it.

Wikipedia has some core guidelines; one of which is that editors should "cite sources focused on the topic at hand, where possible" [1].

The "topic at hand" here is the Democratic Unionist Party but the cited source does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party.

Another core guideline is that editors should not engage in Coatracking. "A coatrack article is a Wikipedia article that gets away from its nominal subject, and instead gives more attention to one or more connected but tangential subjects."

In this case, I would say that the "nominal subject" of the article is the Democratic Unionist Party but the edit concerns "tangential subjects" Clifford Mckeown and Jim Allister (in fact, editor Athousandcuts2005 added a similar edit to the Wikipedia article on Jim Allister).

Another core guideline is that edits should contain No Original Research "To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented."

The source does indeed "support the material presented" in the edit but it isn't "directly related to the topic of the article".

In conclusion, if a source can be provided which explicitly links the Democratic Unionist Party to the trial of Clifford McKeown then there may be a case for including that trial in the "Associations with loyalist paramilitaries" paragraph of this Wikipedia article. If no such source can be provided then there is no reason to include mention of either Clifford McKeown or Jim Allister in that paragraph. BrownBowler (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to my own post: in the absence of any discussion, I've removed the edit in its entirety for the reasons stated above. BrownBowler (talk) 08:19, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]