Talk:2011 Scottish Conservatives leadership election

Sunday Times article: "‘Toxic’ Scottish Tory party faces abolition"

Please see Talk:Scottish Conservative Party#Sunday Times article: "‘Toxic’ Scottish Tory party faces abolition" --Mais oui! (talk) 05:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

"Voodoo" poll?

This article is actually surprisingly good. Surprising, because most Scottish politics articles on Wikipedia are absolutely dire, so it doesn't take much to shine.

However, I am a bit concerned by the section beginning "A poll conducted by the online website Tory Hoose between". Correct me if I'm wrong, but Tory Hoose looks very much like a blog, and WP:VERIFY snobs tend to have very low opinions of blogs as reliable external sources.

The whole paragraph just screams "Voodoo poll" and I would advise that it is totally removed, or at the very least very heavily qualified. Mais oui! (talk) 15:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I hate to sound repetitive, but blogs are not considered to be reliable external references, so using one as a ref doesn't help matters. In fact, it makes it even worse. Mais oui! (talk) 16:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, but Tory Hoose appears to be an actual website, see [1], and it is undoubtedly the only place where such a poll will be found. I hope this acts as clarification, but if you still suggest that the section is removed, I will do so.Mwhite148 (talk) 16:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I quite like these informal polls that newspapers, websites and blogs sometimes run, but it is a grave error to place too much weight on them. Anyone can vote (not just Con members!) and there are very rarely safeguards to prevent multiple votes. Further, the respondents are not properly weighted (gender, age group, socio-economic group etc); and I would strongly suspect that quite a lot of SNP/Lab/LD/Grn activists voted, and you do not have to be a Machiavellian genius to realise that they are unlikely to boost the strongest candidate! Mais oui! (talk) 17:35, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Times article: "the Union between Scotland and England is in jeopardy if it does not elect Murdo Fraser as its new leader"

• "The stark message from Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign, Defence and Scottish Secretary, comes in a personal endorsement for Mr Fraser made available to The Times. Sir Malcolm says that Mr Fraser’s plan for the Scottish Tories to be replaced by a new centre-right party is “a bold and brave move of the sort that is needed if we are to be successful once again in Scotland and ensure that the Union is saved”... “I believe that his proposals are the right direction for our party. When I first became active in the 1960s we called ourselves Scottish Unionists. The Party organisation was separate from that in England as was the voluntary side of the Party. These were the years when we achieved more than 50 per cent of the Scottish vote and had 20 to 30 MPs in the Commons. The last 30 to 40 years have been painful for the party. A change of name can make sense when there is the rebirth of a party. Sir Walter Scott, John Buchan and Sir Alec Douglas Home were proud to be Scottish Unionists. We must maintain our values and beliefs but never fear to move with the times.”... A firm of bookmakers puts Ms Davidson as the narrow favourite. Stan James quote odds of 11-10 on the 32-year-old MSP, with Mr Fraser, the party’s current deputy leader, at 6-5. Mr Carlaw is quoted at 6-1 with Mrs Mitchell at 10-1."

Angus Macleod Scottish Political Editor September 27 2011
--Mais oui! (talk) 04:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

"Murdo Fraser mulls new names to lose 'toxic' Tory tag"

• "Potential names for the Scottish Conservative party include Scotland First, the Scottish Reform Party and even The Caledonians, according to a leaked document. The paper has been drawn up by the deputy leader Murdo Fraser, who has pledged to "detoxify" the Tory brand north of the border. The confidential paper reveals that Murdo Fraser's team has six options for a replacement name if he wins the leadership next month."

Eddie Barnes, Scotland on Sunday, 2 October 2011
--Mais oui! (talk) 06:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Images

This article badly needs images of the four candidates, as it may hinder the article from reaching good-article status. If you are in possession of free images, if you can obtain free images, or if you know where to find free images online, please post the details here or if possible, upload them on the [2].Mwhite148 (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Scottish Conservative Party leadership election, 2011/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Dana boomer (talk · contribs) 16:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'll be reviewing this article for GA status and should have the full review up soon. Dana boomer (talk) 16:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to fail this article's GA nomination. There are significant problems, most notably with referencing, that prevent the article from being promoted to GA status at this time. Here are the most significant problems:

• Lack of referencing in many areas that give opinions, statistics and quotes. These include (examples!) the second paragraph of the 2011 Scottish Parliament Election section, first paragraph of Reaction to Murdo Fraser's proposal section, first paragraph of Reaction to result section, and the first paragraph of the Post leadership election events section.
• Many references missing basic information (titles, publishers, access dates for web references)
• Several dead links, leading to additional unreferenced information
• Twitter is not a reliable reference (refs #23, 24)
• I do not understand the need for non-free images of three campaign logos. These are not discussed in the text, seeing them adds nothing to the reader's understanding of the candidates or the election. The slogans can be easily given in the text, if knowing them is integral to the reader's understanding of the candidates.
• The Timeline of events section should be integrated into the body of the article. Otherwise, it duplicates much of the information already given and is also much more list-like than article like.
• Undue weight on the profile of the man who took second place. The winner's policies are given two sentences while the second-place man is given three large paragraphs. Later on three more paragraphs are given to reactions to Fraser's proposal, without even discussing the winner's thoughts on the subject. The fact that the guy who came in second has all of these ideas and proposals means nothing when he came in second. Give more air time to the woman who came in first, since it will be her leadership that will guide the party in the near future.
• Campaign hustings section needs more context. It does nothing to tell the reader that there were debates - there are debates in almost every election in many countries around the world. Give the reader more information on who won the debates, what topics were debated, etc.

I think that these issues will take more time to address than the typical hold period, and that because of the scope of the weighting, organization and referencing issues it may be better to address them outside of the pressures of GAN. I look forward to seeing this article appear again at WP:GAN when the above issues have been addressed. Please let me know if you have any questions, Dana boomer (talk) 16:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for taking time to review the article. Reading what you've said, I think some of it will be quite easy to sort (referencing, dead links, timeline), and info on the hustings is readily available on a party website called 'Tory Hoose'. But given the precious-little media coverage that the election got, it will be a challenge to find more on the policies of Ruth Davidson. As well as the fact that she was elected on nothing more than a 'Stop-Murdo' policy platform. I will continue to work on this article, and once again, thank you for reviewing. Mwhite148 (talk) 18:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

If there are sources that discuss Davidson's "Stop-Murdo" policy platform, this might be good. I didn't really get the impression from the article that this was her main focus, so if that is the case it should be made more clear in the article. My main issue with this was the length/amount of the attention that Murdo currently receives in the article, versus the lack of attention that Davidson receives. Since they were the two main candidates, their section should be approximately the same length (or Davidson's slightly longer) to avoid undue weight on one candidate, especially a candidate that was not successful. In my opinion, at least... The article currently gives a list of what Fraser pledge to do if he were elected - was there a similar list released by Davidson, or did she say anything throughout the campaign about what she planned to do if elected? I know that inter-party elections are often hard to find independent sources for, but as much as possible it is best to stay away party websites, candidate websites, facebook and twitter. Obviously if you're sourcing "Jane Doe said..." to Jane Doe's website, that's fine, but sourcing "Brian Brown says Jane Doe is awesome" to Jane Doe's website is not so good... Dana boomer (talk) 18:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Dana--it appears Mwhite is up to the challenge of getting the aticle up to standards. How about a 7 day hold? – Lionel ^(talk) 22:12, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

At this point I think it would probably be best to work on the article outside the time pressures of GAN, as I said above. Mwhite is obviously allowed to renominate the article at GAN whenever he feels it is ready. During December there is a reviewing drive going on at GAN, so it is likely to get picked up fairly quickly if he renominates within the month. However, sometimes it takes a while to take care of referencing issues. Dana boomer (talk) 23:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111013154755/http://www.toryhoose.com/2011/10/murdos-pledges-to-the-party/ to http://www.toryhoose.com/2011/10/murdos-pledges-to-the-party/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111027223018/http://www.toryhoose.com/2011/10/david-mcletchie-endorses-fraser/ to http://www.toryhoose.com/2011/10/david-mcletchie-endorses-fraser/
• Added archive https://archive.is/20111005145344/http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/Tory-MP-hits-out-at.6846147.jp to http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/Tory-MP-hits-out-at.6846147.jp
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120402083044/http://www.ruthdavidson.co.uk/2011/09/11/lord-forsyth-backs-ruth/ to http://www.ruthdavidson.co.uk/2011/09/11/lord-forsyth-backs-ruth/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111011010458/http://www.ruthdavidson.co.uk/2011/10/04/lord-strathclyde-backs-ruth-leadership-contest/ to http://www.ruthdavidson.co.uk/2011/10/04/lord-strathclyde-backs-ruth-leadership-contest/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110512053634/http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6934008/a-leadership-contest-might-be-just-what-the-scottish-tories-need.thtml to http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6934008/a-leadership-contest-might-be-just-what-the-scottish-tories-need.thtml

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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