Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liverpolitan identity

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep‎. Procedural only, the nominator has not made an argument for deletion or redirection per WP:SK1. ——Serial Number 54129 15:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC) (non-admin closure) ——Serial Number 54129 15:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Liverpolitan identity[edit]

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I am fixing the formatting of this AfD discussion after Orange sticker's initial nomination. I'm not proposing an action at this stage. Jonathan Deamer (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why has an editor done this without any explanation? Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 15:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was typing my reasons while you posted this!

Arguments in article are either uncited, or citations do not support the argument. The word Scouse refers to both the accent and identity of people from Liverpool. This word is not in common use and the citations show this, rather than support the author's argument. There is a website called Liverpolitan (https://liverpolitan.co.uk/) and it is likely that this is an attempt to promote their brand.

Orange sticker (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. this is not an attempt to promote their brand. I am not affiliated in any way to this brand. All citations are provided and have been interpreted exactly how the author wrote them. Remove reference to Liverpolitan magazine if you feel that this is the case. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is an outrageous comment. Every single part of the article has been cited and every single citations supports what I have written. Please provide very clear examples of your argument. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 15:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, History, and England. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 16:06, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's a raft of issues with raised, most of which not associated with each other.

Liverpolitan is a valid term, but the term is not hugely popular or common compared to the term Scouser or Liverpudlian or similar. Therefore 90% of the sources are actually generic articles about people from Liverpool rather than supporting the use of the term of "Liverpolitan" or the "Liverpolitan identity". This puts the content into a WP:SYNTH / WP:OR bracket. It really needs a strong supportive independently sourced articles about the Liverpolitan Identity to support it in the first case (I haven't yet read all the sources, but as it isn't No.1 on the list I suspect it doesn't exist). If it didn't exist to start with, it probably shouldn't also be in the original source article.
The association with Liverpolitan.co.uk website seems utterly unfounded. There's no associated articles, no attempt to use them as a source, and the only link is the common use of the word "Liverpolitan" between the editor in questions username, and the created page. This is like claiming "Orange sticker" is only here to promote the brand orange.com; and it should be withdrawn as a matter of order.

This is already on unsound footing, but appreciate Jonathan Deamer trying to tidy it up. Koncorde (talk) 17:22, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Valid points Koncorde. I appreciate that we will probably reach consensus on how to tidy this up. I can categorically confirm that I am not associated to the Liverpolitan magazine. I wish for the contributor to retract that. My username is coincidental and you are perfectly correct to point that out so thank you. Perhaps it might need a simple change of wording to the lede section. And I think it is fair to argue that if something might seem subjectively nonconformist that is not grounds to delete anything. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken on board some comments and made some improvements. The page name has been changed to 'Liverpolitan' as opposed to 'Liverpolitan identity'. The wording of the lede has also been changed to support the sourcing. A further explanation can be made within the lede for any further clarification. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 19:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to withdraw my assumption that the author was affiliated to the blog. As it is pretty much the only result on the first page of Google I thought it was worth flagging. This further supports my argument that this is article does not meet notability guidelines. Unfortunately the author has removed the WP:N template I added. Orange sticker (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep This AfD does not begin with a clearly articulated deletion rationale and it is unclear who the nominator is. There are no bolded Keep or Delete comments. This should be withdrawn by the nominator because it is such a mess. Cullen328 (talk) 01:57, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, as I was typing my original post the author had already posted a comment which created a conflict and my post was lost. I agree it should be closed and reopened in the correct format. Orange sticker (talk) 13:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep - Agree; perhaps suggesting would have been a better approach than my tidying up of another editor's nomination. Jonathan Deamer (talk) 06:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Unfortunately, I think the nominator has chosen to take this article far too personally. I have clear evidence on social media that the editor is politically motivated to undermine this work because she personally hates the subject and identifies as a Scouser. She has called the Liverpolitan demonym an attempt by a bunch of snobs to encourage stigma against the city of Liverpool. This is simply not a good enough reason to delete well written, well researched work which has taken many hours to carefully interpret and elucidate. The editor clearly has also not read the citations. Everything written in the article is supported by them. To suggest there are few results on the term is also disingenuous. There are clear results for Liverpolitan as an historic term dating back to the Victorian age.

Amongst: scholars https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Liverpolitan%22

JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=liverpolitan&so=rel

Books https://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&q=%22Liverpolitan%22+-wikipedia

Furthermore, there are articles on Wiki regarding tribes and languages that most of the world has never heard of and probably never will. Should we go around deleting them all because they are not popular. Wiki is not a popularity contest between identities. The editor above should withdraw the nomination. She has also been accommodated through improvements to the article. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 09:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A few thoughts here:

The AfD should be closed, and the article renominated properly.
Nearly all sources for the word I could find (especially book sources) are passing mentions of the magazine.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary.
"Scouse" is in a different register. The much more commonly (than "Liverpolitan") used word "Liverpudlian" is in a slightly "posher" register as this word is claimed to be. What is the difference? Phil Bridger (talk) 12:50, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The WP:COMMONNAME for people and things related to Liverpool is 'Liverpudlian'. Setting up an article about the identity of people from Liverpool and calling it 'Liverpolitan' was clearly going to be controversial.

The common sense resolution here would be for the article title to be changed to 'Liverpudlian', the content to be completely rewritten to be about the identity itself, not about the history of the words used to describe that identity, and a small section on 'Liverpolitan' included somewhere near the end of the article.

Anything else is just someone pushing a fringe point of view and creating an article to lead opinion. Axad12 (talk) 12:56, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think you have misused the WP:COMMONNAME policy here. That policy simply means that an article should be allocated the appropriate name to reflect its content. In this case Liverpolitan is the correct title for the page as it is the most dominant subject within the article. As for "Liverpudlian" that topic has already been discussed within the article. Wikipedia does not shy away from controversy, nor does it shy away from noncomformist identities, however, some people like to demean them, ignore them or pretend they are of little worth or significance. The article has taken great pains to simplify the fact that Scouse is the most popular demonym. It does not pretend otherwise so that must allay any confusion. Therefore, the article displays sufficient Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 13:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So you say, as the author.

There is clearly an argument that Wikipedia is not the place for an article which would more accurately be titled 'Use of the term Liverpolitan'. If you can't see that then you're too invested in the subject.

Also your inference that I'm trying to demean nonconformist identities is completely out of order. Surely an editor can express a genuine good faith opinion about an article without having to put up with an unsubstantiated borderline personal attack of that nature.

It is perfectly clear that my comment related to what I considered the common name for people from Liverpool to be. Nothing else. Axad12 (talk) 14:34, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/Article name change I apologise if you have been offended. But this should not be about pushing a fringe point of view and not about pushing the view that Liverpool only has one identity and one history either. It obviously does not.

Completely re-writing the article or re-naming it to something which is not the most prominent subject is not common sense. The article has already been acknowledged as well researched.

Therefore, let's not misunderstand the common sense policy.

I like your common sense idea to re-name the article to 'Use of the term Liverpolitan' as the title of the page - it is a perfectly acceptable compromise.

Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 15:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re: 'I apologise if you have been offended'. Thank you for the classic non-apology. Would you like to try again with that, or do you consider it okay for editors to make broad-sweeping allegations about the political beliefs of all the editors who disagree with them on interpretations of Wikipedia admin policy?

Your general interpretation of Wikipedia policy seems to be that any policy has sufficient leeway to enable you to do whatever you please and that simply claiming that something is 'common sense' trumps all other considerations. It's also interesting to see (below) that you felt it was appropriate for an article's author to try to sum up the result of the deletion conversation and say what should happen next.

The purpose of these sorts of conversations is primarily for uninterested editors to express their opinions, not for the article's author to dominate the discussion by taking immediate issue with every opinion that they disagree with and trying to falsely discredit other good faith editors expressing reasonable concerns. Axad12 (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My apology was made with good faith. As for 'what happens next'. Of course I am part of that conversation.Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is well known that 'I apologise if you have been offended' is a specific formula widely used to make intentionally bad faith non-apologies.

You may have had an unpleasant experience with another user off-Wiki, and I deplore that as much as you do, but that is no reason to imply that a 3rd party who also happens to disagree with you is motivated by the same aims.

It is regrettable that you don't seem able to acknowledge that.

Okay, I'm done here. Axad12 (talk) 16:34, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment WP:COMMON The common sense thing to do would be to leave things as they are and to allow the article to develop. Contributors are of course free to add independent, reliable, English-language sources of their own or to make additions to the article itself. To take a sledgehammer to the whole thing is, in and of itself, pushing a view that Liverpool has one identity. Enough leeway is already given for contributors to embelish on the Scouse article, even to add the Liverpudlian identity on there. There is enough room to expand that article since it says very little about the fact that the Scouse identity did not come in to being until the mid-20th century. Editors are disingenuous to leave that fact out.

The person who started this whole discussion has been caught out on social media pushing a political argument against any references to Liverpolitan. This is beyond impartial judgement and started out this whole discussion with the accusation that I was affiliated to the magazine. In that time, improvements and changes have been made to the article to better reflect the comments made and to ensure a neutral point of view. To recap - the common sense policy recommends not getting too caught up in rules, rather at times that it is better to ignore a rule. Even if a contribution "violates" the precise wording of a rule, it might still be a good contribution. The common goal is to improve Wikipedia so that it better informs readers. The article exudes common sense as it is and it could not be made any clearer that this is not the dominant identity. The controversy suits those with a political goal - not the other way around. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 14:17, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The term still needs supporting with reliable sources that are specific to the term to support an article. Ignoring a basic building block isn't going to work. To discuss the "Liverpolitan identity" there needs to be actual articles discussing the "Liverpolitan identity" specifically to give it actual context, and articles that are not about the "Liverpolitan identity" but instead about Liverpool, Liverpudlians or Scousers are not relevant and blatant WP:OR / WP:SYNTH to try and lend weight to the topic by giving Liverpolitan a primacy that it doesn't have. Liverpolitan could be summed up in about three sentences.

Liverpolitan is a demonym for the inhabitants of Liverpool.
Liverpolitan has been proposed as a demonym for the Liverpool City Region.
The term has not found widespread popularity or usage.

The idea of a "Liverpolitan identity" is therefore incredibly niche. Koncorde (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted to change the article page name to Liverpolitan to allow it more time to develop. An admin has changed the name back to Liverpolitan identity but I would be happy for there to be a name change and allow more time. Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 22:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requires much better sources if it's to be kept. Of the ones I could check, 1 mentions Liverpolitan and several of the others don't even mention Liverpool. Red Fiona (talk) 00:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What references are you checking? Are you checking these? Liverpolitan_identity#References Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 00:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fringe theory[edit]

I have listed the article at the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Liverpolitan identity to garner opinion on whether this article constitutes a fringe theory. According to the these guidelines Wikipedia:Fringe theories, it does not matter much if a subject is not common or well known. Wiki is not a popularity contest. And provided the article does not unfairly or unreasonably present something, it should be ok. I am not completely persuaded that this article meets the criteria for deletion.Liverpolitan1980 (talk) 09:34, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.