Talk:Ulster Scots people

Protestant Scottish traditional music

What exactly is Protestant Scottish traditional music? As someone who has played Gaelic Traditional Music (Scottish/Irish/Manx/Cape Breton) for 10 years, I have never heard of this genre and am interested to learn more. I suggest deleting this. I also know many Prodestants from Ulster who play Irish/Scottish trad music and doubt that you can desect Ulster Scots, Irish, Scottish, Scottish Protestants, Scottish hythens, and Scottish Catholics along music lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zimmer79 (talk • contribs) 19:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The definition is quite elementary... Irish/Scottish traditional music plus a lambeg drum = Scottish Protestant traditional music! 92.235.178.44 (talk) 14:44, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not Ulster-Scots that's Irish and Scottish music respectively, you're trying to invent a genre that doesn't exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.37.254.47 (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Why the flags?

I know there was an earlier discussion of a misused flag image, but I'm wondering why all the flags are currently even in this article. They don't seem to illustrate the article in any way, but just fill space. I think they should be removed. There is no official flag for Ulster Scots identity as much as some people would wish there were. — ★Parsa ☞ talk 16:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm also curious - removing them outright messes with the formatting a bit but I am strongly tempted to do so given it's been brought up a couple times on the talk page and as far as I can tell no one has defended them. LookOnMyEditsYeMighty^(talk) 05:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed them, since they don't improve the article in any way and seem to have been added as decoration. We'll see if that sticks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Someone reverted me, but has not provided any kind of rationale.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:01, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Alssa1, what is your reasoning, in the face of objections from three other editors?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the objections to the inclusion of flags are incredibly recent (we've had them on the page since 2009). They don't harm the article, and their long-standing presence suggests implies a long-standing consensus of them being on the page. They take nothing away from the article, and their presence is not in breach of any wiki rules - therefore I don't agree that it is legitimate to remove them. Alssa1 (talk) 14:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

They are in breach of wiki rules. You appear not to have read MOS:FLAGS.

• Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality – such as military units or national sports teams. ... Terms such as "country" and "nation" as used [here] should be understood to also apply to other uses of flags, such as national subdivisions. Ulster Scots are not the repesenatives of any jurisdiction.
• Use a historical flag and associated country name when they have at least a semi-officially applicable rationale to use them. For example, in lists of Olympic medalists, the USSR flag and country name should be used for reporting before 1992, not those of the Russian Federation or the CIS. Nothing like that applies here, to create a big vertical gallery of flags, as Ulster Scots are not formal representatives, like a sports team, of anywhere or "anywhen" to which those flags pertain.
• It may in some narrow military history circumstances be appropriate to use flags, as they were used at the time being written about, including naval ensigns.... An example might be an in-depth exploration of a famous battle involving numerous forces with known flags; such flags might be used in summary tables to make it clearer which force was being referred to for a particular detail. Ulster Scots are not a military unit, and this is nothing like use of small identifying flags in a table.
• Entities without flags until after a certain point in time: Some subnational entities have not had flags until recently (e.g. the Welsh flag has only been official since 1959). While this flag can still represent Wales generally, it should not be used to represent the country when the context is specifically about a time period predating the flag. Ulster Scots have no flag that pertains to them in particular at all, and do not form a jurisdiction of any kind, much less a sub-national political entity to which a flag applies, now or ever.
• Political issues: Beware of political pitfalls, and listen to concerns raised by other editors. Some flags are (sometimes or always) political statements. Everything about the flag [mis]usage you're trying to insist on is politically laden, from applying a traditional flag of Ireland to people mostly in Northern Ireland, to using an unofficial Ulster flag that is a Unionist symbol, to applying a Scottish flag to people only descended multi-generationally from Scots, to adding the flag of England which really has nothing to do with Ulster Scots or Ulster at all (the English flag is not the Union Jack). And you are certainly not "listen[ing] to concerns raised by other editors" so far.
• Use of flags for non-sovereign states and nations: ... In general, if a flag is felt to be necessary, it should be that of the sovereign state, but Ulster Scots are not a sovereign state, and they cross multiple sovereign states even in their home area. That section of MOS:FLAGS even addresses the UK in particular, suggesting that sometimes (usually not) flags for NI, Scotland, Wales, and England are separably useful in an article, but it does not do so for ethno-sociological groups like Ulster Scots. Back to one of these flags in particular:
• Some flags are politically contentious – take care to avoid using them in inappropriate contexts. Some examples are: ... Use of the Ulster Banner to represent Northern Ireland in inappropriate contexts. This is actually worse, using it to represent people who are not even limited to Northern Ireland but also found in the RoI, especially Donegal. See also Avoid flag usage, especially to present a point of view, that is likely to raise editorial controversy over political or other factual matters about a biography subject. This is clearly politicised and has raised editorial controversy; there's no reason to think this MoS principle doesn't apply to mass-biographical articles and only to individual bios.
• Inappropriate use: Do not emphasize nationality without good reason. Wikipedia is not a place for nationalistic pride. Clear FAIL on that count.
• Flags are visually striking, and placing a national flag next to something can make its nationality or location seem to be of greater significance than other things. ... Emphasizing the importance of a person's citizenship or nationality above their other qualities risks violating Wikipedia's "Neutral point of view" policy. This clearly pertains even more to applying flags to entire groups of people.
• Do not use a flag when a picture of the subject is not available: A flag (or other symbolic image) should not be used as an image placeholder. That's basically what's going on here. Because of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, you are trying to just "decorate" the article by jamming images into it, and have inappropriately selected flags, which are subject to a lot of "regulation" on Wikipedia that you've not bothered to read.
• Do not use subnational flags without direct relevance: Subnational flags (regions, cities, etc.) should generally be used only when directly relevant to the article. Such flags are rarely recognizable by the general public, detracting from any shorthand utility they might have, and are rarely closely related to the subject of the article. We've already covered this above, but in short it is not possible for these flags to be directly relative to a group of people scattered over the entire north of the island of Ireland, of mixed political loyalties and citizenship, and of completely different family-historical backgrounds; the only thing they have in common is some ancestry from Scotland since the Early Modern period (and not from culturally/ethnically homogenous parts of Scotland; Highlanders are largely of Gaelic and Norse extraction, and Lowlanders largely Anglo-Saxon and Norman, but both supplied large numbers of immigrants to north Ireland).
• Do not use supranational flags without direct relevance. This doesn't pertain in a literal sense, but it does in an in-spirit on, since you are attempting to use these flags as catch-all symbols for diverse people who cross national boundaries; essentially making up a supranational use for these flags.
• Do not rewrite history: Flags should not be used to misrepresent the nationality of a historical figure, event, object, etc. Political boundaries change, often over the span of a biographical article subject's lifetime. Where ambiguity or confusion could result, it is better not to use a flag at all. These flags do misrepresent nationality, and the actual nationalities to which any given historical Ulster Scot, or the Ulster Scots as a group, has obviously changed over time (plus some of the flags you're defending the use of are not official symbols at all). Flags make simple, blunt statements about nationality, while words can express the facts with more complexity. That's the nutshell summary of the overall issue here.

This discussion suggests to me that some of the MOS:FLAGS principles with regard to "biographies" and "sub-national entities" in particular need to be edited to be a little clearer that they apply to ethnic groups, just to forestall anything like this coming up again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is correct. Its name notwithstanding, MOS:FLAGS applies specifically to flag icons, and these images aren't icons. Dan Bloch (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Nope. Nothing in the wording of it suggests that at all, everything it says about the problems of using flags having nothing to do with their size, it's in that particular guideline for lack of better place to put it (though it arguably could be moved en masse to MOS:IMAGES instead, and the purpose these are serving in this article is basically that of icons, just large ones. When the guideline intends in particular to address small icons, such as those produced by the flag icon templates, it says so specifically (e.g. in the material about infobox and table usage). All the other material is about flag usage at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:42, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Every supposed problem you're citing is not relevant to the subject/use case:

- "Ulster Scots are not the repesenatives of any jurisdiction." No one is asserting that they are.

- "Nothing like that applies here, to create a big vertical gallery of flags, as Ulster Scots are not formal representatives, like a sports team, of anywhere or "anywhen" to which those flags pertain." This is not relevant to the use-case.

- "Ulster Scots are not a military unit, and this is nothing like use of small identifying flags in a table." Again, not relevant.

- "Ulster Scots have no flag that pertains to them in particular at all, and do not form a jurisdiction of any kind, much less a sub-national political entity to which a flag applies, now or ever." Again, not relevant to the use case

- "Everything about the flag [mis]usage you're trying to insist on is politically laden, from applying a traditional flag of Ireland to people mostly in Northern Ireland, to using an unofficial Ulster flag that is a Unionist symbol, to applying a Scottish flag to people only descended multi-generationally from Scots, to adding the flag of England which really has nothing to do with Ulster Scots or Ulster at all (the English flag is not the Union Jack). " You haven't read the relevant sections of the article or the extended discussion on 'relatedness'; the reasons for those particular flags are not controversial.

- "And you are certainly not "listen[ing] to concerns raised by other editors" so far." You are aware that there is a distinction between 'listening' and 'agreeing' right?

- "This is actually worse, using it to represent people who are not even limited to Northern Ireland but also found in the RoI, especially Donegal." The Ulster Banner is not on the page, and there was a discussion to not use a similarly-sectarian flag back in 2007.

- "This is clearly politicised and has raised editorial controversy; there's no reason to think this MoS principle doesn't apply to mass-biographical articles and only to individual bios." What you've described as a 'politicised editorial controversy' is not reflected by the reality of the article and/or the flags used.

- "Clear FAIL on that count." Absolutely no idea how you're arriving at that conclusion.

- "That's basically what's going on here. Because of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, you are trying to just "decorate" the article by jamming images into it, and have inappropriately selected flags, which are subject to a lot of "regulation" on Wikipedia that you've not bothered to read." No, that's not the situation at all.

- "We've already covered this above, but in short it is not possible for these flags to be directly relative to a group of people scattered over the entire north of the island of Ireland, of mixed political loyalties and citizenship, and of completely different family-historical backgrounds; the only thing they have in common is some ancestry from Scotland since the Early Modern period (and not from culturally/ethnically homogenous parts of Scotland; Highlanders are largely of Gaelic and Norse extraction, and Lowlanders largely Anglo-Saxon and Norman, but both supplied large numbers of immigrants to north Ireland)." This is talking tangentially to the point.

- "This doesn't pertain in a literal sense, but it does in an in-spirit on, since you are attempting to use these flags as catch-all symbols for diverse people who cross national boundaries; essentially making up a supranational use for these flags." I really don't follow this reasoning at all. Alssa1 (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

"No one is asserting that they are" - But you're misusing the flags as if they are.

"This is not relevant to the use case" - Just an assertion that makes no actual argument.

"Again, not relevant" - Ditto. And so on. I'm going to skip the rest of these pseudo-arguments. Just claiming in a hand-wave manner that something it's applicable doesn't explain or demonstrate that it isn't applicable.

"You haven't read..." - I've read the entire article. That the Plantation of Ulster (the official part of it anyway) was instituted by the English crown does not make the flag of England a pertinent symbol for all of the Ulster Scots people into the present day. "those particular flags are not controversial": Your use of them is being controverted by at least three four editors (one in great detail), so your claim of lack of controversy is false on its face. (Ditto for "What you've described as a 'politicised editorial controversy' is not reflected...").

"Absolutely no idea ..." Clearly. That you fail to understand, and just hand-wave to avoid, the arguments presented to you does not make the arguments wrong. Ditto for "This is talking tangentially to the point" and "I really don't follow this reasoning at all". That you don't understand the relevance doesn't mean the relavance is not there, and just declaring something irrelevant to you doesn't address the concern raised at all. It's WP:ICANTHEARYOU dismissivemeness.

"You are aware that there is a distinction between 'listening' and 'agreeing' right?" Your failure to address the substance of most of the arguments is a failure to listen and engage, not a substantive disagreement.

"The Ulster Banner is not on the page" - The "traditional" variant of it you're using is covered at Ulster Banner and is also controverial for same socio-political reasons as the white one.

"No, that's not the situation at all." Except it demonstrably is. I'll quote someone else who reverted you: "Fails MOS:FLAG and MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. Images are not mentioned in the text, so are not illustrating the text."

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:47, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

MOS:FLAGS makes it very clear that it applies only to icons: This page in a nutshell: While icons can be useful in Wikipedia articles in some circumstances, there are also problems associated with their misapplication and overuse. This is followed by a definition, icons encompasses any small images, making it clear that the rules do not apply to larger images. Possibly the community shares your view, but until the Manual of Style is changed what matters is the guidelines as they're written. Dan Bloch (talk) 20:33, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Correct, (and I mistyped in an edit summary also), MOS:FLAGS is only pertaining to the use of the flag icons. This discussion is more related to MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. Canterbury Tail talk 20:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Except it's not. I already addressed this here. The flag material is just in MOS:ICONS for a lack of better place to put it, and most of it is general, about flag usage at all. When it means flag icons specifically, it says "icons".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:49, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the flags, they completely fail MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. They're being used for purely decorative reasons, they are not referenced in the text and are not supporting the text. Additionally having them implies that they represent the people in the text, which they don't. This is about a people, not a country. Canterbury Tail talk 20:36, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The flags are representative of nation-states - they are both representations of nations and states. Alssa1 (talk) 20:41, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Flags are representative of nation-states. However this is an article about a people not a nation-state. Not a locale. Not a municipality. And not an ideal. It is an article about a people. Flags don't represent a people. As mentioned, including the flags here is failing MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE (and note local consensus cannot usually override the MOS.) In no way do these flags represent the people the article is discussing. Not a single one of those flags represents a geographic area solely populated by the people being discussed. And this people are not confined to any of the geographic areas represented by those flags. Additionally they're not mentioned in the article and as a result of these points, per the MOS they're not being used to support the article and are merely decorative which is not permitted. This isn't necessarily about flags either, it's about not having relevant images. Canterbury Tail talk 20:49, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

And as I said: "The flags are representative of nation-states - they are both representations of nations and states" - nations are a people, and we are talking about a people and their ethnogenesis. Even if the inclusion failed the MOS (which for the record I don't agree that it does), you need to take account of the guidance: "Wikipedia has many policies or what many consider "rules". Instead of following every rule, it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. Being too wrapped up in rules can cause a loss of perspective, so there are times when 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." You are advocating the removal of a decades-long inclusion which doesn't damage the usability or usefulness of the article and which has been included on this article page for as long as the MOS has existed. Alssa1 (talk) 21:24, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of what the MOS says, the inclusion of these flags as representatives of an ethnic group would need sources per WP:VERIFY. Having been in the article for a long time doesn't obviate that. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:35, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

And 'this stuff preceded the WP:P&G material that now exists against it' is never a reason for any P&G material to not be applied to applicable content. Let's not be silly. Never in the history of Wikipedia has such an argument ever been accepted. Cf. WP:CONTENTAGE, WP:OWN, WP:CONLEVEL, etc. If Alssa1's principle were valid, we probably could have no guidelines or policies at all (at least not enforceable ones, and it would certainly be impossible to introduce new P&G that addressed pre-existing problems, since the pre-existing would be automatically immune!), and all content on WP would just be directly controlled by a pack of warring wikiprojects asserting temporal primacy against each other on a page-by-page basis. Be glad that is not the case. Next, "doesn't damage the usability or usefulness of the article" is not an inclusion rationale, and is a classic "argument to avoid" (WP:NOHARM). Yes, it is "acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing"; no one is expected to memorize all WP rules, and doing so is not required to make an edit. What is not acceptable is to editwar against all comers to preserve your personal WP:RIGHTVERSION; that's not "going about editing", that's interfering with everyone else's editing. Alssa1 is confusing making an edit (attempting to contribute to the encyclopedia) with making the same edit over and over again despite objections (disrupting the encyclopedia). And "it might still be a good contribution" does not mean "is necessarily a good contribution", especially in the face of multiple reasons that it is not a good one. Finally, "a people and their ethnogenesis" has nothing really to do with sticking a bunch of flag images on them. The very fact that Alssa1 is treating the Ulster Scots as if they were a homogenous blob is problematic, as I've already pointed out, and which Alssa1 just ignored or simply did not understand ("This is talking tangentially to the point" Alssa1 responded, remember).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Accusing me of an edit war is not legitimate in the slightest, the process is BOLD, revert, discuss. We don't remove long-standing edits while a discussion is taking place to resolve the dispute. As for the claim about 'homogeneity' of the Ulster Scots and me ignoring/not understanding your point - my position is that I didn't assert nor suggest that the Ulster Scots were a homogenous group, therefore having a discussion along those lines is tangential to the issue at hand. Alssa1 (talk) 19:05, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

The 'length of time' point was primarily about challenging the idea that the flags need to be removed; it wasn't attempting to answer the question about verifiability. Alssa1 (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

In user talk [1], Alssa1 has implied that the previous editors who raised these concerns no longer share them. So: @Parsa and LookOnMyEditsYeMighty: ping, so you can let us know if you've changed your mind in the interim. In absence of their renewed participation here, however, their concerns have to be taken at face value.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I have several related WP articles that I follow. This is one of them. I've remained quiet about the flag controversy in this article because it doesn't involve anything substantial, but now I have to provide some input about why there might be controversy at all. Mr. McCandlish, you are currently involved in another contentious discussion about a related article that you'd like to change the name of. You are involved in contention about that article, and you are involved in contention about this article. Nobody likes it when someone just wants to wield a stick to stir things up. Whether or not there are flag images in this group doesn't matter to the content. Maybe they are just decorative. But stirring up contention about it doesn't do the community any good at all. They aren't hurting anything by simply being part of the decor. Please try to be a little bit less contentious. Eastcote (talk) 22:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

That's a load of ad hominem bollocks. There is absolutely no – even theoretical – connection between how to spell a term for an American (and Canadian) diasporic ethnic group, and whether to inject a bunch of flags into an Ulster article after years and years of people losing it over inappropriate flags in Ulster articles. Stick to the actual rationales presented in discussions instead of following around people who disagreed with you in one place to demonize them in others. And try thinking before coming up with conspiracy-theory-style wild hypotheses about other editors' motives: If it's plausible that you happened to notice this discussion because you have a bunch of articles on your watchlist, don't you think maybe, maybe it possible that someone else also noticed and entered these discussions because they have a bunch of articles on their watchlist? Or are you just magically special? To return the actual substance of this thread: "Whether or not there are flag images in this [article] doesn't matter to the content." That's an excellent rationale for deleting them, and a point made both by myself and and others, e.g. here. "Maybe they are just decorative." That's another perfect reason to remove them, per the general image use guidelines not just the flag-specific one. "They aren't hurting anything": WP:NOHARM. "Please try to be a little bit less contentious." Our talk pages exist for improving the pages they are attached to; this generally requires contention, because editors do not have a hive mind. Going around page after page disagreeing with me, and more to the point making inappropriate insinuations about my motivations, is not you being "a bit less contentious", it's you picking a fight about as pointedly as one can be picked here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:19, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

The idea that having potentially wrong information in an encyclopedia article (not a "group" - this isn't social media) doesn't do any harm is worrying. WP:VERIFY is a core policy for good reason. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:54, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry what is the 'potentially wrong information' you're referring to exactly? Alssa1 (talk) 18:53, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea what "potentially" wrong means. Something is either right or wrong. The flags reflects the primary countries from which the Ulster Scots came (Scotland and England), and the place to which they went (Ireland and the province of Ulster). Is this wrong? Again, they are decorative and don't materially influence the article. But they do reflect the countries associated with the history of the Ulster Scots. They are fine. Loads of Wikipedia articles have superfluous images, that do not materially contribute to the article. They are pictures, and an article could serve perfectly well with only words. But pictures provide a bit of visual enhancement. If someone had tossed in the flags of Russia or Japan, then I'd have an issue with it, but the flags shown do indeed reflect the history of the Ulster Scots. Eastcote (talk) 21:06, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of flags in an article about an ethnic group suggests that those flags are recognised symbols of the group. I wrote "potentially wrong" because I don't know whether the St George's Cross is recognised by anyone as a symbol of Ulster Scots - it seems a bit unlikely to me but it's hard to know when there's no reference to a source. I'd also remind you that the standard for inclusion isn't truth but verifiability. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

No one asserted that the St George's Cross was a symbol of the Ulster Scots, it's a symbol of England - and a link to England is justified by a previously quoted source: "Of the 10 clusters, seven were found to be of "Gaelic" Irish origin and three of mixed Irish and British ancestry. All of the mixed clusters were located in Northern Ireland. The geographical location of these three groupings, along with estimates of when the population mixing occurred - the 17th to 18th Centuries - led the researchers to surmise that this was related to the Ulster Plantation, when English and Scottish Protestants settled in Ireland." Do we need to have a specific source that proves (for example) that the flag of England is a symbol of England, or can we rely on WP:BLUE? Alssa1 (talk) 19:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

No, but if it was just included as a symbol of England, then I don't think it belongs in an article on Ulster Scots. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:57, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Why? Does that source not demonstrate a verifiable link to England (and Scotland) for Ulster Scots? Alssa1 (talk) 20:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

It's not relevant enough (MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE). Better to include images widely agreed to be symbols of the group. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and it's not clear there even is any image that is widely symbolic of Ulster Scots. But sticking images widely symbolic of other groups, just because they are in some sense ancestral to the one that is our subject, seems especially inappropriate and misleading.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

What this is all boiling down to is people's opinions. Larry says, "I just don't think it belongs". McCandlish says it "seems" inappropriate. The images are of long standing in this article, to illustrate the countries of Ulster Scots' ancestry. It's helpful to illustrate that the ancestry wasn't all Ulster or all Scot. It already says so in the article, but the flags give a visual representation of this. Eastcote (talk) 02:38, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

You're making a WP:CONTENTAGE argument, one of the classic "arguments to avoid". I used "seems" to be polite. They clearly are inappropriate, for reasons that multiple editors have explained to you at great length. "To illustrate the countries of [anyone]'s ancestry" is not an encyclopedic purpose of images. We do not need "a visual representation" of every single thing the article says somewhere in it. Rather than continue to go in circles with you, I'm just going to open an RfC on the matter and get more community input.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:34, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, I want to stress here that MOS:FLAGS is NOT a rule! Really don't know why there are people who still don't get that.Tvx1 08:24, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? It's certainly a "rule", at the same level that any other WP guideline is a rule. It may not be as hard-and-fast a rule as a policy, but transgressing a guideline still requires a really compelling it-objectively-improves-the-encyclopedia reason to do it, and no such reason is presented here. You can't invoke WP:IAR with a rationale that boils down to "I just like decorating", especially when the case in point involves WP:V / WP:NOR concerns about mis-applying nationalistic and controversial labels to an ethnic group.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:52, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

RfC on inclusion of ancestral national flags

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The rough consensus was that the flags should not be used and they have been removed. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:39, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

---

Should this article include the Royal Standard of Ireland, the traditional provincial flag of Ulster, the Scottish Saltire flag, and the flag of England (as shown in this version of the article) to illustrate and provide a visual representation of the ancestral countries/provinces of the Ulster Scots? This has been extensively discussed above, but there seem to be too few editors involved yet to put the matter to rest with a clear enough consensus, pro or con, to move on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:34, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

• No, per MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE and MOS:FLAGS (which, contrary to Alssa1's belief above, is not limited to flag icons, no matter what page it's currently housed in; it is written with flags in general in mind, as is clear from its wording, and blowing up the icons to giant size simply compounds, not lessens, the problems with them). These are not symbols that represent the Ulster Scots, and the notion that they are is WP:OR not backed up by reliable sourcing. These big flag images are serving nothing but a decoration purpose at best, and are apt to spark politicised controversy because of general sore feelings when it comes to flags and Ulster. And the entire notion is a major confusion of the idea of a nation or other polity, versus that of an ethnic group.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:34, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• No. Readers should be able to expect that when images of symbols are included in an article about an ethnic group, that's because the symbols concerned represent that group. This isn't established by reliable sources for these symbols, and it appears that even the advocates of their inclusion don't see them all as symbols of the group. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:39, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• No, not in the way they were included. They were just not informative to the relevant text and potentially misleading.Tvx1 08:34, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• No. The aforementioned symbols do not denote the subject of the article, which is the ethnic group of Ulster Scots, as least as they're defined by historians. They are very distantly related to the subject. Their use would serve the opposite of the intended purpose; it'd muddle the issue and give grounds for both malevolent propaganda and groundless animosity among users as well as contributors. -The Gnome (talk) 12:48, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• No per MOS:IMAGES, summarised as "illustrate, not decorate". So which part of the article do the flags illustrate? Or where to they replace a thousand words? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - it offers precisely no harm to the article and suggestion that the symbols are not relevant to the group is not accurate given the sources provided and the history of the group. Alssa1 (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• WP:NOHARM, classic argument to avoid.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  And as WP:NOHARM states: "...if there has not been any verifiable information published in reliable sources about the subject, then there is no way to check whether the information in the article is true, and it may damage the reputation of the subject and the project. Even if it is true, without the ability to check it, false information could very well start to seep in." - it's a little bit more nuanced than you're making out. Alssa1 (talk) 20:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  The quote seems to work against your Yes suggestion. By inserting the symbols without sources that support their use by the subject group, we risk, if not assure, that "false information will seep in." -The Gnome (talk) 20:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  But they do have sources... Alssa1 (talk) 13:44, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  You have sources that Ulster Scots have some ancestry from places represented by such flags, not that they use these flags as group self-identifiers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody is claiming that Ulster Scots use these flags as self-identifiers, so please stop repeating this.. Eastcote (talk) 02:26, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Please stop ignoring that applying flags to people who don't use them is an obvious WP:NOR and WP:NPOV problem.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  As for whether Ulster Scots actually "use" the crosses of St. George or St Andrew, please see "Flags of the World" (FOTW) regarding "political flags" in Northern Ireland. FOTW is a long-established wiki-type repository for, as the name suggests, flags. Here you will find multiple uses of the Cross of St George by organizations which draw their primary membership from Ulster Scots, and some lesser use of the Cross of St Andrew (although in my own experience in Northern Ireland I've seen more St. Andrew's Crosses than those of St George). Also see Ulster University's CAIN Archive concerning "Flags Used in Northern Ireland" which shows use of the flags of St George, St Andrew, Province of Ulster, and various other flags. And don't say, "But these flags aren't being used to represent Ulster Scots". Who else would be flying these flags in Ulster? Puerto Ricans? Eastcote (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

• Flags of the World has long been declared a completely unusable non-reliable site at WP:RS/P. Canterbury Tail talk 13:33, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

This is actually rather funny. "...written off as an unreliable source in general. Although some of its pages might refer to reliable sources, it is self-published content without editorial oversight..." That description could apply to Wikipedia itself. Wikipedia editors, after all, aren't really editors. They are just self-publishers. Eastcote (talk) 13:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Completely correct as we know. Which is exactly the reason WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source and can't be used as such. Canterbury Tail talk 14:18, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Right. That's my point. So Wikipedia "consensus" is itself not a reliable source about what is or isn't a reliable source. Eastcote (talk) 14:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

• Eastcote, if I were you, I would drop this stick as your comments are starting to get into Wikipedia:Tendentious editing territory. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
• This is truly astonishing, Eastcote. And shows that, at the very least, you have not understood why Wikipedia proclaims itself as unreliable. As to consensus, good luck tearing down that. (What is this? Some kind of inclusionist manifesto? We have enough or them already.) -The Gnome (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  OK. I'll give way to the gate-keepers of Wikipedia rule integrity. You folks are right. It's all about officious bureaucracy. I should have known. Eastcote (talk) 22:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Cf. sour grapes. Just because you are failing to understand how Wikipedia works and what its policies actually mean doesn't mean anyone is doing you a wrong or making any other kind of mistake. In particular, 'So Wikipedia "consensus" is itself not a reliable source about what is or isn't a reliable source' is just confused in the extreme. WP's own internal determinations as to what are reliable sources are quite binding (see WP:RSN for the formal process). That doesn't make it a "source" that itself can be determined reliable or not. A source is a published work. A Wikipedia consensus is a decision-making process. Not meaningfully comparable in any way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• The content of the website Flags of the World, Eastcote, is user generated, well described by you as a "wiki-type" site. Note the extremely significant difference between Wikipedia and this type of "wiki-type" sites: Wikipedia is all about reliable sources and verifiability. The "wiki-types" well, they are not; and this makes them unusable here. It's actually very surprising that you are ready to pull down the Wikipedia project's foundational policies in order to open the way for any and all. But, explicitly, Wikipedia is not a repository of random information. -The Gnome (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  Or in short form: see WP:SPS and WP:UGC.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• Of course, it "harms" the article. More precisely, the inclusion of symbols not expressly used to denote the ethnic group's identity is confusing to the user and unnecessarily muddles the already complex history of the subject. Many Ulster Scots support the Glascow Rangers. Should we put up a Rangers flag? -The Gnome (talk) 20:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  That's a red herring, we're not discussing voluntary political or sporting affiliations. The flags are non-controversial symbols of the groups that were responsible for the ethnogenesis of the Ulster Scots - and the selection of those groups are supported by reliable sources. Alssa1 (talk) 13:46, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

No herring in this table, I'm afraid; only symiaki garida cooked with cheese, as it happens. (Don't be jealous, now.) These flags are not being used to represent the Ulster Scots people. None of those flags represent them. And that's per sources. Ethnic groups might have -they usually have- a complex and varied ethnic history but we do not put up symbols of every one of their ancestral tribes. Why? Because it's essentially an exercise in irrelevance and Wikipedia is not a collection of random information. -The Gnome (talk) 15:08, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• No, the flags are not being used to represent the Ulster Scots people and are only being used for decoration. None of those flags represent Ulster Scots. Just because Ulster Scots have lived in those countries doesn't mean they represent them. Would you use the Union Flag to represent Irish people? Extreme example yes, but not removed from what the flags are being used to represent here. None of those flags represent Ulster Scots and Ulster Scots are not represented by those flags. Ulster Scots are not a unified people or a nation and are therefore not represented by any national flag. They're just an ethnic group with no other real ties and at no point in history have any of those flags been used to represent Ulster Scots. Canterbury Tail talk 14:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, just to get it on the record. The flags are not being used to "represent" Ulster Scots, so anywhere that's mentioed is irrelevant. They are being used to show the historical origins of the people who came to be the Ulster Scots, and they have been in the article a long time. Other Wikipedia articles use flags in the same way, so such use is either not a "violation" of Wikipedia's rules, or the rules are being violated left and right. Maybe some of you who are dead set against the "random" use of flags need to visit some othere articles and clean house. The article on Detroit shows the flags of France, Great Britain, and the USA, even though the city is neither French nor British, and is not the USA, (even though it's IN the USA). The article on French Canadians displays multiple national, civic flags, and ethnic flags, although none represent "French Canadians" as a specific ethnicity (and even some of the ethnic flags are not especially accepted or even known about by many they are supposed to represent). The article on Afrikaners doesn't display flags of countries where the Afrikaners' ancestors originated, but it does display the national flags of the various countries where Afrikaners live today, including New Zealand, Brazil, and Argentina. Eastcote (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Well!.. I am shocked -shocked!- to find that other stuff exists! -The Gnome (talk) 12:34, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• No, the flags don't represent the people and it's difficult to see what they do represent - except being vaguely connected to significant historical phases, but even in that respect, the flags' purpose or role in each phase isn't clear. On balance their presence is more confusing than clarifying IMO. Pincrete (talk) 05:40, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
• No, the flags aren't related to the ethic group, and as such, should not be included in the article because of the very likely potential of confusing readers. Grumpylawnchair (talk) 01:06, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

• No, I started the latest thread and gave my opinion there.

— ★Parsa ☞ talk 02:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Does this really exist?

This page appears problematic. Is there actual evidence that this identity exists historically? The reason I ask is because I cannot imagine that historically people referred to themselves as /Ulster Scots/. The idea of Ulster Scots appears to be a modern term applied to the group of people who came from Scotland to Ireland in the plantations or time period after. I suspect that when these people arrived in Ireland that they referred to themselves as Scottish and had a Scottish culture then eventually as Irish as they assimilated - I imagine this is difficult to comprehend nowadays as the communities for which /Ulster Scots/ are associated is generally Unionist/Loyalist and British. However, only after the partitioning of Ireland and the creation of N.Ireland do you tend to see individuals call themselves British or Ulster Scots. In the 19th century, you will see Protestant organisations referenced as Irish or Ireland. The largest unionist party in Ireland pre-partition was called the 'IRISH Unionists'. If you read any of the Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Ireland, for areas of historical Scottish settlement, you will see the people referred to in relation to their Scottish manner or habits. Their cultural habits may have been different but the people were Irish by nationality and regarded themselves as so. There are countless examples of this. This page appears to try to almost paint Ulster Scots as a polar opposite to Irish, like it's a nationality. It isn't. The people were culturally separate. However, given Scottish traditions (including the Lowlands) there is likely some overlap with Irish traditions. In the rebellion of 1641, the Scottish were said to be spared by the Irish rebels due to the similar affinities - the wikipedia article for the 1641 rebellion even states this.

It appears to me that the Ulster Scots which is outlined by the Ulster Scots society is that these people spoke a variant of Scots from Scotland and had some of their own specific traditions. What these are, I don't know. The genetics for this is complicated because there is historical migration from Scotland to Ireland and vice versa, INCLUDING PRE-PLANTATION. There is genetic evidence of links between Down and Galloway. The haplogroups for Irish clans like McGuinness are also found in southwest Scotland. Similarly Dal Riada and the migrations between the Glens of Antrim -Ballycastle/Cushendall and Argyll. The religious affiliations doesn't really matter. You can see Scottish Gaelic Catholics in the Glens of Antrim, like those settled in the MacDonnell estate. You can also see Scottish Gaelic Presbyterians in Ireland. I point to McKinley, the American President.

Just some thoughts. 2A02:C7F:864B:CC00:448:3A75:4733:353 (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I once heard someone try to argue that there were no Germans before 1870, when the various kingdoms and principalities were united as the German Empire, which is of course nonsense. Similarly, to say that there were no Ulster Scots before the Partition of Ireland in 1921, is equally strange. Actually, they were the reason for the Partition. Eastcote (talk) 21:45, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps more the point, the anon's notion that the article can't exist unless the term was historically used by the first of the people today called Ulster Scots is nonsense to begin with. Our articles are written around the facts and terminology used in reliable modern sources. The anon's position is rather like arguing that we have to delete Ancient Egypt because the ancient Egyptians didn't call it that, or that Slavs is an invalid article because all the peoples classified as Slavic by anthropologists today did not historically call themselves by that name or consider themselves to belong to such a grouping. Also, the genetic argument introduced by the anon is meaningless. DNA heritage (which no one knew anything about until the last generation or so) has nothing to do with socio-cultural group identity (either intrinsic to the group or used historically/anthropologically/sociologically as a categoriser). The most that needs to be done here is some clarity about when the term arose, but that will require further reliable sourcing, if there is even a source that identifies the coining of the term at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:17, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree. Eastcote (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but this article promotes a blood fantasy that this group remained "culturally" and "ethnically" distinct from the local Irish population (and misuses the word "ethnic"), which is clearly nonsense and not consistent with some of the latest research[2]. You also list "English" and "Scottish" as related ethnic groups but leave out "Irish", even though the English and Scottish view these people as Irish. In fact, much of this article promotes what Kerby Miller calls the "two traditions" thesis[3], which I do not believe is a mainstream view. Jonathan f1 (talk) 06:21, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, our articles don't research and write themselves. Maybe get some books and work their relevant gist into the article. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Additional sources

• Harrison, John (2018) [2015]. The Scot in Ulster: Sketch of the History of the Scottish Population of Ulster. Forgotten Books. ISBN 9781330652862.
• More about out-migration of Ulster Scots to the Americas, etc.:
  • Leyburn, James Graham (1989) [1962]. The Scotch-Irish: A Social History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807842591. – Covers the Plantation of Ulster through American emigration and early US history.
  • Chepesiuk, Ron (2005). The Scotch-Irish: From the North of Ireland to the Making of America. McFarland. ISBN 9780786422739.
  • Hofstra, Warren R. (2021) [2011]. Ulster to America: The Scots-Irish Migration Experience, 1680–1830. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9781621902638.
  • Dickson, R. J. (2010). Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 1718–1785. Ulster Historical Foundation. ISBN 9780901905178.
• Dobson, David (2009). Scotland During the Plantation of Ulster: The People of Ayrshire, 1600-1699. Genealogical Publishing. ISBN 9780806353913. – Something about the "back end" of the disaporic process. Part of a series that also includes volumes on Renfrewshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Lanarkshire.
• Bardon, Jonathan (2013) [2011]. The Plantation of Ulster: The British Colonization of the North of Ireland in the 17th Century. Gill & MacMillan. ISBN 9780717154470.
• Harrison, John (2018) [2015]. The Scot in Ulster: Sketch of the History of the Scottish Population of Ulster. Forgotten Books. ISBN 9781330652862.
• Fanning, Charles, ed. (2000). New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780809323449. – Has at least some material on the Ulster Scots.
• Horning, Audrey (2012). Ireland in the Virginian Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469610726. – Has at least some material on the Ulster Scots.

See also: Talk:Plantation of Ulster#Additional sources, Talk:Scotch-Irish Americans#Additional sources, Talk:Scotch-Irish Canadians#Additional sources, Talk:Scottish diaspora#Additional sources.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:23, 31 August 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 13:30, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The lead says, "or, in North America, Scotch-Irish." I cannot access the source, but it seems that the normal term in Canada is Ulster-Scots and before that they were just referred to as Irish. TFD (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Lead

I copy-edited the lead as it seemed in need of précis and so I removed clutter, duplication, tangents and excessive detail per WP:LEADCLUTTER and the other guidance of MOS:LEAD. This edit was reverted, "you better discuss this first onb the talkpage". And so here we are... Andrew🐉(talk) 12:49, 28 June 2024 (UTC)