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Welsh fiscal balance article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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The result was: promoted by
Cwmhiraeth (
talk)
05:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Created by Buidhe ( talk). Self-nominated at 04:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC).
Buidhe, who is claiming this, and what is the source? I checked the source for the next sentence and the website appeared to be unavailable. —valereee ( talk) 14:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I am very concerned about the above discussions and the neutrality of the article as it stood. I have been on Wikipedia for quite a few years and have never come across anything as blatantly biased. This is very worrying. John Jones ( talk) 16:51, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Your second revert has been done with no reasoning in any way. I've given reasons for every one of my edits. Please discuss rationally. John Jones ( talk) 00:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Support John Jones's edits - User:Buidhe obviously picks parts of the references, avoiding others thus we have a highly biased article, reflecting his pov. As mentioned by John Jones, Mark Barry's academic blog is reliable and links to other reliable sources. Nation.Cymru - take it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard! No 3 and 4 are relevant to the text they reference. This was clearly stated by JJ. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 10:01, 17 February 2021 (UTC) I note that you reverted much of JJ's edits even though they included this reference, which you added a number of times throughout the article! You dispute your own reference or did you add unreliable refences? Cell Danwydd ( talk) 11:02, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
There has been much editing, with no discussion on this Talk page, therefore I've reverted to the last discussion's point in time. User:BritishFinance's removed a whole section. The section is explains that no one knows what the fiscal deficit of Wales is, as information is held back by the ONS etc (under 'England and Wales'). I've now amended the section 'Identifiable and non-identifiable expenditure' and renamed it 'Identifiable and non-identifiable expenditure'. It was deleted by User:BritishFinance as "this section is not adding to the topic or explaining the criticism". I hope now you understand it's importance. Secondly, creating a section named 'criticism' is a really handy way of placing anything you don't like into a bin. This is not how WP articles work. Facts are not criticisms - only in the pov's eyes. This section you deleted was referenced to citations from Wales Fiscal Analysis Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University; these are not criticisms, and saying that says a lot about the impartiality of User:BritishFinance. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 17:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Support - Cell Danwydd, where we discuss every part rationally, rather than a demolition job as per BritishFinance and buidhe, where both have WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH in their edits. John Jones ( talk) 22:58, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Support -
Cell Danwydd
The major problem that this article and this discussion have isn't bias, but incompatibility. One side is trying to make the case for an abstract Welsh deficit whilst the other side is trying to make an argument about a concrete deficit.
The UK government allocates debt and taxes to regions of the UK based on an abstract allocation. Project A is for the sole benefit of the region, project B benefits the whole of the UK. This creates anomalies. Improving
Merseyrail benefits north west England and is costed as a north west project. Improving
London Underground however, because it's in the capital, is costed as a whole UK project, and is divided between all regions.
If I buy crisps in Asda Llandudno tomorrow my VAT will be collected in England, if you by Crisps in Iceland Birmingham your VAT will be collected in Wales
The concrete argument is how much deficit does Wales actually have, or potentially have, if it became independent. The answer to that question in international law is £0. Whilst there is a live debate going on about Welsh independence, any article that doesn't quote the fact that international law says that Wales actually "owes" Westminster FA is biased and negligent of the facts.
AlwynapHuw (
talk)
06:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support keeping the existing version; work down from top, per paragraph. I think AlwynapHuw has hit the nail on its head regarding buidhe's The new source you refer to doesn't say anything about deficits and Britishfinance's OR and WP:COATRACK. Alwyn is 100% correct. Wales isn't a sovereign nation, and most fiscal policies are made by the UK Government (this is in the article), therefore Wales can't have a 'fiscal debt'; it is the UK debt attributed to Wales. Britishfinance's suggestion of having a 'Criticism' section for explanations of a debt is way out. It's impossible to criticise a debt! You criticise the debtor, unless that debt is a good thing. So who is the debtor in this case? Mainly the UK Government, and to a lesser extent the Welsh Government. The criticism should be relative to apportioned financial power of these two governments. Ultimate power, here is in the hands of the UK Gov. That's why even the title is incorrect and should be changed to UK 'Government's fiscal debt in Wales'. Lastly, Buidhe needs to refresh himself / herself with PG and OR, as the user deleted a whole paragraph, which had been discussed above (see section titled: WP:OR comparison), where Cell Danwydd proved beyond doubt that OR and WP:SYNTH did not apply, and that the citations were reliable and good. No person from the UK would use 'Welch', however Britishfinance has done so at least 3 times. I find this very odd as its usually used by people from the USA (or from the 19c), and although Britishfinance's edits, in other articles seem to be good, such a faux pas suggests that the editor would best not edit articles about which he / she knows very little about. We are here to create a fair, balanced article, so lets start from the top of the existing article, and work down. Llywelyn2000 ( talk) 07:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support for the reasons explained by Alwyn and Llywelyn2000, John Jones and Cell Danwydd. Keep existing article, and work down from top. I'm not an expert in finance, but adding both sides of the story is essential. Thanks John jones and Cell Danwydd for all you hard work in doing this. I've just had a look at how the article read before John's additions, and it seems to me that the English Wikipedia are looking at the world through very imperialist, colonialist and unionist eyes. Sad world. Tegwen Llyfr a Gwin ( talk) 08:50, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Just looking at a few reliable sources easily found with Google search:
I.e. it looks like most RS on this subject are not written from Welsh pro-independence perspective, the article should not overly reflect Welsh pro-independence perspective. ( t · c) buidhe 00:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Only your selected sources! Odd you didn't include: Government Expenditure and Revenue Wales which is the authority on fiscal analysis in Wales. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 11:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
It's claimed that "The UK government spends £1.75bn per year on the military in Wales which is almost as much as Wales spend on education every year (£1.8 billion in 2018/19)." The source makes no such comparison. ( t · c) buidhe 10:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
This used to be an article about the Welsh fiscal deficit with a section describing the "Deficit" (which is encyclopedic), and a section on "Implications" (which can be encyclopedic but only if structured and sourced properly with no WP:OR). Now it is less coherent with disconnected sections on aspects of Welsh GDP etc. (and apples-to-oranges material), that is not coherent with the topic. I understand that the topic creates sensitivities to Welsh nationalists and that the metric has many dimensions to it (and can be misinterpreted if just read in isolation). I propose we build a structured/coherent section inside the "Implications" section that deals with criticisms of the metric as representative of the true underlying financial position of the Welsh economy etc. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:11, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@ Buidhe: Can you explain why you have deleted these two paragraphs? You say: first paragraph is made up of SYNTH, second paragraph fails verification in cited source.
Cell Danwydd ( talk) 17:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
I propose that we undo Cell Danwydd's BOLD reversion today, and restore the version Buidhe, Laurel Lodged, Gråbergs Gråa Sång and myself worked on. There are too many issues with Cell Danwydd's version (including WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH), and we have a section on Criticism that Cell Danwydd can focus on (which also needs fixing). Britishfinance ( talk) 17:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
A proposal was made on the 17th of February. This second one is void. John Jones ( talk) 23:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Welsh fiscal balance, Northern Ireland fiscal balance, and London fiscal balance. ( non-admin closure) Vpab15 ( talk) 20:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
– "Deficit" is a loaded term. Even if the word "deficit" is meaningful in the context of UK finance, it refers to a current situation that may not exist in the future. It seems to me that it would be more useful to look at the whole question of the financing of countries with devolved governments rather than dwelling on one aspect of it. Although the title I'm suggesting is based on existing articles such as Government spending in the United Kingdom and Government spending in the United States, I'm open to suggestions for alternative article titles. I'm bringing this here because discussion on the Talk page suggests it is likely to be controversial, with opinion evenly divided between those who see a "fiscal deficit" as a problem and those who see it in a historical context. Deb ( talk) 15:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to correct my which contained in the edit window that UserBuide is banned. The banned editor, of course, is User:BritishFinance, who mis-edited much of this article. I do apologise for this mistake. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 13:37, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm disappointed by edits that seek to downplay the deficit according to reliable sources and give undue weight to minority view that the deficit is not important or would be easily reversed in the event of Welsh independence. When we have this source it is blatantly POV to be giving equal or GREATER weight to the opposite claim, which does not appear in peer reviewed sources. ( t · c) buidhe 01:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Welsh fiscal balance article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | A fact from Welsh fiscal balance appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 5 June 2020 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
The result was: promoted by
Cwmhiraeth (
talk)
05:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Created by Buidhe ( talk). Self-nominated at 04:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC).
Buidhe, who is claiming this, and what is the source? I checked the source for the next sentence and the website appeared to be unavailable. —valereee ( talk) 14:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I am very concerned about the above discussions and the neutrality of the article as it stood. I have been on Wikipedia for quite a few years and have never come across anything as blatantly biased. This is very worrying. John Jones ( talk) 16:51, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Your second revert has been done with no reasoning in any way. I've given reasons for every one of my edits. Please discuss rationally. John Jones ( talk) 00:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Support John Jones's edits - User:Buidhe obviously picks parts of the references, avoiding others thus we have a highly biased article, reflecting his pov. As mentioned by John Jones, Mark Barry's academic blog is reliable and links to other reliable sources. Nation.Cymru - take it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard! No 3 and 4 are relevant to the text they reference. This was clearly stated by JJ. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 10:01, 17 February 2021 (UTC) I note that you reverted much of JJ's edits even though they included this reference, which you added a number of times throughout the article! You dispute your own reference or did you add unreliable refences? Cell Danwydd ( talk) 11:02, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
There has been much editing, with no discussion on this Talk page, therefore I've reverted to the last discussion's point in time. User:BritishFinance's removed a whole section. The section is explains that no one knows what the fiscal deficit of Wales is, as information is held back by the ONS etc (under 'England and Wales'). I've now amended the section 'Identifiable and non-identifiable expenditure' and renamed it 'Identifiable and non-identifiable expenditure'. It was deleted by User:BritishFinance as "this section is not adding to the topic or explaining the criticism". I hope now you understand it's importance. Secondly, creating a section named 'criticism' is a really handy way of placing anything you don't like into a bin. This is not how WP articles work. Facts are not criticisms - only in the pov's eyes. This section you deleted was referenced to citations from Wales Fiscal Analysis Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University; these are not criticisms, and saying that says a lot about the impartiality of User:BritishFinance. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 17:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Support - Cell Danwydd, where we discuss every part rationally, rather than a demolition job as per BritishFinance and buidhe, where both have WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH in their edits. John Jones ( talk) 22:58, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Support -
Cell Danwydd
The major problem that this article and this discussion have isn't bias, but incompatibility. One side is trying to make the case for an abstract Welsh deficit whilst the other side is trying to make an argument about a concrete deficit.
The UK government allocates debt and taxes to regions of the UK based on an abstract allocation. Project A is for the sole benefit of the region, project B benefits the whole of the UK. This creates anomalies. Improving
Merseyrail benefits north west England and is costed as a north west project. Improving
London Underground however, because it's in the capital, is costed as a whole UK project, and is divided between all regions.
If I buy crisps in Asda Llandudno tomorrow my VAT will be collected in England, if you by Crisps in Iceland Birmingham your VAT will be collected in Wales
The concrete argument is how much deficit does Wales actually have, or potentially have, if it became independent. The answer to that question in international law is £0. Whilst there is a live debate going on about Welsh independence, any article that doesn't quote the fact that international law says that Wales actually "owes" Westminster FA is biased and negligent of the facts.
AlwynapHuw (
talk)
06:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support keeping the existing version; work down from top, per paragraph. I think AlwynapHuw has hit the nail on its head regarding buidhe's The new source you refer to doesn't say anything about deficits and Britishfinance's OR and WP:COATRACK. Alwyn is 100% correct. Wales isn't a sovereign nation, and most fiscal policies are made by the UK Government (this is in the article), therefore Wales can't have a 'fiscal debt'; it is the UK debt attributed to Wales. Britishfinance's suggestion of having a 'Criticism' section for explanations of a debt is way out. It's impossible to criticise a debt! You criticise the debtor, unless that debt is a good thing. So who is the debtor in this case? Mainly the UK Government, and to a lesser extent the Welsh Government. The criticism should be relative to apportioned financial power of these two governments. Ultimate power, here is in the hands of the UK Gov. That's why even the title is incorrect and should be changed to UK 'Government's fiscal debt in Wales'. Lastly, Buidhe needs to refresh himself / herself with PG and OR, as the user deleted a whole paragraph, which had been discussed above (see section titled: WP:OR comparison), where Cell Danwydd proved beyond doubt that OR and WP:SYNTH did not apply, and that the citations were reliable and good. No person from the UK would use 'Welch', however Britishfinance has done so at least 3 times. I find this very odd as its usually used by people from the USA (or from the 19c), and although Britishfinance's edits, in other articles seem to be good, such a faux pas suggests that the editor would best not edit articles about which he / she knows very little about. We are here to create a fair, balanced article, so lets start from the top of the existing article, and work down. Llywelyn2000 ( talk) 07:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Strong Support for the reasons explained by Alwyn and Llywelyn2000, John Jones and Cell Danwydd. Keep existing article, and work down from top. I'm not an expert in finance, but adding both sides of the story is essential. Thanks John jones and Cell Danwydd for all you hard work in doing this. I've just had a look at how the article read before John's additions, and it seems to me that the English Wikipedia are looking at the world through very imperialist, colonialist and unionist eyes. Sad world. Tegwen Llyfr a Gwin ( talk) 08:50, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Just looking at a few reliable sources easily found with Google search:
I.e. it looks like most RS on this subject are not written from Welsh pro-independence perspective, the article should not overly reflect Welsh pro-independence perspective. ( t · c) buidhe 00:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Only your selected sources! Odd you didn't include: Government Expenditure and Revenue Wales which is the authority on fiscal analysis in Wales. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 11:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
It's claimed that "The UK government spends £1.75bn per year on the military in Wales which is almost as much as Wales spend on education every year (£1.8 billion in 2018/19)." The source makes no such comparison. ( t · c) buidhe 10:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
This used to be an article about the Welsh fiscal deficit with a section describing the "Deficit" (which is encyclopedic), and a section on "Implications" (which can be encyclopedic but only if structured and sourced properly with no WP:OR). Now it is less coherent with disconnected sections on aspects of Welsh GDP etc. (and apples-to-oranges material), that is not coherent with the topic. I understand that the topic creates sensitivities to Welsh nationalists and that the metric has many dimensions to it (and can be misinterpreted if just read in isolation). I propose we build a structured/coherent section inside the "Implications" section that deals with criticisms of the metric as representative of the true underlying financial position of the Welsh economy etc. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:11, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@ Buidhe: Can you explain why you have deleted these two paragraphs? You say: first paragraph is made up of SYNTH, second paragraph fails verification in cited source.
Cell Danwydd ( talk) 17:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
I propose that we undo Cell Danwydd's BOLD reversion today, and restore the version Buidhe, Laurel Lodged, Gråbergs Gråa Sång and myself worked on. There are too many issues with Cell Danwydd's version (including WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH), and we have a section on Criticism that Cell Danwydd can focus on (which also needs fixing). Britishfinance ( talk) 17:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
A proposal was made on the 17th of February. This second one is void. John Jones ( talk) 23:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Welsh fiscal balance, Northern Ireland fiscal balance, and London fiscal balance. ( non-admin closure) Vpab15 ( talk) 20:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
– "Deficit" is a loaded term. Even if the word "deficit" is meaningful in the context of UK finance, it refers to a current situation that may not exist in the future. It seems to me that it would be more useful to look at the whole question of the financing of countries with devolved governments rather than dwelling on one aspect of it. Although the title I'm suggesting is based on existing articles such as Government spending in the United Kingdom and Government spending in the United States, I'm open to suggestions for alternative article titles. I'm bringing this here because discussion on the Talk page suggests it is likely to be controversial, with opinion evenly divided between those who see a "fiscal deficit" as a problem and those who see it in a historical context. Deb ( talk) 15:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to correct my which contained in the edit window that UserBuide is banned. The banned editor, of course, is User:BritishFinance, who mis-edited much of this article. I do apologise for this mistake. Cell Danwydd ( talk) 13:37, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm disappointed by edits that seek to downplay the deficit according to reliable sources and give undue weight to minority view that the deficit is not important or would be easily reversed in the event of Welsh independence. When we have this source it is blatantly POV to be giving equal or GREATER weight to the opposite claim, which does not appear in peer reviewed sources. ( t · c) buidhe 01:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)