Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lowland Scots people

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 delete. The concerns about OR haven’t been addressed to the point where we clearly can save this and plenty of editors have concerns that there is too much OR to rescue this. On that basis this clearly must go but I do endorse the suggestion to have a discussion on how best to discuss this subject but any recreation really oughtto be based on academic sources to avoid further OR concerns Spartaz Humbug! 07:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lowland Scots people

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Lowland Scots people (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Leans very heavy on Gaels. Does not seem realistic to have this article on its own. The Banner talk 10:08, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Ethnic groups and Scotland. Shellwood (talk) 10:36, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. When one searches for "Lowland Scot" on google search, google books, and newspapers.com, there is a plethora of sources. While the newspaper search is somewhat complicated by the appearance in the search of a racehorse by that name, there were many articles that clearly discuss Lowland Scots People, including [1]. Without going into listing all of them, there are already a large number of high-quality references, including several books by authors who have their own articles and at least one of which includes the term in the title. Many of these have been added to the article in the last couple of days. In any case, the article is currently well-referenced with plenty of significant coverage to meet the general notability guideline with ease. Jacona (talk) 13:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'd agree that the article has the strong air of a thesis about it and seems to be advancing sources somewhat partially to support the author's personal POV, particularly as presented in the lede versus the main body. For example the Lowland_Scots_people#Lowlander_ethnic_group_formation gives, to some extent, a diversity of views as to origins but the first paragraph is categorical. There are other statements which just seem simplistic or plain wrong, such as the subjects "speak the Scots language": very many of course do, most, to some extent, on the dialect continuum but it is wrong to note it as a necessary or defining characteristic. This may be largely stylistic but the article's framing of its content by mustering which academic authority has stated what gives the article the qualities of the advancement of a case. Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 13:21, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I got into a substantial discussion at the matching AfD for Scots Gaelic people which is closely related to this. The subject is obviously notable. The real issue is how to distribute the material between different articles. We could deal with the whole thing at Scottish people, but that article is already long. Scots Gaelic people ran into a perfectly reasonable argument from Akerbeltz that there is no distinction between Scots Gaels and Gaels in general, who already have an article, so Scots-Gaels as an article shouldn't exist; but this would remove the other half of the two articles currently covering the major Scots peoples; but that was also a bone of contention at Scots Gaelic people, about distinctions between Highland Scots and Gaelic Scots, distinctions lost in the current arrangement of articles. I am not in favour of deleting any of the current information in any of these articles, except where it can be shown to be inaccurate (in which cases it should be edited as normal). I am not opposed to some massive restructuring, but I'm not going to try to oblige someone to do the restructuring work, and I'm not sure AfD is the best place to suggest restructuring that doesn't actually involve deleting anything complete (the situation is too complex). Somehow we need to find a way to discuss the various Scottish people without grouping them inappropriately. Elemimele (talk) 13:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep as the topic is clearly notable (per Jacona) and therefore should have an article. There is plenty of room for improvement (especially when considered with the other related peoples articles), but that is no reason for deletion. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 13:53, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changing to Delete: Lowlanders as a group of people is better covered in Scottish people and there is no content worth saving from the article as written (currently consists of unsaveable original research, deleteable per WP:NOTFORUM and WP:DEL-REASON#6). I'm also beginning to doubt notability after thinking about WP:SIGCOV a little more becuase I'm not seeing enough significant coverage to make an article larger than a short paragraph without needing to do at least some WP:OR. See discussion below. In addition, I'm not sure how it could be redirected as a subsection of Scottish people as an WP:ATD-R right now. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 16:28, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete the topic is more adequately treated under Scottish people. This page reads like some heavily biased opinion piece that is riddled with inaccuracies. The whole concept of trying to establish Scots and Lowland Scots as two distinct ethnic groups seems so fundamentally flawed in the first place that such a page would need really broad consensus and seriously reliable sources, otherwise it smacks of someone with an agenda trying to cultivate a split that doesn't exist. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:43, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Akerbeltz: Looking at Scottish people#Constructs of a unitary ethnicity, especially the paragraph starting with "In 2014", the groups are distinct in that one is a subgroup of another or something similar (there are references to back that up). If there is a practical and useful way to merge useful content to the Scottish people article and treat the topic there while redirecting the page title to where its covered, I like the sound of that. However, I'm not aware of such a way. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 15:22, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Akerbeltz and my previous comments. The existence of separate articles on supposed neatly distinct Scots Gaelic and Lowland Scots ethnic groups, outwith the naturally encompassing Scottish people article, promotes an OR proposal. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • The most cursory of Google searches for "Lowland and Highland Scots" produces an enormous number of relevant hits.[2], [3], [4] etc. etc. etc.; We have to deal with this. I have no problem with getting rid of this article, but we can't get rid of it by ignoring centuries of sourcing and pretending that no one has ever proposed that lowland and highland scots are two different groups. The question of how this divide was balanced against the feeling of unity of one country is a part of Scottish history, isn't it? Wikipedia is here to say what sources have said, across centuries, not to say what we think the situation ought to be, no matter how much we hate artificial divides (I personally loathe articles that get hooked up on ethnicity). Elemimele (talk) 16:25, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:OR defines itself: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." There are lots of sources (including 34 in the article), so while not everyone likes the article, it is clearly not OR. Jacona (talk) 16:33, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That "Wikipedia is here to say what sources have said" is the very point. These articles indeed brandish copious sources but the impression is given of a partial emphasis and of a synthesis to present an original thesis - Wikipedia is very much not here to do that, either in distinct articles or merged into an all-encomapssing one. Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:41, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How can we say this article is synthesis without also addressing Scottish_people#Constructs of a unitary ethnicity which appears to say, in the voice of several recent historians, precisely what we wish to deny here? I am becoming thoroughly confused. Elemimele (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For the n-th time, yes, there is the concept of a Highlander/Lowlander and the Highlands/Lowlands. Nobody is denying that. But that's more of a geographic decriptor, not ethnic divide, certainly not in the 21st century. Secondly, yes, the article has a lot of references, but they don't necessarily actually back up the point the page author is trying to make. Just because a source says there are/were Highlanders and Lowlanders does NOT mean the source is stating they were distinct ethnicities. The whole thing is murky because (ignoring fairly clear-cut cases such as the Norse), many Scots-speaking Lowlanders are/were simply Gaelic speakers who had been linguistically assimilated n generations back. That changed the language they spoke, but does it change the ethnicity? Akerbeltz (talk) 17:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My position (as of whenever I hit the "publish" button) is that the topic is notable and should be covered somewhere, but the article does seem to be making a case (OR) for the author's POV. Mutt Lunker identified several problems with the text in their fist comment, and I do think they are probably right. I may change my mind as I edit the article, though. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 17:51, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Akerbeltz, here's a quote from Steven Danver, taken from the Scottish people article: "The people of Scotland are divided into two groups - Lowland Scots in the southern part of the country and Highland Scots in the north - that differ from one another ethnically, culturally, and linguistically". You can argue he's wrong, or writing about a past that no longer exists, but you cannot argue that he never intended to imply that the lowland and highland Scotts were distinct ethnicities. He couldn't have said it more clearly. Elemimele (talk) 21:02, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even the Scottish people article brings the issue of 'when' into discussion, quote in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A lot of this stuff is not necessarily written by subject specialists. Danver may be tops when it comes to Native Americans, but a lot of the section on 'Highland Scots' reads like it was speedily researched and is full of errors. For example, his geographic placement of Gaelic-speakers as 'Northern' totally ignores Argyll, his figures for Candian Gaelic speakers conflate those of native speakers and learners of varying ability, he claims Gaelic is used as a medium of instruction in bilingual primary schools only (wrong, there are Gaelic-medium secondaries)... and that's just at a cursory glance. That's generally a problem when subject specialists try to branch out to do a 'global atlas of x', they have to condense material from other sources and that is risky. I'm not sure this particular publication by Danver counts as a totally reliable source.

Often these statements are also recursive in that some folk look at who speaks/spoke what language and immediately assume that speaking A means descent from Group A and speaking B from Group B. But that's categorically not the case. In genetic terms, only the borders strongly pattern with genetic descent from Northern Anglo-Saxon groups, the rest of Scotland is a mix of Goidelic, Pictish and Norse groupings, see this research from Edinburgh Uni. What languages Scots in 2020 or indeed in 1820 speak or spoke seems to have realatively little to do with actual descent. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:33, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Akerbeltz, you're bludgeoning and verging on triggering me to an ANI complaint. You can't just write off any source you don't like as unreliable, not without offering some published sources that actually support your point of view (the article you've just cited is about race and genetics, not ethnicity as defined by common culture etc., and it certainly doesn't argue for an undivided Scottish people). If you don't think Danver's right, get your own work published to refute him, and then we can cite it here. But we can't reject him (and many, many others) simply because you don't like what he's saying. Further, it doesn't matter if the division ceased to exist after the 19th Century. That doesn't mean it isn't worth writing about. We just need to say that it's a historical divide that no longer exists. Overall, this is not the way to handle an AfD. To be honest, I'm beginning to feel I've run into something political here, which is making me feel very uncomfortable. Elemimele (talk) 13:33, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Report away. And it works the other way round, there is no assumption that anything published out there is reliable, there's simply too much rubbish that nobody has the time to refute. The onus is on us to determine if a source is reliable or not. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:49, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So, lifted a rock ... the Lowland Scots article was apparently written by one Harald Haarmann, who is a prolific writer and - according to the German Wiki page a major proponent of the non mainstream Danubian culture theory. I make no claims about having insights into his academic credentials overall but when someone is a proponent of a non-mainstream controverisal theory, it's at least a question mark. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sick to death of this. Have it your own way. Elemimele (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how having a non-mainstream view on a completely unrelated topic to lowland scots influences his reliability; he is a cultural scientist with a PhD. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 15:58, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm astonished at the resort to accusations of bludgeoning in regard to perfectly reasonable, measured and necessary querying of sources and of their application. In regard to running into something political, that's the very sense I got on encountering the two articles. I don't know whose politics they might serve as they contain elements that could be seen to serve conflicting interests but there is a distinct air of pointiness about them. I'm glad to see they are not being accepted at face value and with the provision of substance to those doubts. I would hope the accuser might reflect. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. All the arguments for delete don't seem to be based on real reasons to delete, one variation or another of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If the article "reads like a thesis" but has plenty of sources, improve it. If the article has some WP:OR, but has plenty of WP:RS, remove the OR and replace it with sourced content. There are plenty of references to establish WP:N, WP:SIGCOV, whether a particular editor likes the article as written or not should not be the issue. Jacona (talk) 14:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) - now questioning the reliability, or misuse of, sources is IDONTLIKEIT? The removal of OR is not reliant on something being put in its place. If it's OR, it goes. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say anything about bludgeoning. I didn't say anything about keeping OR. I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you're saying this to me. Jacona (talk) 15:22, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Jacona: It seems like @Mutt Lunker accidentally put their reply to Elemimele in the wrong place due to the edit conflict, I've moved it above your comment where it belongs. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 15:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to User:Danre98 for moving User:Matt Lunker's misplaced response.... As far as IDONTLIKEIT, my point is that those in favor of deletion's arguments are not about notability, but about the content of the article. While there may well be problems with the article in terms of WP:NPOV and WP:OR, there's really not any doubt that sources exist, some already in the article and many more available on the internet and newspapers.com. The issues with article content are reasons to improve the article, not reasons to delete it. Jacona (talk) 12:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The case for deletion is plainly not just about content but, again, as to whether it is appropriate to cover this as a distinct article, rather than within the Scottish people article. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: After spending plenty of time thinking about it and time editing the article (removing OR I find as I repeatedly read it and there's a lot more I could have justifiably removed), I'm convinced that this article consists of enough WP:OR that the idea of a Lowland Scots People (as the author has written it) is origninal research, one of the things Wikipedia is not and is also WP:DEL-REASON#6. The original research is pervasive across the page, too. The topic is likely notable imo, but it requires WP:TNT (and the newspaper article might be a good place to start). I won't change my !vote because I believe that a (likely stub) rewrite should happen as opposed to deletion (or adding information to Scottish people); I might try to do it myself soon. The content of the article is irreparable, in my opinion. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 17:48, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I could be swayed into supporting a stub, provided the stubs (of course supported by refs) makes it clear this is a complex issue and not a simple case of Highland/Gael vs Lowland/Germanic Scots. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:00, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm still of the view that this would be better dealt with under Scottish people and, to me, one problem of retaining this as a standalone, even purged of OR, is the name; the notion of Lowland Scots as a "people". Lowland Scots on its own could clearly be confused with Scots (language) but we'd generally just talk about Lowlanders, so, with disambiguation in brackets, would Lowlanders (Scottish) be better? Mutt Lunker (talk) 23:34, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I did say 'could' :) But yeah, you've touched on the problem. Is 'people' accurate and if not, then what? Again, not my area of expertise but there is a problem with Lowlander having pejorative connotations, to the extent that I can't see someone from Glasgow or Dundee standing up to say 'I'm a Lowlander'. Again, this is just my take, but most 'Lowlanders' would simply identify as 'Scots'. From my area of expertise, i.e. the Gaelic angle, the question is more about whether the identity of the Gael and Gaelic is still part of a Scottish identity or whether it has been disassociated. To put it another way, if you ask an Irish or Welsh native whether speaking Irish/Welsh and Irish/Welsh 'Celtic' culture is part and parcel of an Irish/Welsh identity, most would say yes, even if they don't speak it and don't play a harp (joke). But ask the same question in Scotland, you get a very complicated answer and while many if not most are broadly tolerant of Gaelic and Gaeldom these days, they don't see it as part of their own identity much. I think there are relatively few recent sources talking about Highlanders/Lowlanders are separate ethnicites because by and large, whatever the original identity of the Lowlander, this has been largely merged with that of being a Scot. Personally I've always felt that having the Scottish people page and the page on Gaels was adequate to cover this complicated issue as elegantly as possible. There's a page which is currently a redirect Highland-Lowland divide, maybe that could serve as a home for covering the Highland-Lowland thing beyond mere geography, without going into whether people still call themselves Lowlanders? At the moment it leads to Geography of Scotland, which talks about the Highland Boundary Fault but the cultural Highland line was never as clear cut as the geographic one. Akerbeltz (talk) 08:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After reading [5] and mulling over the newspaper article Jacona shared, both of which seems to give more coverage about Ulster Scots people than lowlanders of which coverage is negligible, I've come to the conclusion that any coverage should happen in Scottish people because it would be better covered there in that context, perhaps somewhere in the section Scottish ethnic and cultural groups. Even if a standalone article is appropriate, something with "lowlanders" in the title is probably more appropriate (like Mutt Lunker's suggestion), so there may be no reason to keep the article even after a TNT. I've updated my reccomendation above and struck part of my cmt above. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 16:28, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I have a feeling this dispute may be best served by a centralized discussion, possibly at Talk:Scottish people, that addressed how to distribute this content; however, perhaps another week here will establish some consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde (Talk) 11:02, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The article may have problems, but Lowland Scots are definitely a distinct group and the noms rationale is utter nonsense. SpinningSpark 17:24, 20 August 2022 (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.
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