Talk:Northern Ireland Act 1998

Peace process/"peace process"

"Many would argue that many groups were in the process for their own aims, and not peace e.g. parliamilitaries and prisoner releases, others as stepping stone to a united ireland)"

The quotes are a very POV way of making that point, and this is not the place to present that debate anyway. Take it to Northern Ireland peace process, where both viewpoints can be neutrally presented.

If you think the phrase "Northern Ireland peace process" itself is POV, please start a debate to rename Northern Ireland peace process. Until you succeed with this rename, I'll continue to use the phrase "Northern Ireland peace process" as NPOV. Demiurge 23:32, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree that this is a "very POV way of making that point". Quotes have a legitimate use to signify a colloquial term or phrase, which it is. Without the quotes it is certainly much more POV than with the quotes.

You would have been better to post your objections on the Northern Ireland peace process, than here. I'm not sure whether the Northern Ireland peace process article name should have quotes in it (are there any other articles on wikipedia with complete article titles in quotes?), but its usage in any paragraph within the article certainly should contain quotes, and therefore I feel that your position of "Until you succeed with this rename, I'll continue to use the phrase "Northern Ireland peace process" as NPOV" is quite illogical.

(By the way, I meant to say "paramilitaries" in my edit summary!)

Jonto 00:14, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

With the quotes it presents one clear POV -- that the Northern Ireland peace process is not a real "peace process". Imagine if I edited articles to link to the "Holocaust" or the "theory" of evolution. I wouldn't get very far using the arguments you are using, now would I?

You are attempting to twist my argument. Without quotes it presents the POV that the "peace process" really was a process with the 100% aim by all involved of producing peace. With quotes it denotes that it is a term used to describe the NI talks - it does not remove the word "peace" from the phrase, and says that this is a term used (maybe Perhaps "talks process" or something like that is a better term).

And BTW, "Northern Ireland peace process" is not a colloquial phrase. It is used in many formal written documents. Demiurge 00:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Please show me these documents. Perhaps, strictly speaking, "colloquial" was the wrong word to use ("common" might have been better). Any documents which use the term are not being encyclopaedically (is that a word?!!) correct, official government documents or not. Without the quotes a very big and very incorrect implication that peace is being made by all (a POV that government officials involved will obviously want to promote, esp. Tony Blair - the master of spin himself!)

Jonto 01:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I have changed it from Northern Ireland "peace process" to "Northern Ireland Peace Process". Is this any better? Hopefully this removes all implications and simply states that this is a term that is commonly used. Actually, now that I think about it, as long as it links to the Northern Ireland Peace Process article, then I don't actually have a big problem with whether there are quotes here or not. However, if there is no link in an article using this term then there either need to be quotes or a link.Jonto 01:45, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, you have a point- I removed the quotes again - as long as the link is there to give the context of the term.Jonto 02:01, 1 August 2005 (UTC)