# Talk:2021 Dublin Bay South by-election

I'm just looking at the format of UK by-election pages such as 2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, 2019 Peterborough by-election, 2019 Newport West by-election, 2018 Lewisham East by-election, and 2018 West Tyrone by-election and see that they're much more expansive than most Irish ones. Presumably, a lot of that would be down to the fact they have much more editors to draw upon. At any rate, they have a fairly consistent format between each one, one that includes background and candidate selection sections. So I think, given the format used there, it wouldn't be unusual for Irish by-election pages to use a similar format. I understand that because Ireland has a much more politically varied system than the UK that going into too much detail about things such as party selections could lead to too much sprawl, however, I don't think it has to be between an absolute of no party selection discussion or too much party selection discussion. I think it's possible to create a happy medium by being concise. CeltBrowne (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy with that approach. Spleodrach (talk) 19:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
I have removed the 2020 general election result, and it is not standard for other Irish by-election articles, and the 2020 result in on the main constituency page. Also, unlike the UK, the previous result is not a valid comparison, as the general election is a multi seat election, and the by-election is a single seat one. Spleodrach (talk) 08:17, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Shouldn’t the table of candidates be as per alphabetical surname order, as per current electoral law, as opposed to alphabetical by candidate surname?Khavakoz (talk) 23:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Deirdre Conroy's own blog posts describe her ski trip to Davos in 2013, and is referred to in the "On the Ditch" post. Removing this from the post removes key context. Khavakoz (talk) 20:55, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:SYNTHESIS, I have removed it. She was not attending the World Economic Forum. Spleodrach (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
WP:Synth does not apply, Davos is known as a high end ski resort apart from the Forum. Undo Khavakoz (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
There is no consensus to include this. Undo. Spleodrach (talk) 23:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
No consensus has been sought, material clearly refers to posts by candidate on her blog, and notes reporting in newspapers. Undo Khavakoz (talk) 23:18, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Stop edit warring or you will be banned. Spleodrach (talk) 23:18, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
You are the one edit warring in violation of WP:3RR. Throwing spurious allegations and references to WP: and editorialising re relevance to campaign. The information is as per discussion in the blogs, on media coverage and in social media.Khavakoz (talk) 23:23, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Khavakoz@Spleodrach I've replaced the citation for the Davos part. As On The Ditch has been recognised as being reliable for at least this particular article, and because On The Ditch refers to the Davos post, I've used that as the citation instead. In turn I've removed the citation that goes to the blog, which would be original research if no media outlet or political commentator referred to it.
For the removal of the entire section (edit summary: "rm - the relevance of 8 years old blog posts to a 2021 campaign is not clear") this has received enough media attention to form a key part of the campaign, with mentions in The Irish Independent, The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, etc. As that media coverage has tied those comments to this 2021 campaign, the 8 year old blog posts are therefore relevant to the Conroy campaign. Uses x (talk • contribs) 11:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I have removed the ontheditch reference, as it is a blog, and so not allowed per WP:RS. I have removed the reference to the economic downturn as the is not referenced and also appears to be untrue. I have added info about another skiing trip in 2015. Also, it appear the Conroy worked as a travel writer for a number of years, so going on holidys was actually her job.
This is becoming ridiculous. Your edit here is, again, a clear violation of WP:3RR and your continual new excuses for deleting this information give all the appearance of Socking. WP:RS clearly does not apply as the information presented in that "blog" is clearly referenced to the original material and is supported by the additional links presented. The ski-trip to Davos which really grinds your particular gears predates Conroy's employment by Independent News & Media (2015). Please stop amending this article to suit your own political ends. Khavakoz (talk) 20:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Added a EW to Spleodrach's talk page on this basisKhavakoz (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
I've left a notice  about this on your talk page. It's best to discuss this there as this discussion is getting off topic. Uses x (talk • contribs) 23:11, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
@Khavakoz: socking? Are you sure you actually know what that term means? First of all, that's a pretty major allegation to make against an editor, not least given it appeared to only be Spleodrach reverting your changes (and later Uses x, but this was after you'd made your allegation), but in general I can't see any appearance of "socking" going on here with one singular editor (now two) reverting your changes. Anyway, if you're insinuating that Spleodrach somehow has some other account he's using (evidently not to revert your changes), take it to WP:SPI rather than making unfounded allegations on the talk page. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 11:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
Socking? Does Khavakoz even know what this term means? Also, WP:RS clearly applies to all blogs. Thankfully, the issues have been resolved now. Spleodrach (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

So I'm looking at 2019 Dublin Fingal by-election for comparison and a month before the by-election was held, I can see from the history section that the infobox began listing all the confirmed candidates in alphabetical order and included their images where available. However, Template:Infobox election seems to only be able to display up to 9 candidates at a time, and so far there are 12 candidates. Thus, should we use Template:Infobox election and display the most probable candidates, or do we have to switch to using something like Template:Infobox legislative election, or is there some other way of displaying the candidates in an infobox that can be done? CeltBrowne (talk) 01:38, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@CeltBrowne The precedent seems to be to just list the top 9 candidates in the infobox election template, and leave the minor candidates for the long table of results. This is done in the 2019 Cork North-Central by-election, 2019 Dublin Fingal by-election, etc. I replied saying the infobox legislative election might've worked (so you might have received a ping), but looking at it I don't think it's designed for this kind of thing. Uses x (leave me a message) 13:25, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
To clarify, as I misread: this should only be done after the election is over. I agree that the candidates don't need to be listed in the infobox at the moment as that'd be a breach of NPOV. Uses x (leave me a message) 13:39, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Or we can leave the infobox as-is, right now?  If it's not capable of displaying all of the declared candidates, then why fudge a solution that'd be a breach of NPOV?  All of the declared candidates are listed right there in the article body, so there's really not much to be gained by also including (some of) them in an infobox. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 13:33, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with that and if that's the way we go, that's cool with me. However, is it possible to take the current "confirmed candidates" infobox and merge it with the infobox containing the map at the top of the article? So that all the "quick look" info is in one place? CeltBrowne (talk) 20:43, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I was looking at the dublin city returning officer website and in the "Bye-Election Press Release" it says the electorate for this constituency is 72,302. Should this be listed somewhere on the article? Thenoobgaming (talk) 20:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The electorate is generally included when the count starts, and we get the total poll, valid votes, quota, etc. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 21:37, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This really shouldn't have been a problem, but I've had a contribution reverted in which I:
Removed one opinion piece that makes a passing mention of the relevant text while the other article gives a comprehensive overview of the information, and another which has three mere relevant sentences stating that the party is "expected to select" the candidate while the other citation is a comprehensive overview of when she was selected.
This is to merely back up information about the candidate selection, which is repeated in near every article on the page.
I'm interested if any uninvolved editor agrees with this. I've made a comment on the user's talk page to inform them of this. Regards, Uses x (leave me a message) 20:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Uses x: You post refers to a disagreement with me, so you should have pinged me.  It would also have been have been much more helpful to link the diff(s), so that editors can make their own assessment of the edits, rather than than relying only only your side of the story.
As just one example, your flurry of edits removing refs twice removed the ref to the Miriam Lord article which contained a quote from Mannix Flynn, which i added here.[1]
As discussed  on my talk, this topic is still fresh, and the article is under development. Many of the refs cited are to sources which could be used to improve the article; but removing them because of alleged "redundancy"  impedes that development.
When the topic is no longer actively developing, and editors have had more time to develop it, then it would be helpful to review the refs for possible redundancy.  But at this stage, the removals actively undermine the development of the article.  It is much more work to re-add refs than to remove them, so there should be no rush to removal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl I'd rather deal with it now.
"He said that he would be throwing the kitchen" at his campaign." is for the campaign section, not the statements of who's running. That's not enough info to create a section for him, so we don't need that, nor its citation as it has no useful information. Irish Times opinion piece gone.
I'll leave this for now because it doesn't add warrentless and undue text in a prominent to advertise a candidate like the above did, but the Independent article talking about Durcan being "expected" to be selected (i.e. outdated, as I've repeated multiple times) has its info covered in near every single citation. I replaced it with an in-depth Irish Times article on top of the Examiner article that's already in the article, and you reverted that. Why?
Regards, Uses x (leave me a message) 22:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Please do not remove references from the article. We are under no time pressure. Some of the references you removed may well need to be re-added, and the article is still developing.  A few days after the result has been announced, we can absolutely remove/consolidate references, but until then, there's no benefit to removal. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
@Bastun Could you take a look at the addition of the campaign slogan (2nd paragraph), and remove or move it if it's out of place? Uses x (leave me a message) 23:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The article has no image of Fine Gael candidate James Geoghegan.  Since he was runner-up, that's an unfortunate gap.
I have asked at WP:Media copyright questions#Image_of_Dublin_City_Councillor_and_by-election_candidate whether we can use the image on the DCC website at https://councilmeetings.dublincity.ie/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=843. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:17, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

In parallel, I'm speaking to someone on Flickr who attended the count centre and took many high-quality images while there, including some of Geoghegan and Conroy. They've provisionally agreed to share some of those photos, I'm walking them through the final section of the deal now, so hopefully, that avenue bears fruit. I had actually e-mailed Fine Gael, who run an official Fine Gael Flickr account, earlier in the campaign about releasing some photos under Creative Commons licenses and at first, they seemed open to it, yet never committed to it in the end. I also have previously made contact with Labour, who also run an official Flickr account, and I think explaining that we can only use images under something like a CC BY 2.0 license is what prompted them to release the image we have now of Bacik under the correct license, which they don't normally do. CeltBrowne (talk) 17:09, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
@CeltBrowne: that's great work.  I hope it bears fruit.

I had actually drafted most of an email to Geoghegan asking him to upload a photo, but when I ran through the image upload request thing for those without autoconfirmed accounts, it still all seemed too complex to put someone through.

For about 12 years i have intended to try to persuade all the parties in the Oireachtas to systematically release images that Wikipedia can use, but every time I have concluded that the process is too hasslesome.  Your approach of going via Flickr seems much better, since the only issue then remaining is the licence type. I find it sad that the parties have not copped on to how it is very much in their interest to have good quality photos of their people freely-available, and how some modest effort on the part of their central comms team could make it happen.  It's not in anyone's interest for their elected reps and candidates to be described here with no photo or with some blurry, long-range, poorly-framed shot that was the best someone could do at a public event.

Meanwhile, fingers crossed that your contact at the count will be kind enough to share some of their work.  Extra images would really brighten up the article, and give more of a feel to the solid written description we have created. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:48, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: It's honest to God like pulling teeth trying to get the Irish political parties to understand flickr. After a number of e-mails, I actually rang the person in the Labour Party that runs their press and social media. I explained that we can only use photos that are both commercially available and that we can alter (and I explained the most common alteration we make are crops). Labour already allows the photos they put to be used commercially (normally the commercial aspect is the hardest thing to conceive people of), so I thought convincing them to drop the NoDerivatives would be simple. Not at all. God forbid someone were to take the photo and alter it. God forbid someone were to make a meme out of one of their photos (which can and will happen whether or not the images is licensed for that). God forbid a photo featuring someone outside the parliamentary party was given away. In their heads, if someone uses a photo they created in a way they don't like, they think they'll be able to take them to court for breaking the "NoDerivatives" rule. Not only would that be insanely expensive, that's not how you handle something like that. In that situation you take someone to court for something like slander, not for a minor copyright breach. I basically couldn't get through to them at the time, although I'm almost certain that the person who uploaded the new image of Bacik the week of the vote was someone from the Labour party itself and they finally realised what it takes to get their images onto Wikipedia.
This is all in complete contrast to Sinn Féin, who upload every single photo on their flickr account as CC BY SA 2.0. And I've pointed that fact out to all the other parties I've spoken to, but they take no heed. I don't want to pat SF too much on the back for this, but the fact they understand things like this is what journalists mean when they say that SF's social media game is miles ahead of all the rest. CeltBrowne (talk) 20:48, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
@CeltBrowne: wow, that's very sad.  Whether or not anyone supports any of the parties concerned, that sort of approach is bad news, because it impedes all sorts of new media coverage (not just Wikipedia).
You are right that copyright isn't a good grounds to sue for nasty memes, although it may be a theoretically useful basis for a takedown request on social media sites.  But any such action (whether legal or administrative) risks creating a Streisand effect which both boosts the impact of the meme and makes the complainant look like a bully who can't take the heat.  In practice, it's an unusable power.
So the only real effect of that sort of policy is to keep their images off responsible websites like Wikipedia, while in practice doing nothing to stop the creation and distribution of memes because meme-makers tend not to care about copyright anyway, and usually welcome the notoriety of being pursued.
It seems that the comms units of the other parties may be run by older people who don't understand social media and are thinking they can still exercise the sort of control that was possible in the pre-digital era. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:55, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@EvanPereiraIreland: - Images used on Wikipedia and on the Wikimedia commons must be images that have been officially released to the public. This means they must be hosted on a website where it explicitly states something to the effect of "this image is not under copyright". The most common and easiest way for political parties to release images to the public (and by extension, Wikipedia), is to run an official Flickr account, and use Flickr's licensing system to mark the image/photo as being available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license. That, or the political party can add a "images on this website are released under a creative commons CC BY SA 2.0 license" notice on their official website. If you like to see an image/photo of Bridget Purcell used in this article, I would suggest you encourage People before Profit to start their own Flickr account and upload their photos properly licensed, or add a CC BY SA 2.0 notice to their website. Alternatively, if you were to take a photo of Bridget yourself at some point, you yourself as the creator of that image could release that to the public under whichever license you like. CeltBrowne (talk) 00:55, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:2021 Dublin Bay South by-election/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Mark83 (talk · contribs) 12:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Very good article.  I have made some suggestions for tweaks.  There is not much work to do before I'll be happy to pass this nomination.  In the meantime I'm happy to discuss any of my suggestions/comments.


### Copyedit suggestions
Some references mid-sentence and not after punctuation (MOS:REFPUNCT)
Tense - i.e. is > was, include > included etc.
"Four seater" -- is that correct? Doesn't seem like formal language.
"The then Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Dublin City Councillor Claire Byrne contested the Green Party nomination and was selected as the party candidate on 4 June." -- this should read "and Byrne was selected".  As it is there's ambiguity.  Consider whether the linking of Dublin City Councillor to Dublin City Council is correct.  Not exactly an easter egg, but not a direct link either.
The paragraph beginning "Fianna Fáil councillors Deirdre Conroy and Claire O'Connor were reported..." could be tightened up - run on sentences etc.
Why are the Labour and SF canidates in one paragraph when others are separate?  (Although consider my table suggestion).
"Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything.  Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic.
Should "Zero Covid" be capitalised?  Should it be linked?
First lines of Fine Gael/James Geoghegan has run-on sentence.  Same with the whole second paragraph.
"O'Connell referred to the message as a "hoax"" is repetition.
SF section - "Following the annoucement of the by-election," is redundant.
I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue?  "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court"
"Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen send' out an internal e-mail within the party demanding an immediate in-person parliamentary party meeting to discuss Fianna Fáil's "alarming" performance in the by-election. In the e-mail, Cowen stated that "It is imperative that both that election and the latest bad result now comes under the microscope of the parliamentary party"" -- typo in bold and the whole issue could be summarised using less words.
Don't like the use of the word "camp" - a bit informal.
On the COVID precautions in voting centres - this could be tightened up slightly.


### Responses by BHG to the GA review
Many thanks to @Mark83 for the prompt and thorough review.  I will reply to the points in order, one at a time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

1b -- From the mention of pictures, I assume that The table seems to be overly big refers to the infobox at the top. So in this edit[2], I reduced the image size by 75% in each dimension.  Does that help? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
I amended your version of the sizing to the same image size as 2019 Polish parliamentary election's infobox, as your version reduced the image sizes but not the overall size of the infobox, and thus meant the images lost their uniform size. CeltBrowne (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
@CeltBrowne: actually, your edit[3] reverted to almost the same size as before, but randomly changed the crop location.
In this edit[4], I have just restored the smaller images, but also reduced the size of the non-image text boxes (for the candidates without photos).  My failure to fix the text boxes first time around was the oversight which caused the wee display glitches.
It would have been better to discuss this before reverting me, and more helpful to ping me if you did revert my changes. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Much better.  I still think it looks a bit clumbsy - but that's the infobox itself and not therefore a problem with this article. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
1b/item2 -- The candidates section looks a bit piecemeal, i.e. short sentences. Could this be in a list instead?.  My understanding us that per MOS:USEPROSE, prose is preferred.  I think that given the number of candidates and the sparsity of coverage of some of them, a little scrappiness in place is unavoidable. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:10, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
3b/item1. In this edit[5], I switched the order of the last 2 sentences of the lead, so that predictions of turnout come before the final data.  Also, light ce. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:54, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
3b/item2: No idea what the relevance of Conroy's legal action for a fall on a skiing trip has to the by-election? Conroy became a controversial character after release of her blog comments about a tenant, and she was heavily scrutinised.  The skiing injury drew attention because of its echoes of the Maria Bailey "swing-gate" episode, in which a politician had sought compensation for an injury in which they may have had a high degree of responsibility.  Unfortunately, the source doesn't mention Bailey, so we can't draw the connection directly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
You've explained it to me here, but I've gone back and read it again and I fear readers will have the same "huh?" thought as me? Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
3b/item3: The Diary of a Dublin Landlady controversy could perhaps be summarised?.  I see your point, but the landlady controversy was a huge issue, with a lot of media coverage.  So I think that the presence of a whole para on it reflects its prominence in the sources, per WP:WEIGHT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
3b/item4: Does the article get bogged down in the Geoghegan dodging media issue; should we focus on two podcasts? [snip].  In this edit[6], I have italicised the podcast titles as suggested.  I am unsure whether to keep any mention of them: my inclination is that since they may not be notable sources, they should be mentioned only if their exclusion is mentioned in relaible sources.  I will investigate that later.More broadly, the Geoghegan dodging media issue was widely covered because it was the inverse of the usual publicity-seeking tactics of by-election candidates.  This seat used to be natural FG territory, but its candidate seemed to be wary of showing his colours.  Geoghegan's reticence and the controversies around Conroy came together to define the dynamics of the by-election as one in which both FF and FG were in retreat and forced into defensive positions in the face of a perception that they were entitled and out-of-touch ... so I think that both episodes deserve space to breathe, to give readers a sense of the nature of the campaign as it was reported. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:40, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
As far as the notability of  the podcasts goes, the United Ireland podcast is co-hosted by Una Mullally, a journalist with the Irish Times. As a journalist for a national newspaper, she definitely has notability within an Irish context. CeltBrowne (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
@CeltBrowne: notability is not inherited.Una Mullally appears to be notable, but per WP:NOTINHERITED that does not mean that any of her works are WP:NOTABLE. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Some discussion left I think.  But not an issue preventing GA promotion. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
3b/item5: Sarah Durcan comments on airtime.I think that it would be unbalanced to leave that issue with only a verbose FG response, but I agree that the Durcan response was over-long.  So in this edit[7] I summarised as you suggested. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
4/item1 -- consider the Labour Party/Ivana Bacik section - undue weight to her own quotes vs. other candidates. Paraphrase perhaps?My view is that it is appropriate to give more weight to the victor, and that Bacik also supplied more succinct quotes which were more usable as a summary of her position.  Isn't it better to quote directly, as the sources did? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
4/item2 -- Note sure we should include this from Bacik's victory speech [snip qote] .. Could we not get analysis from an independent source on what her victory meant?.I think that the Bacik/Labour response to their win is actually a little underplayed in the § #Aftermath and reactions.  The first three paras are about two losing parties (FF & FG); the victor comes in only at para 3.The Bacik/Kelly responses in paras 3 & 5 are are 225 word out of a total of 544, which is 41%; that seems to be in the right range for a candidate who got 30% of first prefs, but won on transfers.I think that para 1, on the collapse of the once-mighty FF, reflects the focus of the focus of the sources ... but taking it as a whole, I think that the section would be better if it opened with a para on independent commentary, before going into the party reactions.  I will see what I can find in the sources, with a view to adding a new para there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll leave this with you, but again not a problem for GA promotion.Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


### Responses by BHG to the GA Copyedit suggestions
#Copyedit suggestions#1: my reading of MOS:REFPUNCT is that it requires that we do not have a ref followed by a punctuation mark (e.g. don't do "on friday[2]." or "in 2011[6],") ... but that it does not require that a ref must follow punctuation.I found two examples in the article of mid-sentence refs:
§Background, para 1
§Aftermath and reactions, para1 sentence 2
In each case, the refs seem to me to positioned appropriately, because in both cases, they follow the MOS:REFPUNCT guidance that  All ref tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies.  Moving them to the end of the sentenece would lose that specificity. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:21, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
I stand corrected here, apologies for wasting your time on this one. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#2: I think that all the tense issues were resolved in this edit[8] by @Sammielh.  Have I missed any? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#3: "Four seater" is a commonly-used shorthand (see e.g. how a Google search for for "Four seater" constituency gives lots of reliable sources), but it may be unfamiliar to those not from Ireland, and there is no handy link to a wiki article explaining the term. So in this edit[9] I expanded it to "four-seat constituency". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#4: in this edit[10] I  restructured the para on Green selection for clarity.  I also added a ref to the Irish Times report for the fact that it was a selection convention.I disagree about linking "Foo City Councillor" to "Foo City Council"; I think it is pretty direct, since the Council is a body composed of its councillors. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#5: The paragraph beginning "Fianna Fáil councillors Deirdre Conroy and Claire O'Connor were reported...".Good catch: that para was clumsy.  In this edit[11], I restructured it and added refs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:43, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#6: Why are the Labour and SF candidates in one paragraph when others are separate? -- I assume this refers to the §CandidateselectionBecause for both Lab & SF, we have only one short sentence on each candidate's selection.  Splitting that into two very paras seems to me to be worse than putting them together in one para.The ideal remedy would be to have more coverage of each party's selection process, and cover each party in a separate para.  However, my brief search didn't find more.  I will try again tomorrow. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#7: "Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything. Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic..Back in June/July, I searched long and hard for any other coverage of Mannix Flynn's campaign, but that was the only report I found of him.  I agree that almost anything else about his campaign would render that quote superfluous, but when it's all we have I think those few words are worth including to give some flavour of his style. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
I see where you're coming from.  Personally I'd take it out. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#8: Should "Zero Covid" be capitalised? Should it be linked?I did a search for "zero covid", and found nothing to link to.  However, 25 of the 29 hits used a lowercase "zero", and there is no indication that "Zero Covid" is a proper name, so in this edit[12] I changed the text from "Zero Covid" to "zero Covid". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
PS: I left a note[13] at WT:COVID raising the possibility of an article on "zero Covid". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
PPS: The article Zero Covid has just been created[14] by @Novem Linguae, so I have linked it in this edit.[15]
Thanks, Novem Linguae! BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you (both)! Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#9: First lines of Fine Gael/James Geoghegan has run-on sentence. Same with the whole second paragraph.Good catch; that whole section was riddled with over-long sentences.  In this edit[16], I split them up. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#10: "O'Connell referred to the message as a "hoax"" is repetition.Yes, it is.  In this edit,[17] I have removed that redundant sentence. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#11: SF section - "Following the annoucement of the by-election," is redundantYes, it is.  I removed it in this edit[18]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#12: I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue? "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court".In this edit[19], I wikilinked the "criticism" section of the article Special Criminal Court, as follows: [[Special Criminal Court#Criticism|Special Criminal Court]]. If you prefer a simple link to the article, I will change it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:05, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#13: "Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen send' out an internal e-mail [snip].Yes, redundant verbosity. In this edit,[20] I have trimmed the coverage of Barry Cowen's email.  Two sentences cut to one, and redundant quote removed.  In the same edit, I also tightened the sentence on Cathal Crowe. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#14: informality of "camp".I agree, and in this edit[21] I trimmed the verbose informality: "discontent was felt with the Fine Gael camp" → "discontent was felt in Fine Gael". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
#Copyedit suggestions#15: On the COVID precautions in voting centres - this could be tightened up slightlyI agree. In this edit,[22] I did a light copyedit to slightly reduce verbosity, without losing any detail. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:00, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
That completes my responses to the review.  Huge thanks to @Mark83 for such thorough and fair-minded scrutiny, which I think has led to a lot of useful improvements.  There are some points which need to be discussed further, and I look forward to that process: the gaps between us are small, and I am sure we can easily resolve them.
I have done my responses as separate bullet points, to facilitate threaded discussion on any outstanding issues on any individual point.
I several places I have identified a need for further research.  I won't attempt that today, because I am too close to the article and need a bit of a break for doing that research.  So I will do the research on Monday.
Mark, you may prefer to respond now to the points I have made so far, or to leave it all until I have done the extra research.  I am fine with either approach, so please do as suits you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


### Summary
Happy to pass this.  And a very sincere thanks to @BrownHairedGirl: for a prompt, constructive, methodical and thorough response to my comments.  I know there are a few bits of extra research mentioned above, but these will just improve a GA, they aren't necessary to promote it.  
And just to note a learning for me.  I could have formatted this review better, i.e. 3b (1), to make responses easier.  I'll do that for future reviews! Many thanks for the logical formatting of your replies.  Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks again, @Mark83.  It was pleasure to work with you on this, and bring the article over the line.
And thanks too to Sheila1988, Iveagh Gardens, BrownHairedGirl, Spleodrach, CeltBrowne, and Uses x.  This article reached GA status due to a lot of hard work by all these editors and to very effective collaboration between us all. Well done everyone! BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
This is the first article I've been involved in that has been nominated for a GA and I'm happy to see the nomination succeeded with BrownHairedGirl's guidance. A GA is nice way to ring in the new year, hopeful more Irish articles in the future follow this same path. Cheers everyone! CeltBrowne (talk) 23:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Great to see this reach Good Article standard, and thanks BrownHairedGirl for clearly outlining how to achieve this, providing general stylistic guidelines that can be applied throughout the project. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Headsup
@Sheila1988, Iveagh Gardens, Spleodrach, CeltBrowne,  and Uses x: this hook is included in Template:Did you know/Queue/5, which will be on the front page at 00:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC), where it will remain for 12 hours.
That is likely to trigger some edits, so I think we should be alert tomorrow to check whether any such edits are constructive. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

> Separately, Conroy is [when?] taking legal action over a fall during a skiing trip to Andorra in 2015.
I'm not sure this isn't relevant, but I don't see how it is. Either we should explain why this matters (and bring it up to date), or we should delete it. Ben Aveling 20:18, 1 November 2025 (UTC)