Talk:Hillclimbing in the British Isles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject British Motorsport, an attempt to improve and standardize articles related to Motorsport in the United Kingdom. Consult the project page for further information.

[edit] Use of the term "British Isles"

I know the phrase is controversial in some quarters (see discussion at British Isles (terminology)) but as it's the most common by far I felt it reasonable to use it here. There's not (yet?) any discussion in this article of hillclimbing in the Republic of Ireland, and although the Channel Islands are not geographically part of the British Isles, nor politically part of the UK (which is why this is not "Hillclimbing in the United Kingdom"), I can't really call the article "Hillclimbing in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man"! I don't think there is a perfect and universally accepted term, so if any Irish readers feel aggrieved I can only apologise and say that it's the best I could do. Loganberry (Talk) 02:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact that the "some quarters" in question happens to be Ireland, allegedly one of the two islands that make up this British Isles thing, is quite significant. Why, pray tell, do you feel the need to claim lands which are most assuredly not British as "British"? Why can you not be happy enough writing about 'Hillcliming in Great Britain' without having the impulse to go beyond your island into others? If there was not a strong amount of nationalism in this article, why isn't it about 'Hillclimbing in Europe', for instance? Same old so-so: keep Britain separate from Europe and keep as much land as possible in the British remit in the process. That is the history of British nationalism, and every utterance of "British Isles" confirms the truth of that most nationalistic dynamic. 89.100.195.42 11:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Because "Hillclimbing in Great Britain" would be inaccurate. The British Hill Climb Championship includes rounds in Northern Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey. Since these are all of the short-course form common in the UK but less so elsewhere in Europe, they need to be kept together with the rounds that are in Great Britain. Loganberry (Talk) 23:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Loganberry - The phrase holds no controversy whatsoever except for certain extreme and deluded Irish nationalists such as the user above. British Isles is an ethnically and politically neutral term which has historical precedence over any sovereign state now extant in this geographical area and controversy over its use is a modern phenomenon created by the aforementioned Irish nationalists as seen above who try to impose an anachronistically modern meaning upon it. siarach 12:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Verifiability Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. Aatomic1 22:16, 14 May 2007

I personally do not like the term British Islands; but it is a verifiable term Aatomic1 22:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)