Talk:Thomas Karsten

Patrician
Can someone explain this for me? karsten was "raised in a patrician family"? thanks. :) regards Merbabu 04:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup, that is what I read from the source. The first source explains about Karsten in much view of his social ideology that gives a background of why he proposed a radical change in colonial urban development to include more indigenous elements. Feel free to read it. :-) &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 07:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * OTOH, I might erase the patrician word. I re-read the source but it does not say much about Karsten's family. It's only said his family origin is patrician (?). :"-> &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 07:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Social vision = socialism?
I changed this link. Not everything to do with benefitting, or at least trying to benefit society is socialism which is a specific political philosophy/doctrine. Do the resources actually say 'socialism' or simply 'social vision'? Thanks. Merbabu 06:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's okay to unlink it. The social vision was my term from the source. The source itself says that Karsten's ideology is socialism. He was also said a friend of Tan Malaka, but the source does not says further on this matter. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 07:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

GA review
I am delisting this from the GA nominations page for the following reasons:
 * There is a lot of information in this article which is either extremely detailed and/or likely to be called into question and which is not supported by references. For instance, the sections on socioeconomic crisis in Amsterdam and the first paragraph on Town Planning would do well to have better support from citations.
 * Occasional spots of clumsy English; needs a copyedit.
 * WP:NPOV problems. "unrelenting population increases" - what defines an unrelenting population increase? "His social vision" - non-neutral language. "In colonialism, all social components are expressed through the articulation of the 'form of difference'" - this is not a fact, it is an interpretation, probably influenced by post-colonial or postmodern French academic theory, and should be presented as such.

The article might benefit from a visit to peer review. Chubbles 05:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, too bad, because all materials are written from the main source. Any statements that are likely to be challenged can be asked their sources which will be easy for me to add. Anyway, thanks for the review. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 07:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

"Social Vision"
I get the appeal of trying to make this guy into an early SJW but esp. on the flimsy support of this article with lots of value judgments & few direct quotes it seems highly unlikely. Particularly note the sources in Willem Thomas de Vogel and Semarang: Karsten overcame a plan to improve living conditions for the city's indigenous poor so that he could plan a new upscale villa district. It doesn't really matter than he incorporated native elements in some of the villas or that he provided "communal" facilities that were too far for the poor to commute to and that the colonizers wouldn't've touched with a 10 ft pole; dude seems to have simply been another self-promoting colonial.

If that's an inaccurate portrait, much more direct sourcing to the guy's actual words and specific benefits to the working class are needed. Maybe he got better with age? — Llywelyn II   23:50, 7 May 2022 (UTC)