Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Noam Chomsky (3rd nomination)


 * 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 arguments lean the scales towards delete. Still, some of the content may be merged to other articles, as suggested. Let me know if you need to access the content. Tone 20:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of Noam Chomsky
AfDs for this article: 
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This is essentially a WP:POVFORK involving a living person.Our WP:BLP policy expressly puts restrictions on Criticism sections and discourages giving them "disproportionate space" This article does just that. Criticism of his Linguistic theory needs to be put in articles on the theories themselves. Criticism of his political views material needs to be integrated into Noam Chomsky's political views. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 13:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete/Merge there's a lot of quotes, most of which could be summarized and eliminated and rolled into the main bio as well as the Noam Chomsky's political views article. ZHurlihee (talk) 14:24, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep after reviewing the prior deletion discussions, I think the criticisms are notable enough to warrant a separate article. ZHurlihee (talk) 14:29, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I know at this point I'm getting a little too prolific in this conversation, but the previous keeps were both speedy under snow from before WP:BLP was an established policy. I feel like this is  a flimsy justification. i kan reed (talk) 13:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you claiming that WP:BLP was not an established policy in 2008 or 2009? ZHurlihee (talk) 18:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. It is a pov fork. It looks unbalanced and a bit like an attack page, although I know it isn't. Do we have a page called "Achivements of Noam Chomsky"? No. Merge whatever is worth keeping and delete. Szzuk (talk) 15:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak delete The page is well sourced, and does give responses to criticism that is also well sourced in most cases.  That said, it still exists as a page to attack a living person, and the talk page discussions tend to highlight that fact with a format of "how can I incorporate this criticism I have personally?" type of discussions.  The need for this as a seperate page has not really been adequately demonstrated.  i kan reed (talk) 16:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete, with possible Merge of some content with Noam Chompsky: Terrible MOS precedent. I can't find other "Criticisms of" articles about American political polemicists who are/were peers of Chompsky and are of comparable notability (e.g. "Criticisms of Howard Zinn","Criticisms of William F. Buckley, Jr.", "Criticism of Gore Vidal", "Criticisms of William Safire"). Instead, these criticisms are subsumed within the respective articles--as well they should be to provide NPOV balance. I agree with Szzuk: this article is a POV fork created because someone got fed up with edit warring on the Chompsky page. Also the article contains lengthy block quotes which is poor MOS.--Atlantictire (talk) 19:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oy. Check this out: Noam Chomsky's political views. So the Chompsky partisans and the Chompsky detractors each get their own article? Seems kind of silly.--Atlantictire (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Criticism of articles are dwindling in number for precisely the same reason. Wikispan (talk) 20:42, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per ZHurlihee. 203.118.185.155 (talk) 02:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Chomsky criticism is hard to summarize within the Chomsky article without looking like an ad-hominem. It deserves its own article to be adequately explained. Ben (talk) 17:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * How is it easier to summarize in a "Criticism of" article without looking like an ad-hominem?--Atlantictire (talk) 21:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To the extent that Chomsky criticism consists of critics citing Chomsky's pattern of fabricating and misrepresenting his sources, a great deal of text is required. Such nit-picky and tedious criticisms fall apart when summarized; "X says Chomsky's making stuff up. Chomsky denies this." is completely uninformative. Ben (talk) 02:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's odd, you managed to describe exactly that in 2 sentences. In fact, trying to communicate such a pattern through a wikipedia article like this falls into 2 no-no categories: unencyclopedic lists, and POV structure of articles.  The point shouldn't be to highlight something you find objectionable about Chompsky, but to give an overview of the notable criticisms.  As the article stands, it doesn't do a good job of WP:BLP. i kan reed (talk) 14:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Then you should vote to delete. I may have expressed the point poorly, but I stand by my keep. Ben (talk) 15:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not a vote. The reason I'm counter-arguing your points is that deletion discussions are driven by consensus.  I'd like to hear your counter-arguments to what I've been saying, because standing disagreement doesn't get at the heart of why this should be an article or not.  If you feel my interpretation that this article focuses its structure on demeaning a living person and only includes notable criticisms, then please say so, and say why.  I don't mind being wrong, but it's not helpful to say my conclusion is wrong without explaining why.  i kan reed (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, here are my three concerns:
 * I watched the Noam Chomsky page pretty closely from 2002 to 2004, back before the fork of the Criticism page. Because most of the editors of the article were big Chomsky fans--and perhaps because Wikipedia's standards were much looser back then--criticism would regularly get edited out through well-intentioned rephrases and summaries that were never quite obviously unacceptable, revert-worthy POV edits.  As I wrote at the time, any citation of criticsm of Chomsky gets qualified into "here's a transparently incorrect opinion of some nitwit who disagrees with the Great Man, and more importantly, here's why they're obviously wrong"  For examples, see .  I suspect that it might be particularly instructive to see what happened to the Chomsky and anti-semitism subject after that fork was merged back into the main article.  (Mind, the same drift may happen in the Criticism article we're discussing: see the Zerzan section for an example of pro-Chomsky rebuttal taking up more space than is given to the actual criticism.)
 * Critics who cite Chomsky's mis-representation of sources are necessarily nit-picky, and representing the substance of their criticisms requires space if it is to be done adequately.
 * Chomsky criticism is notable on its own and has a complicated taxonomy which might overwhelm the main article if it were incorporated.
 * So I'd say that although the criticism article is currently a mess (which was not always the case if I remember correctly) incorporating the criticism article will almost certainly result in a summarization that will be so pro-Chomsky as to not even include prominent critics like Oliver Kamm or Christopher Hitchens. -Ben (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To quote critic Oliver Kamm: I’m afraid that refutations of Chomsky necessarily are long, because he habitually distorts and fabricates source material, and it requires a close examination of that material to understand how Chomsky works. In this case, where Chomsky makes an extreme assertion without troubling to give a source at all, it requires examining a large amount of material to come to a conclusion.
 * -Ben (talk) 17:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Problematically, some of what you said supports the idea that this is a POV fork. This article shouldn't exist just because some editors have a problem with incorporating criticism into the Noam Chomsky article.  NPOV disputes are a serious issue, but a seperate article to just address Chomsky's faults is a clear violation of WP:POVFORK.  No one is trying to alledge that individual criticims are nitpicky, but that in and of itself doesn't justify entire subsections devoted to each one.  Driving for the underlying point of WP:DUE, is that these views can be notable, but they don't necessarily need to be presented in detail if they don't represent a major proportion of the whole of published information about the subject(Chomsky in this case).  I do understand your point about the taxonomy, however, and that reason I can understand keeping this article if its format were drastically altered to present a less antagonistic format.  i kan reed (talk) 19:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Honestly, the more I research it for this discussion, the less impressed I am with the Criticism of article. Tucking the criticism off in its own article has kept criticism from being edited out, but it hasn't kept the criticisms from being buried by OR-feeling rebuttals, and it certainly hasn't kept the critics' arguments well organized or well presented.  -Ben (talk) 21:38, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per nom. Resident Anthropoligist is spot on re this being a POV fork, as well as in his BLP comments. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment I guess I'm concerned that this notion of Chompsky as someone who "habitually distorts and fabricates source material" is not widely-held among well-credentialed linguists and historians, but rather is the opinion of his detractors. If the later is true, then an article created--as Ben has said--for the sole purpose of presenting this viewpoint is certainly POV. Christopher Hitchens and Oliver Kamm are both polemicists. Instead of creating a POV fork, it would probably have been better to name Chompsky's most prominent critics and summarize their criticisms of him. If there were incidents that created a scandal--not just an outrage in the minds of the people who dislike Chompsky, but something reported on as a scandal in the media--then that should also be included. Perhaps this process can be done through arbitration with the help of a trusted, seasoned editor.--Atlantictire (talk) 18:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, there are several different kinds of criticism of Chomsky (please note the lack of a "p"!) and allegations about his issues with sources form only a subset, which is mostly advanced by polemicists. It is particularly hard to summarize, as I've argued, but certainly Zerzan and others do not base their criticism on it in any way. -Ben (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep because this person is known primarily for the controversies and unusual views, as described in this article. This is a legitimate sub-article, just as many other "criticism" articles.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * An interesting point -- Chomsky is not just a linguist; he's also a well-known polemicist, just as many of his critics are. We shouldn't restrict allowed critics of his political writings to just credentialed linguists. -Ben (talk) 19:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, neither Glenn Beck nor Michael Moore developed one of the most influential theories of language acquisition in the field of linguistics, and there's no "Criticism of" page about them. Look, when we learned about Chomsky in my college psychology class, no one made any mention of his politics. If "universal grammar" is controversial then criticisms of that theory belong on that theory's page.--Atlantictire (talk) 19:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - while he is a public figure and controversial, I do not see this matter as being notable in itself. Two of the problems with POV Forks are that they also tend to be non-notable in themselves, and also lack context, both of which are reasons to delete or even speedily to delete.  The criticisms, as it were, make more sense either in the subject's article, or in articles about his theories. Bearian (talk) 23:11, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, but let's leave the hyperbole out. There's no way this is a legitimate speedy delete candidate.  There's plenty of context for a reader to figure out who Noam Chomsky is.  i kan reed (talk) 12:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's an excellent point. Has there ever been a body of work, a book or documentary, focusing on the criticisms of Noam? Szzuk (talk) 15:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Anti-Chomsky Reader. ZHurlihee (talk) 15:52, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete This article is clearly a POV fork, and has no place here. Any relevant material can easily be included in Noam Chomsky or Noam Chomsky's political views. RolandR (talk) 09:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 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.