Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David North (socialist)


 * 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 keep. Michig (talk) 09:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

David North (socialist)

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Putting this up together with World Socialist Web Site. Not seeing the notability. Out of 3 references provided in the article, two are from his own website, and in the third one this person is only mentioned in passing. Openlydialectic (talk) 07:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 09:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 09:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment Since the nomination appears to assess only sources that are in the article, keep in mind that "Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article" (WP:N). A quick search finds New York Times coverage of his open letter to Google, as well as multiple reviews of multiple books (e.g. reviews of In Defense of Leon Trotsky include Gaido, Daniel. The Russian Review Vol. 70, Iss. 2 (Apr 2011): 349; Cox, John K, PhD. International Social Science Review Vol. 87, Iss. 1/2 (2012): 63-65; and Patenaude, Bertrand M. The American Historical Review Vol. 116, Iss. 3, (Jun 2011): 900.; see also  ). Even without going through the additional book review and news search hits, it looks like a WP:AUTHOR pass as someone who "has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work" that has been the subject "of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews". Bakazaka (talk) 09:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Dunno. the google thing isn't SIGCOV.  I am finding the same reviews of In Defense of Leon Trotsky on JSTOR, and I see the reviews - one each of 2 other books - are these sufficient?  the many Davids North in the world makes searching a time-consuming task.  Perhaps other editors will find more.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:36, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep based on the sources found by Bakazaka. Looks like a lack of WP:BEFORE. RebeccaGreen (talk) 12:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I am troubled by the INDEPENDENT question. His books are published by Mehring Books, the publisher of the International Committee of the Fourth International,  Labor Publications, Arbeiterpresse and International Worker Books, and reviewed on small socialist websites.  We really need to show that he can be independently sourced.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:36, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * For example. His 1988 book The Heritage We Defend is linked to  Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which features North's Preface to the thirtieth anniversary edition of The Heritage We Defend.  So I ran a Proquest archive search on the book, and came up with only a single item: Tribute to Late Comrade Piyaseeli Wijegunasinghe Daily Mirror; Colombo [Colombo]11 Sep 2010.  The item is an announcement by the  Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of the death of Comrade Piyaseeli Wijegunasinghe, who "traslated... The Heritage We Defend written by David North, national secretary of the SEP in the US."   Having a book translated is a sign of notability, but the source, an SEP press release, is probably not INDEPENDENT, even though it is the SEP in Sri Lanka.  I'll revisit this, but it's not as simple as that long list of books makes it appear. E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2018 (UTC)


 * In addition to wanting to find more reviews of his books, there is the paucity of citation of his work in gScholar. Here is a gScholar search on David + North + trotsky.   unimpressive.  So I tried David + North + marcism, David + North + socialist .  I'll revisit and hope that someone can do better.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:12, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the reason why I keep circling back to this discussion is that the closer I look, the more it looks like a walled garden. Here is a scholarly review of North's In Defence of Leon Trotsky, one of the handful of sources form outside the Trotskyite garden.  it reads:  "North, chair of the inter-national editorial board of the World Socialist Web site, aims to shore up Leon Trotsky'sreputation in recent historical discourse while also militating against new interpretations,some of which are slightly positive, of Stalin. His audience is, interestingly enough for the historian, not the world beyond academe and it is not the non-Marxist critic of Soviet thought and practice. U Daniel Gaido, National Research Council (Coni political terms. Nor is it a well-developed reassessment of the importance of Trotsky's role as an alternative to Stalin who might have led the Soviet Union down a different and ultimately more humane and successful path. Rather, it is a passionate, and, at times, nearly embittered, historiographical argument over the contours of the Stalin-Trotsky feud.".
 * [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.90.3.0561.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Acafdaa26a604396692fb88525164790d "Most ardently, the American writer David North, in a series of online publications and public lectures, collected and published in the volume, In Defense of Leon Trotsky, tries to restore the image of Trotsky  as  the  main  opponent  of Stalinism  and  an  advocate  of  a  more  democratic  version of socialism. North argues from an openly partisan perspective and his language is highly combative and, unfortunately, often aggressive...   He  believes  that  the  authors  purposefully  discredited Trotsky and falsified his legacy as a revolutionary leader and thinker. North’s accusations,  however,  are  not  sufficiently  substantiated."
 * "This book consists of four essays previously published on the World Socialist Web Site... But the real focus of this book is the author's criticism of what he calls "the post-Soviet school of historical falsification"; that is, the three hostile biographies of Trotsky written in the short span of seven years by Professors Geoffrey Swain, Ian Thatcher, and Robert Service...."
 * These 3 are the only scholarly reviews, indeed, they seem to be the only reviews of this, his most widely reviewed work, and they show that the Stalin-Trotsky is still raging inside a small, walled garden somewhere in cyberspace. What I am not finding is evidence that In Defence of Leon Trotsky or anything else North wrote is widely cited. Searches turn up little beyond an occassional speaking gigs reported in an undergraduate newspaper.  Nor is there  WP:SIGCOV of North and his career.    For all of these reasons, I suggest...


 * Selective MERGE to Socialist Equality Party (United States), the ORG he heads.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Essentially per Bakazaka and RebeccaGreen. There's more than enough coverage of the guy's books for a pass of AUTHOR, and some coverage of his speeches, e.g. Michigan Daily as well.  The scholarly reviews of his bio of Trotsky are more than enough for me. 192.160.216.52 (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The Michigan Daily is an undergraduate newspaper. Undergraduate papers can be reliable on facts, but they don't contribute much if anything towards establishing notability. E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The University of Michigan has more than 45,000 students. It's bigger than most cities in America.  The paper is higher quality than most daily papers.  It's not Podunk U. Weekly or something.  Is your theory that Undergraduate papers don't contribute to notability based on anything other than your preferences? 192.160.216.52 (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there are not enough sources to pass WP:ANYBIO or WP:AUTHOR. Nor does his leadership of a very, very small political party carry him past WP:POLITICIAN. We need to find WP:SIGCOV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep as an easy pass of WP:AUTHOR. As the Critical Sociology review of a different North book (linked above the wall of text) explains, North's writings have impact on more mainstream discussions despite being grounded in smaller battles within his political community, which is why his work is reviewed and discussed in, for example, the American Historical Review (reference above) and the Journal of Historical Sociology (review essay on yet another book linked above). Bakazaka (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Evidence that "North's writings have impact on more mainstream discussions" is precisely what I am not seeing. Yes, he has gotten reviews.  What I would like to see it that the books are cited by others, whether by scholars, popular writers, or journalists.  I can always be persuaded to change mu opinion at AfD.  But WP:HEYMANN I need to see sources more persuasive than a handful of book reviews (some of which  are harshly dismissive of the value of his work,)  coupled with the lack of WP:SIGCOV in sources beyond a couple of undergrad newspapers and sources inside the Walled garden Trotskyite socialism.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The actual notability guideline WP:AUTHOR is easily met. Nothing in the WP:AUTHOR guideline requires scholarly citations, nor does the guideline specify that reviews have to be approving (or that one's work being "well-known" precludes being notoriously disliked). No one is obligated to satisfy you. Bakazaka (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * How so? If you mean that the book with 3 reviews, In Defense of Leon Trotsky,   is notable, you could make an argument for merge/redirect this page  to that title.  Although it has hardly been cited at all in all the years since publication   I suggested a merge to his political party, but if you prefer the book, you can propose it.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:24, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Attempting due diligence, I looked at the reviews of 2 other North books discussed above, both reviews are positive:, and are positive.  However, gScholar shows only 4 citations of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century (almost no impact,)  and The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique  got only 2 hits in gScholar, one is to this review, and the other is to a bibliography.  So far, the book has had impact at all.  It has been only 3-4 years since publication, but that is enough time in political and intellectual history for a even a book making a novel or important argument, or presenting new evidence to have multiple book and journal citations.  Others of his books have sunk without even y a single review.  He may be a notable or impactful author, but we need sources to prove it.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:24, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I would argue Keep. North is listed as chairman of the international editorial board for the World Socialist Web Site, and has written many articles for that site, and a great number of books that are published with what appears to be their US-affiliated publisher, Mehring Books. Last year North's photo was printed in the New York Times when they ran a story on his allegation that Google's changed search algorithms lower traffic to left wing news services . But looking at academic sources briefly, I see that there are many references to North's work, particularly regarding either 20th and 21st century socialism, or Trotsky. Most of those references are in passing, but the authors appear to take North seriously, especially in the controversy surrounding Robert Service's Trotsky Biography. And there are three academic reviews that are dedicated to North's books.


 * There is this 2017 Review Essay in the Journal of Historical Sociology (30:86-91) by Charles Thorpe, Associate Professor in Sociology at UCSD. Thorpe devotes two pages to North’s book The Unfinished Twentieth Century, beginning, "It is therefore illuminating to read Radical Intellectuals alongside a book on political and intellectual history by the AmericanTrotskyist David North, who has vigorously defended the life and legacy of Leon Trotsky precisely as the Marxist alternative to Stalin.” Thorpe reviews the arguments of the book and ultimates concludes the review by agreeing with the North's thesis: "The left today would like to leave the Soviet Union behind as a failed project and to believe that its collapse freed them from the debates, concepts, and historical experiences of twentieth‐century Marxism. The Unfinished Twentieth Century makes a powerful case that, to paraphrase Faulkner, these debates and experiences are not dead; they're not even past."


 * Here is another 2017 book review by Emanuele Saccarelli, Professor of Political Science also at UCSD, published in the journal Critical Sociology (43(4-5):799-802. Saccarelli writes about North's book "The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique," and describes the book favorably as "a valuable contribution to a broad range of important theoretical and political questions located in and around Marxism – with the additional merit of identifying precisely where that boundary lies." Saccarelli also writes what might be useful in content for this bio: "North is the longstanding leader of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), as well as a member of the editorial board of its well-known affiliated online publication, the World Socialist Web Site." There's a lot more in that review but I'll probably add some of it to the bio directly rather than cluttering this page.


 * Here's one more lengthy treatment of North's book "In Defense of Leon Trotsky" by Bertrand Patenaude, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. The review is published in the American Historical Review, June 2011, pages 900-902. "North is an American Trotskyist whose book collects his review essays of Service's volume and of earlier biographies of Trotsky by Ian Thatcher and Geoffrey Swain. (He does not mention my 2009 book, Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary.) Given North’s Trotskyism, he might reasonably be suspected of hyperbole in his brief against Service. But a careful examination of North’s book shows his criticism of Service to be exactly what Trotsky scholar Baruch Knei-Paz, in a blurb on the back cover, says it is: 'detailed, meticulous, well-argued and devastating.'" In every paragraph through the whole review, Patenaude supports North’s book.


 * I think given's North's association with the WSWS, his prolific authorship, and the combination of articles on his work in scholarship and scholarly references to his work, this bio should stay. -Darouet (talk) 05:02, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I've done a bit of editing to add some third party and reliable sources describing some of North's recent political and academic work. Cheers, -Darouet (talk) 05:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * KEEP independent books describe him as notable trotskyite. A big frog in a pond, I say... - üser:Altenmann >t 05:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep The sources that Bakazaka brought forward are sufficient to show notability. This is not a claim under WP:ACADEMIC so E.M.Gregory's concerns about how often his books are cited on Google Scholar are completely misplaced. He is the head of a political party, albeit a tiny one, and a Trotskyist activist for at least 40 years. Wikipedia ought to have biographies of the heads of political parties, even smaller ones. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  04:10, 29 November 2018 (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.