Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Marxist Tendency (2nd 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   keep.  MBisanz  talk 00:08, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

International Marxist Tendency
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Fails WP:NGO, WP:ORG and WP:N. Notability not established. Most sources are from In Defence of Marxism website (marxist.com) or from webpages that are affiliated with the organisation or its national sections meaning the article relies heavily on sources close to the subject, none of the remaining sources independently verify the notablity of the IMT itself, entire sections of the article (Theory and Tactics) consist of original research. Most of the article is basically a linkfarm to websites belonging to the IMT's national affiliates.No improvements to the article since the 1st nomination in May. Previous AFD was the subject of off-wiki canvassing. Downwoody (talk) 04:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as nominator. Downwoody (talk) 04:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep There are currently three independent sources in the article which combined have enough coverage to establish notability. Additional sources can be found, especially if one does limit one's search to English-language sources. Here are a few Spanish-language news articles:, , , , . 99.224.73.231 (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note editor 99.224.73.231 has only made 4 edits, 3 are to this discussion and 1 is to the article in question. Mountain Herb (talk) 22:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Link 1 is from a marginal source, the Communist Party of Great Britain, and thereby doesn't establish notability and fails to meet the test of WP:RS since it is by definition a |questionable source. Source 2 is actually about Alan Woods but it has only a passing reference to the IMT so it doesn't establish notability either, it fails WP:N's standard that a source to establish notability must provide "significant coverage" ie "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention". The Gleaner article 3 is an opinion piece rather than a news item, moreover the article isn't about the IMT and the reference to the organization is rather fleeting. 4 like 1 is about Woods rather than the IMT, the IMT is only mentioned in reference to Woods belonging to it but there's no information about the IMT itself or its notability, it's also not used in the article. The other Spanish sources also do not appear to actually be in the article, the references to the IMT are fleeting and one is about Woods rather than the IMT. Again, article fails WP:N, WP:RS and WP:O and much of it remains unsourced original research. Downwoody (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep as per the independent sources highlighted by IP 99. These at least provide a bare minimum of notability, which I think is sufficient to justify the article's survival in some form. As pointed out in the previous AfD discussion, we should be careful not to erase non-mainstream political viewpoints from Wikipedia. This is an international strand of political thought/activity. There is a strong likelihood there are offline sources that exist, particularly around the time of Militant's split in the early 1990's. The previous AfD recommended a clean-up, though I can't see any evidence one took place. There are definitely parts of the article that currently need pruning if they can't be independently verified. Sionk (talk) 23:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment there have been 6 months to clean up the article, it hasn't been done. Speculating about the possible existence of offline sources does nothing to establish notability or reliability, particularly as these supposed sources haven't been found in 6 months. If they appear in the future, if the IMT becomes the subject of reliable sources, academic study etc then by all means create a new article once that happens but the possibility of future notability does not establish notability in the here and now. Downwoody (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Speculating about the existence of sources is part of this process, as per WP:GNG "Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article." It forms part of having a balanced coverage on Wikipedia that covers things pre-internet. Sionk (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Sources do not establish notability. Article can be recreated later if the subject ever becomes notable in its own right.Mountain Herb (talk) 22:54, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep The source here: which is referenced in the article is a reprint from a peer reviewed academic journal, Science & Society, that clearly establishes a baseline of notability.  The IMT also was peripherally involved with Malala Yousafzai and has appeared in a number of articles discussing her situation, which are articles that should be worked into the IMT entry.  Combined with the earlier-referenced articles, there is a better standard of notability than when the last deletion attempt failed.  This process is approaching axe-grinding and should not be coming up every 6 months.  Cadriel (talk) 16:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note I was able to add in 4 separate and independent references on the IMT and the Malala Yousafzai story which unambiguously mention the IMT's statement. There has been non-trivial coverage of the IMT's statement and this clearly establishes notability for the IMT, as if their well documented role in Venezuela had not already done so.  Cadriel (talk) 01:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note the reprint you mentions makes a fleeting reference to the IMT in a footnote where it lists it along with 6 other groups as being present in Venezuela. That seems like a fairly fleeting and trivial reference to me. The references in regards to Malala are also fleeting. Downwoody (talk) 02:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment In this process you are showing a bias that clearly attempts to dismiss the considerable evidence that, in a number of instances, the IMT has received actual coverage from sources outside of left-wing periodicals; and frankly as an article about a left-wing organization, it is ridiculous that we can have this discussion when dozens of other socialist groups have discussed the IMT at considerable length. The in a footnote reference clearly establishes that the IMT is one of several significant political forces in Venezuela, which is corroborated and supported by the various articles about Alan Woods's role with Hugo Chavez.  The references to Yousafzai are not "fleeting"; although they are not the centerpiece of the articles, it is a substantial part of each and establishes that the IMT has been a part of this major news story.  Cadriel (talk) 09:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Response The references to Yousafzai are not fleeting; however the references to the CWI in the articles about Yousafzai are which is actually the point I was trying to make. Downwoody (talk) 09:50, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. Nomination fails BEFORE. Sources can be found. Nom does not have to find them, keep voters do not have to find them, but they are there. Anarchangel (talk) 08:27, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. I've been aware of articles about similar groups coming up for deletion before on similar "notability" guide lines (I will only say that it seems to becoming more and more subjective to me). My issues with the assessments for "notability" aside, it seems that we are going too deeply on establishing notability by showing their existence from respectable news articles. As wikipedia does not consider other left-themed news sites as "reliable"- and this is a problem anyways since these parties are so engaged in polemics that they only mention each other in snipes, it would be unfair to fault those contributing to this article in unable to find a detailed article from the New York Times or some other respectable source to establish notability. For what it's worth, I found a op-ed in the economist here mentioning Alan Woods and his relationship to Hugo Chavez, though in an unfavorable light, after a minute of searching. Still, it's not easy. I'm sure there's a similar problem with smaller UK groups, as I know in the US we have many small political groups and parties who have pages here on wikipedia, some many times larger than these smaller fringe groups, rarely get a mention in 'respectable' press. I could understand deleting a wikipedia article about a political party consisting of two dudes and their goldfish, but the IMT seems to be a respectable size when considering the plethora of socialist political parties --MercZ (talk) 02:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The main problem is that the literature on international Trotskyist groups in the 20 or so years that the CMI and then IMT have existed as separate political entities from the CWI has been thin, so we're stuck relying on things like newspaper articles about the IMT's activities in Venezuela and Pakistan to establish a standard that, as you correctly point out, is entirely too subjective. The other problem is that the group has changed its name from CMI to IMT, and that like most socialist international organizations a lot of the coverage tends to name either its main leaders (Grant and Woods in this case) or its national sections.  But on the face of it, this is a group that is written about and is not just two men and a dog, which some "internationals" really are.  As such this AfD deserves to fail and the nominator should stop bringing it up. Cadriel (talk) 11:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. I think the problem is that notability is subjective and in cases like this political. For socialists the IMT is obviously notable as are many other socialist groups and their associated international organisations. As a punter who mostly uses Wikipedia as a reader I would say the same applies for other "minority interests". I could quite easily create around 500 or so entries for prehistoric monuments on Dartmoor in South West England and pass the notability tests as I could pass the notability test by giving several references to each cairn or cist on Dartmoor from scientific papers - I run a website (http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/) that lists most of them - but would any sane human agree that they are notable? No - all but a few are so obscure that they should not appear in an encyclopaedia (I think there are a couple currently on Wikipedia). So listing an obscure cairn that is irrelevant to anybody would potentially meet the criteria but an entry for a major leftist international organisation is deemed to be problematic because the bourgeois press rarely mentions such organisations and it is rare for academic journals to discuss such organisations. The problem is that if there is a lack of independent references in scientific/academic journals or mainstream media then the subject under discussion struggles to meet the notability criteria. This is loaded as some publications are deemed to be "mainstream" but Leftist publications appear to be excluded and so independent sourcing becomes an issue. The danger of this process is to censor minority views and organisations because they are not discussed in the mainstream press. Of course those  prehistoric monuments I mentioned are rarely mentioned in the mass media either but instead they are referred to in journals that deal with that specific subject matter i.e. archaeological journals relating to Dartmoor. The problem is we are told that the equivalent of peer papers or publications in the context of Left organisations cannot be used - which creates an impossibly high bar. It is OK to use archaeological journals as sources for archaeological sites but apparently it is not OK to use Marxist sources (independent of the organisation in question) as sources for Marxist organisations. This appears to me to be a politically biased process.  DartmoorDave (talk) 23:59, 19 November 2012 (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.