Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leninist–Trotskyist 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 delete. As I discussed in a previous deletion debate, there are two types of debate on Wikipedia; those in areas with objective standards, where arguments are to be made with reference to those standards, and those in areas without such standards, where argument is emotive or subjective in tone. It is the latter area which causes the most trouble for administrators, the most debate, the most confusing-looking results, and the most appeals, counter-appeals and counter-counter-appeals to the eventual result. Despite how confusing this result may look given the arguments below, it is not a debate which fits into the latter category. The notability and coverage of articles is something that has objective standards, and the fact that those commentators arguing for "keep" chose to use subjective arguments with no proper reference to our policies does not mean that these standards are to be ignored.

User:Carrite and User:DGG make the argument that the movement as a whole has coverage - and that as such, every element of the area should be included in a dedicated article. Patently, this is not the case. WP:INHERITED is clear on the matter. User:Mia-etol makes a similar argument, ableit with implicit accusations of some sort of bias, and the idea that keeping this article would be necessary because the alternative is to demonstrate that Wikipedia is biased against marxism. This is not the case; our notability standards are objective in nature. Only if we were to adopt the subjective standards that people here seem to be arguing for would outright political bias really be possible. Our standards require academic or media coverage - any bias, therefore, reflects only the biases in mainstream thinking. The result of this all is that nobody has actually addressed the nominator's concern, as is their job as someone arguing contrarily. Asked to argue whether X=1 or X=2, they have instead tried to prove that mathematics doesn't apply. This is not a productive way to spend time, and it is not a productive attitude to take to discussions based on objectivity. Ironholds (talk) 22:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Leninist–Trotskyist Tendency

 * – ( View AfD View log )

No evidence of notability. No sources in the article, and a web search showed little that is usable or relevant. There is a brief, passing mention of this group in Robert Alexander's book on Trotskyism, but that's about it. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 04:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge anything referenceable and redirect to Fourth International (post-reunification) - this organisation contained some notable parties, and a Google Books search turns up several good references in English, and a few more in Spanish as the "Tendencia Leninista Trotskista", but it was a faction of the USFI group, so would be better covered there. Warofdreams talk 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - I favor the lowest of all possible notability barriers for the inclusion of political parties or their youth sections on Wikipedia, without regard to ideology. Or size. If a political party exists, it should be included in the encyclopedia as notable per se, in my opinion. That Robert Alexander has included coverage of this group in his vast volume on the Trotskyist movement, as the nominator states, indicates that the group is the subject of scholarly interest. It may be esoteric, it may be a tiny splinter group, but it is something which is the object of serious scholarship. If it helps you to wrap your brain around the concept and you don't mind me paddling around in the deep water of OTHERSTUFF, think of tiny political parties as akin to obscure species of insects. Few people will ever give a crap about them, but they are rightfully considered worthy of encyclopedic coverage on a per se basis. Same deal here, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 18:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Due to failure to satisfy WP:ORG. Splinter parties must satisfy the applicable notability criterion. Liking articles about them, or observing that they exist (or once existed) is not an effective counterargument to lack of notability. Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that ever existed.  Edison (talk) 20:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's inclusion standards were not issued by god to Moses five thousand years ago, they've evolved over the last decade. I happen to feel that WP:ORG has it all wrong for political parties, that there should be a much lower standard for their inclusion, and am perfectly prepared to consistently stand where I do on this matter until such time that policy evolves further. It is PERFECTLY valid to make an IAR defense here, which I am effectively doing. The argument that my perspective relating to political parties implies that I somehow want Wikipedia to be "a directory of everything that ever existed" is specious. And no, I'm not a Trotskyist, I'd make the same argument if this were an article about a right wing fringe party. This group is the subject of independent scholarship and the article should be retained. Carrite (talk) 15:42, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have seen no indication at all that you want "everything which ever existed" to have an article,and did not mean to imply that, but haven't you stated you want articles for "every political party," including splinter parties? If three people break away from the "International Nonconformist Tendency" to form the "Provisional Nonconformist Splinter" and get a one line entry in the "Giant Encyclopedia of every political party that every existed," then should they get an encyclopedia article? Some splinter parties have no independent and reliable references (other than a directory listing somewhere, created perhaps by someone who noted they published a newsletter for some duration) to show that they had a significant number of members, ran candidates in elections, or did many other things generally done by political parties of note. A splinter political party is comparable to a splinter religion, a teen garage band, or a "micronation" in that all it has to do is assert it exists. You are very welcome to take your proposal to WP:ORG and try to build a consensus on the talk page thereof to lower the bar of notability to mere verifiability, as appears to exist for geographic features, species, chemical compounds, asteroids, hamlets, public high schools, and state legislators. Edison (talk) 18:46, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Jujutacular  talk 12:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - These articles are part of a series of articles about the various trends within Trotskyism - a political tradition of some relevance with significant presence in a large number of countries,e.g. 5 people with roots in various threads of the tradition (at least one of them fairly obscure) were recently elected to the Irish parliament (the Dáil) - blanket elimination of the more obscure smaller organisations (or sometimes only apparently obscure because they aren't represented in English-speaking countries) will seriously distort Wikipedia's coverage of this political tradition. We should be careful not to take decisions based on our political opinions or prejudices or to allow ourselves to be seen to be yoked into a political campaign (even if this may not be deliberate on the part of the proposer). While there may be a case for consolidation of some of the articles into longer more inclusive ones and some of the articles may require more referencing - if necessary in other languages - I think it would be a serious error to delete any of these articles. I'm adding this opinion to all the organizations proposed for deletion. Mia-etol (talk) 18:39, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 04:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per the convincing arguments made by Carrite and Mia-etol. I too favor keeping articles about "obscure" political parties of the left, right and center.  Understanding the full range of political thought is important and encyclopedic.  Cullen328 (talk) 23:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. This is not actually an article about political thought. It is an argument about a specific political group - and there's little in the article to suggest they've contributed anything of special important to political thought as such. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 06:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep adequate source to establish existence. It's not a good idea to remove one of a series that is slightly less notable  than the others, it greatly hampers the use of Wikipedia as an information resource. alexander including it is sufficient a reference.  For political and religious groups,  I think we need to work very carefully to avoid undercoverage of the minor ones, and I would essentially use the rule that if real existence is documented, we should include them.    DGG ( talk ) 02:30, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: no evidence of substantive coverage in reliable sources (and nary a reference in the article itself). Organisations of this type are continually schisming & reschisming (cue sketch from The Life of Brian). It is unreasonable to expect to have a separate article on each and every splinter group. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 20:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Delete There are no sources provided in the article and following an unsuccessful AfD five years ago, none have been provided. If someone wants to write a properly sourced article in the future then I would have no objection, but in the meantime we should not have unsourced articles.  TFD (talk) 05:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 *  Keep:  As I've argued above this is one of a series of articles connected with a particular political trend. While there may be arguments for merging theses articles, or at least some of them, the information should not be lost until this is done. Here I find myself in accord with Cullen328 above. Mia-etol (talk) 07:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC) Striking duplicate !vote. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: WP:ITEXISTS is a poor argument for retaining an article (Carrite & DGG). If it is considered desirable to give comprehensive coverage of the political tradition, then splinter-parties too obscure to legitimately rate an article of their own can be covered via a list-article (oh look -- List of Trotskyist internationals already exists) or overview-article on the tradition as a whole, as is standard practice on Wikipedia (Mia-etol & DGG). Such special pleadings are a ruddy awful reason to WP:IAR. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - This is a poorly resourced article. Search shows there are a quite a number of third party reliable sources, yet the article has not been improved in a long time. It should stay with its current tags; perhaps tagging it  might get a result. --Whiteguru (talk) 12:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, ,  ,    show the term is applied to a sepcific group in a number of published works.   As a general organization it appears to fully meet normal notability criteria.  I sugest that it is not a "political party" in the sense of standing candidates for office, but more of a  organization dedicated to a political philosophy instead.  Unless anyone can show me where they have fielded candidates for any office.  Collect (talk) 21:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The sources listed do demonstrate that WP:ITEXISTS (but then nobody was claiming that it didn't), they do not however amount to "significant coverage" and thus notability. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - the fact that we can verify existence does not verify notability. BelloWello (talk) 05:09, 6 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.