Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International


 * 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. Big Dom  16:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International

 * – ( View AfD View log )

No evidence of notability. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 03:27, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  —Mia-etol (talk) 10:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  —Mia-etol (talk) 10:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Since this is one of a series of articles of a mass deletion effort, I'm going to state my case once again and will copy-paste it below — it holds for one and all. This is an encyclopedia. Certain things are considered automatically encyclopedia-worthy at Wikipedia: degree-granting universities, secondary schools, numbered roads, towns, species of plants and animals, and so on and so forth. In my earnest belief, political parties and their youth sections passing the standard of WP:Verifiability should automatically meet the standard of encyclopedia-worthiness, without regard to size or ideology. These are the subject of serious scholarship. The Hoover Institution, closely linked to Stanford University, in 1991 published the 25th annual edition of its Yearbook of International Communist Affairs, recording the history and activities of left wing parties like this. The scholar Robert J. Alexander authored an 1100 page volume called International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement, published by Duke University Press and held by something like 180 libraries worldwide. There have been monographs written on Trotskyism in America (Constance Myers, The Prophet's Army: Trotskyists in America, 1928-1941, Greenwood Press, 1977; Breitman, LeBlanc, and Wald, Trotskyism in the United States: Historical Essays and Reconsiderations, Humanities Press, 1996) and Trotskyism in the UK (John Callaghan, British Trotskyism: Theory and Practice, Basil Blackwell, 1984). Yes, little sects such as this are tiny; no, you're not going to find stories on them in the New York Times. But they are the subject of scholarly inquiry and deserve notability per se on that basis, just like insects and professional football players are instantly notable if their existence is verified. There is no point to this mass deletion effort. It will annihilate information to no good purpose — serious information that BELONGS in a comprehensive encyclopedia. It's time to Ignore All Rules to defend the quality of the encyclopedia and further, to amend the inadequate current notability guidelines for such organizations. And no, I'm not a Trotskyist and I don't play one on TV, if there were a similar series of attacks on right wing fringe parties I'd say the same thing. Carrite (talk) 16:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * An article should be kept if what it is about is notable, deleted otherwise. It would be silly to keep an article about a group that genuinely isn't notable simply because articles about other groups that might possibly be notable were nominated for deletion at the same time. Further comment on Carrite's remark is hardly required. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 19:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. This may be unsourced but I am prepared to take it on good faith that it is genuine. There may have been many attempts to form international federations of Trotskyite and other far left groups but the fact that there have been so many makes it all the more important that each is identified separately and its significance assessed. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC) Now does anyone want to join me in a rousing chorus of 'One Trot Faction, meeting in a hall', that staple of the left anti-Trotskyite songbook?)
 * :"It is genuine" is not the same thing as "it is notable" - which is the relevant issue. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 20:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * * Comment - Per Superheroes Fighting's simplistic take that "an article should be kept if what it is about is notable, deleted otherwise," I offer the following... We are discussing application of the General Notability Guideline as it relates to organizational histories. Here is what Wikipedia says about Policies and guidelines: "Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practice, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia... Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-known practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense." This effort to annihilate 20 articles that SHOULD be in an encyclopedia by the rigid and draconian application of ill-fitting GUIDELINES violates common sense. "Ignore All Rules" means nothing more or less than "Use Common Sense to build and improve the encyclopedia." Since this was a copy-and-paste mass challenge, this message will be likewise copied-and-pasted where applicable. Carrite (talk) 23:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - I can not find a reference to this group name in any book. I can barely find any reference to this group on the web that does not spring from Wikipedia.  There are also no citations within the article.  While the name of the committee is rather grandiose, most of these Trotskyite groups are usually one guy and a few of his friends, who claim to have a member or two in a foreign country.  There are a handful of these types of groups which are larger and have been discussed extensively in the press and in books, and they should not be deleted - but that does not apply for this group or most of the other groups under consideration.  This article has no citations, is not discussed in any book or article I can find, and almost every mention of it on the web is Wikipedia related.  This page should be deleted.  Carrite's assertion that a political party should automatically be included, especially when political party is very loosely defined, is not a Wikipedia rule and does not make much sense, especially if the party has never registered with the government, has never had candidates run for election and so forth.  Just like a group of kids forming a band can't just create an article here, so can't a group of Trotskyite's who decide to form a new "international" be entitled to an article. Adelson Velsky Landis (talk) 08:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - While it isn't clear from the article, the Parity Committee is relevant to the history of French Trotskyism, specifically Lambertism, organised as the Quatrième Internationale - Secrétariat unifié. The material might be incorporated into an article including the history of the Lambertists, who are a significant far-left group in France.  However, this is a different thing than deletion.  Deletion for this group should be tabled. DJ Silverfish (talk) 15:11, 1 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) 18:23, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep  I concur with Carrite--historical information of this sort is encyclopedic. Our scope is broad enough to record minor parties. The'yre relatively difficult to judge for notability, without using what are in some cases very difficult to find sources. The reader is best served if they are covered comprehensively, not selectively. just a small religious movements, and I think our general policy has been to be inclusive of those that have a real existence. The guiding policies are WP:V and NOT PAPER   DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - Article does not meet general notability criteria.--יום יפה (talk) 14:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep- And notice that while unsourced, the Russian article contains a timeline that might make further sourcing less difficult. Dru of Id (talk) 13:22, 8 April 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.