Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Views of Lyndon LaRouche


 * 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. Cirt (talk) 23:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Views of Lyndon LaRouche

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)


 * Views of John Locke
 * View of Adam Smith
 * Views of Benjamin Franklin
 * Views of George Washington
 * Views of Alexander Hamilton
 * Views of Thomas Jefferson
 * Views of Abraham Lincoln
 * Views of Franklin D. Roosevelt

All of these are red links. (I checked "Political views of..." and Political positions of..." for these individuals, and those are also all red links.) I could go on further, but I think you get the idea. Doesn't this strike anyone else as a bit absurd? We don't have "Views of..." articles for some of the most influential philosophers and statesmen in American history, but we do for a guy who has never won any political office, has had no real effect on American government or society, and has perhaps a few thousand followers at most? This is a clear and blatant violation of our policies on undue weight.

More than that, this article has been a net detriment to Wikipedia ever since it was created. It has served as a platform for POV-pushing (on both sides), sock puppetry, and incivility. Whatever marginal encyclopedic merit it might have is far outweighed by the trouble it has caused. One article on Lyndon LaRouche is enough. *** Crotalus *** 22:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Your argument is basically WP:WAX. We don't have Views of Abraham Lincoln, but does that mean we shouldn't? Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP) 22:41, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A decent article could certainly be written on the subject, but generally I would think that a political figure's views and beliefs should be covered in their biography, especially when those beliefs (and, in the case of statesmen, the actions resulting from said beliefs) are why the person is important in the first place. *** Crotalus *** 00:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment There are numerous reliable sources for Views of George Washington, besides those of the other named persons. I might find them quite encyclopedic. I have often asked myself what Washington or Jefferson would have to say about the recent world conquests and adventures of the U.S. military. Edison (talk) 23:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, those might be good articles to have. My point, however, was that LaRouche is a far more marginal figure that that, and yet we have a huge page on his views consisting of undue weight and POV-pushing. *** Crotalus *** 00:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Should such content maintained on the page about the holder of the view? I.e. I would expect a page about Locke to discuss the political and philosophical views of Locke, and by the way that's where I would look for them if I were looking for them in Wikipedia. I suggest that a merger of this article with Lyndon LaRouche is the appropriate course of action. philosofool (talk) 23:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. All of our articles are "a net detriment to Wikipedia"... unless you take into account the reason Wikipedia exists in the first place. This page provides a (more or less) balanced overview of a topic with respect to which balance seems to be sadly lacking elsewhere; if people are reading it and learning from it, then it is helping to achieve Wikipedia's mission. As for your undue weight argument, you are arguing not from the premise that people are more interested in the views of Locke, Smith, Lincoln, etc than in the views of LaRouche, but from the premise that they ought to be. One might just as well argue that all our Pokemon articles should be deleted until such time as we have an article on the Philosophy of John Locke, since the undue weight in that case is surely much more absurd than the example proffered here. Hesperian 23:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem with your above argument is that almost nobody actually does read the Views of Lyndon LaRouche article. According to stats.grok.se, it only had 1,548 page views in August 2008. And keep in mind that a lot of these were probably by Wikipedians editing, or edit-warring, on the article. Bulbasaur, a relatively marginal Pokemon-related article, has 18,517 hits in that same time frame &mdash; more by an order of magnitude, and hasn't caused anywhere near the amount of trouble. Articles on the historical figures I listed above do much better; John Locke has 78,312 hits in August 2008 while Lyndon LaRouche's main article has just 22,198, many of them from patrollers and edit warriors. (Barack Obama, a contemporary political figure who people in the real world actually care about, has over 1.3 million hits, while John McCain has over 900,000. Their VPs do even better, probably because people don't know a lot about them but genuinely want to know more.) Yes, popular culture is overrepresented compared to important political and philosophical issues; but at least an argument can be made that people actually care about popular culture. Outside of Wikipedia, though, no one gives a damn about Lyndon LaRouche. Now, just because an article gets a tiny handful of page views doesn't mean that it is a bad article or should be deleted. But, traditionally, we have deleted articles when they are both marginal in terms of importance and they create a great deal of trouble on the wiki. Examples of this include Brian Peppers, Allison Stokke, Daniel Brandt, and Public Information Research, among others. *** Crotalus *** 00:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. This article may well deserve to be deleted.  Unfortunately, this AfD nomination fails to make any valid argument for same.  The non-existence of the other named articles is not, in and of itself, an argument that this article should not exist.  If the article has problems with OR and POV, fix them, but that is not a reason for deletion. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  00:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I'd prefer to see it shortened somehow and merged into Lyndon LaRouche.  KJS77 Join the Revolution  00:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep but remove non-neutral adjectives throughout. It does make it seem reasonable to break out this rather complex body of material. As for the analogues cited, I checked and found that for Lincoln, WP has Abraham Lincoln on slavery, and IMHO the Jefferson article could use a similar expansion--and perhaps a few others. I don't see that the extent of viewing of this article has anything to do with keeping it. And the precedent of the other articles mentioned is a very bad precedent indeed,for at least some of the 4--IMHO, defeats for NPOV. DGG (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep.
 * There are several categories covering these articles, such as Category:Political positions by person, Category:Political positions of politicians, and even Category:Political positions of mayors and leaders of cities in the United States. We have Views expressed by Michael Savage and Politics of Bill O'Reilly. So there is a precedent for have these types of articles on mid-level politicians and pundits.
 * All of these articles are subsidiary articles from their main articles, the bios. In every case they have been split off of the main articles, in accordance with WP:SUMMARY. They inherit the notability of their parent article. There are many notable individuals that don't have an article like Isaac Newton's early life and achievements, but that is not a reason to delete one.
 * In the case of this article, the subject has complicated and unusual political, economic, and philosophic beliefs. Those beliefs are actively promoted in a number of countries, and it is conceivable that people may come to Wikipedia for more information on the topic.
 * Having an article about the subject's views allows the main biography to remain limited to the more purely biographical information. The biography is itself quite long, so a merger of significant info from this article would require major editing to keep the bio at a reasonable length.
 * Many of the problems with this and other articles related to this topic can be attributed to a banned editor, . Through a series of sockpuppet accounts going back to 2004, he has played the principal role in writing these articles and has been a consistent obstacle to their improvement. A set of socks going back a year or more have just been identified and blocked. Without their interference it may now be possible to edit down these articles and make substantial improvements.
 * Finally, the topic of LaRouche's views is notable. There are hundreds of newspaper articles and dozens of magazine and a score of major book entries. Many of them devote space to discussing his views in some detail. There are 3rd-party sources devoted to particular aspects of his beliefs. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 08:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge It appears that this article is highly inflated, and deserves substantial editing down to something more manageable.  There are large blocks of unnecessary quotes and duplication.  I believe that once it is editted, then it should be of a size when it could be moved to Lyndon LaRouche.  This article should not be deleted, since it does seem to have information on what LaRouche, who has been deemed notable.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjamison (talk • contribs) 23:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, Comment The reason why an article like this is necessary is that there was an Arbcom decision a few years back that LaRouche media outlets couldn't be cited, even as primary sources, in articles other than those about the LaRouche organization. So this article is necessary as its the only place to write about the LaRouche political positions on a variety of topics, and it's too long to merge into the main article. Squidfryerchef (talk)


 * Keep, Comment LaRouche is the most prolific anti-Semitic propagandist/ideologist of our times, and has had a significant if often under the radar influence on public opinion and the press, especially in Latin America.--Dking (talk) 23:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  00:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak, barely imperceptible Keep, and then take a buzzsaw to it Pare this dinosaur down to a size commensurate to its noteworthiness. I.e., keep only those views that have reliable sourcing indicate that they are notable outside of the parallel orbiting universes of Laroucheworld and the world of his circle of professional critics. 90% plus of the article is currently sourced to Larouche pubs. I'm aware of the argument made on the article talk page that there is some public service being performed by making these views accessible. I'm not the least bit convinced of the validity of that argument (nor its novel interpretation of the purpose of this encyclopedia). And DKing's claim about Larouche's twist on le question juif being the most "prolific" these days would not survive a walking stroll down a Teheran street or a charming morning tuning into a popular Polish radio station.. Boodlesthecat Meow? 16:57, 24 September 2008 (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.