Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-05-29 Democrat Party (United States)

Mediation Case: 2006-05-29 Democrat Party (United States)
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: RickDC 18:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * In the article Democrat Party (United States)


 * Who's involved?
 * The article's chief author is Rjensen; Griot and I have both done editing and submitted comments


 * What's going on?
 * (1) Is this an appropriate topic for full-article treatment? (2) If it is, does the informational balance of the article and the lengthy presentation of one side of the linguistic issue meet neutral POV standards? The chief author, Rjensen, says that POV isn't an issue since this is simply an article about linguistics. There is a political context, however, to the terminology: the modern Republican Party has sought to re-brand the opposing party as the Democrat Party. This article seems to read as an apologia for that effort, whether intended to or not.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * Regarding question #1, I's like to see the topic dealt with much more briefly, in a short paragraph, in the article Democratic Party (United States), which already has a short section on party nomenclature. The issue seems beaten to death in the present text. Regarding question #2, the article as written makes far too extensive and one-sided a case for what is clearly, in reality, a variant usage used sometimes by some people. The result seems tendentious and argumentative, not qualities of a good encyclopedia article. There is discussion of these and other points on the Talk page. Trying to improve the balance of the article by editorial changes just seems to spark counter-changes and the proliferation of yet more citations to support the author's thesis. I think we need wise guidance. If I'm over-reacting, I'll be happy to learn from it. Thanks.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?


 * Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment in a different case?


 * I don't really feel experienced enough for that right now.

Mediator response
(I haven't got the time to truly go through with this now; will in a few hours.) I see that both sides have their arguments, and you're being civil, and all that's great. However, can any of you think of a compromise? Arguing your sides won't do anything unless there's a middle ground. Let's say we allow this article its existence, are there any compromises as to content and length? And if it isn't allowed to exist, any compromises about inclusion in the Democratic Party article? --Keitei (talk) 15:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for stepping in. As a compromise, I can see putting a sentence about "Democrat Party" in the Democratic Party (United States) article, something along the lines of "The party's opponents sometimes disparagingly use the term 'Democrat Party' to describe this party." The problem with including a long explanation of the term in the "Democratic Party" article is that the article is supposed to be about the Democratic Party, not about what its opponents very rarely call it (it's important to remember that all major media, all reference books, and the vast majority of the party's opponents accord it the respect of calling it by its name). The "Democrat Party" article strains to give credence to this incorrect use of the party name. It smacks of a political agenda. Wikipedia is an onilne enyclopedia, a place where general readers go to get information, not a place to legitimize political epithets. Griot 18:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * GRIOT is wrong about Redpublicans "Very rarely" using the term. It is the term mostly used by the White House for the last 5 years--and by President Bush and people like the House and Senate GOP leaders. It is very common on talk radio. One dictionary (HarperCollins) cites it as correct usage. It is also used by Nader, by Green party and by Reform party leaders. Thousands of "Democrat Clubs" use it proudly. The Bush wHITE House website is searchable back to 2001. http://www.whitehouse.gov/query.html?col=colpics&qt=democrat+
 * I found 2026 hits for Democrat (most are cases of adjective use and refer to domestic politics) and 2603 for Democratic (most of which refer to foreign policy). I think this is the problem people have--if the Republicans use the word so much it must be wrong. Rjensen 20:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Now we're rehashing the debate, when Keitei asked for a compromise solution. Once again, Nader hardly ever uses the term, and HarperCollins cites it as a usage, not the correct usage. As for Google searches, I got 607 hits for "Repugnant Party," but that doesn't warrant a Wiki article by that name with links to Republican Party (United States), generalizations about who is using the term, conjectures as to its increasing use, or a justification for including the article on Wiki because the term "is very common on talk radio." Griot 20:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Compromise offers
I've noticed that the article has been listed on AfD. I propose that the community decide whether the article stays or goes, and once that is decided, the article can be cleaned/NPOVed (yay verbing), or merged into the Democratic Party or List of political epithets. Sound good? --Keitei (talk) 16:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments by others
The article in question is a topic that has been discussed in the scholarly journals and in the guidebooks to language for 50 years--and most recently by the Christian Science Monitor in late 2005. The useage of "Democrat" is politicized--Republican leaders (Hoover, Taft, Landon, Eisenhower, Gingrich etc), as well as the GOP National Committee and most state committees use adjective that some Democrats strongly dislike. (Ralph Nader uses it too--as do many people on talk radio.) As GRIOT points out in the article, however, thousands of "Democrat Clubs" use the adjective to promote the Democratic party. The most recent examples were Senator Bill Frist (GOP Senate leader) using the adjective on May 28, 2006 and House GOP leader Boehner on May 25, 2006.

I suggest it is a POV to erase the article so people do not know about the issue.

The official complaint for mediation complains that rjensen wrote most of the article, which is true enough. It was based on the references that are provided, especially the major article in a scholarly journal, Ignace Feuerlicht, "Democrat Party" American Speech Vol. 32, No. 3 (Oct., 1957), pp. 228-231, as well as standard sources including major books by Safire, Sperber and Trittshuh and the Merriam Webster Guide.

As a linguistic issue the article shows how the language is changing: Americans use nouns as adjectives; we talk about "The Iraq war" not "The Iraqi War." See the discussion by a linguist at online

Therefore it is an ideal candidate for a Wiki article. There is already a brief reference and link at the main Rjensen 20:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This article is far from an "ideal candidate for a Wiki article." This article falsely legitimizes the term "Democrat Party." The term is not the official name of the party -- that name is "Democratic Party." Some members of the United States Repubican Party have begun a campaign to belittle the Democratic Party by using "Democrat Party." The term is always used to signal disrespect. Having an article called "Democrat Party" is akin to writing an article about gun control under the name "gun grabber," an article about neoconservatives called "neoconartists," or an article about liberals called "liebrals." The point of an enyclopedia is to address topics, not play secondary host to someone's political agenda. Anybody who searches for "Democrat Party" in Wikipedia can find an explanation of the term under List of political epithets, where it rightfully belongs. Griot 22:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Is the topic worthy of Wiki? It has been worthy of discussion for 50 years in the following scholarly books and journals:


 * Copperud, Roy H. American Usage and Style: The Consensus (1980), pp 101-102
 * Feuerlicht, Ignace . "Democrat Party" American Speech Vol. 32, No. 3 (Oct., 1957), pp. 228-231
 * Bryan A. Garner. A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (1998) p. 196
 * Lyman, John. "Democrat Party" American Speech Vol. 33, No. 3 (Oct., 1958), pp. 239-40
 * Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1994) pp 328-29
 * Geoffrey Nunberg. Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show (2006)
 * Safire, William. Safire's New Political Dictionary (1993) p. 176
 * Hans Sperber and Travis Trittschuh, American Political Terms: An Historical Dictionary (1962), 117-23
 * Add two recent essays be well-known linguists:

Rjensen 22:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Geoffrey Nunberg, "The Case for Democracy" in "Fresh Air" commentary, Jan. 19, 2005 (NPR radio broadcast)
 * Ruth Walker, "Republicans, Democrats, and the Afghan on the couch" Christian Science Monitor January 27, 2005


 * The above-cited article (by Ruth Walker) sums up the argument against including "Democrat Party" in the Wikipedia. She writes, "Democrat as an adjective is still sometimes used by some twentieth-century Republicans as a campaign tool but was used with particular virulence by the late senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican who sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat Party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic." Should we let some scribes use Wikipedia as a tool as well? Should we take our cue from Eugene McCarthy and turn a political epithet into a full-fledged encyclopedia article, helping legitimize the term and turning the Wikipedia from an online encyclopedia into a political forum for ranting? Griot 23:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * the one side doesn't want any article because they hate the word -- I call that sheer POV. Rjensen 17:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It might be possible to have a legitimate short article on the usage "Democrat Party," but the present article isn't it. It's too long, too repetitive in its examples, and fails to offer sufficient context, which is chiefly that the driving force these days in usage of the name is Republican Party politicians, officials, and partisans (aka "talk radio") who have fastened on this as their preferred name for their opponents. Republican usage, which is a fact and deseves mention, can be dealt with briefly either in a much shortened version of this article or in the main article on the Democratic Party. RickDC 05:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)