Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current communist states

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 No consensus, defaulting to keep. Fram (talk) 09:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of current communist states[edit]

Completely unsourced and completely pro-western POV. Furthermore, all of the countries listed refer to themselves as "socialist republics" in their own constitutions, and true communism (if we go by Marx and Engels) has never existed in any country on earth. The name of the political party that is in power doesn't designate the nature of the system. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 20:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. POV alone, of the non-fork variety, is, in my experience, virtually never sufficient to delete anything. Please articulate a deletion rationale couched in normative policy terms. -- Y not be working? 20:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your experience is apparently mistaken. All articles on Wikipedia must adhere to WP:NPOV. For additional rationales, how about "The article provides no WP:RSes whatsoever", and "The article is patent nonsense?" Nobody of Consequence (talk) 21:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My experience is what it is, thank you. To stave off deletion, Wikipedia requires verifiability, not the presence of RS references at present. If you had some of my mistaken experience, you would have known that. -- Y not? 19:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quoted from Wikipedia:V#Reliable_sources - Reliable sources are necessary both to substantiate material within articles and to give credit to authors and publishers in order to avoid plagiarism and copyright violations. In addition to WP:V, the policies of WP:N and WP:NPOV must be fulfilled. Also see WP:OR, which is basically what this article is made up of. - Nobody of Consequence (talk) 21:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Redirect to List of socialist countries which presents the same information in a more historical and wider context. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Having studied List of socialist countries, I am proposing this for deletion too. The lack of sources for this contentious material is a fatal flaw per WP:V and the matter is too serious to be left as is. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect sounds good. This article is unsourced and makes POV assumptions about governments, including its own private definition of what "communist state" even means. The List of socialist countries article contains the exact same information, and with wider context. (Though it could honestly use references, too.) --Ig8887 (talk) 12:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and oppose redirect. Socialism and communism are not the same thing. The states listed in the article-- China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam-- were all established with the aid of the U.S.S.R. and its particular brand of socialism, which included one-party rule, "communal" ownership of assets and a planned economy, among other things. Some may argue that all communists are socialists, but most socialists are not communists. Mandsford (talk) 21:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of socialist countries, since that article has a section to list the same countries as Marxist-Leninist. It is a flaw that this article says that the countries are considered communist states by the west, but provides no source. Perhaps the British or US government has such a list. Perhaps the New York Times or other reliable sources writes from time to time about the fate of communist countries. What they call themselves is not very compelling, because Hitler's "National Socialism" was not socialist and many "Democratic Republics" are extremely undemocratic dictatorships. I do not agree with the nominator's claim that the list is "pro western." Edison (talk) 00:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I guess my point about the "patent nonsense" portion of my previous statement is that if we go by the ultimate resource (Marx, who invented communism), then none of these countries have ascended to communism. Most of them are variations of state capitalism with a one-party dictatorship. According to Marx, the dictatorship is just one of the steps on the road to reaching communism. So none of them can be called communist since none of them have attained communism yet. I'd agree with a redirect to the list of socialist countries, since that one is actually capable of being saved (although it does need a lot of work). Nobody of Consequence (talk) 03:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
KeepI agree. Communism and Socialism definitely are not the same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Topclaw (talk • contribs) 09:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They're not but that doesn't really have anything to do with this article... why should it be kept when it doesn't satisfy the requirements laid out in three core policies/guidelines? Nobody of Consequence (talk) 15:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect & Merge since a small bit could be added to the List of socialist countries & then any looking for the article is redirected. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 21:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.