Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trotskyist Fraction – International Strategy

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)[reply]

Trotskyist Fraction – International Strategy[edit]

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No evidence of notability. Superheroes Fighting (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. —Mia-etol (talk) 10:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. —Mia-etol (talk) 10:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, international organization, at least 2 of the members are notable (PTS and LOR-CI). --Soman (talk) 12:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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 npassing 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) 16:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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) 19:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

* 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 Wikipedia: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) 23:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point about comprehensiveness of an encyclopedia, that should be a concern of Wikipedia, being nowhere present in WP rules, while simultaneously compromised by inclusion criteria. However, I must point out that the agenda of the Hoover Institution's, or rather Richard Felix Staar's, Yearbook of International Communist Affairs, is to present a global communist conspiracy; Staar has a record of inventing groups to swell their lists, and presenting small friendly societies as large or insidious communist fronts (Talk:Soviet influence on the peace movement#Reliability of Richard F. Staar). So, while their inclusion of this group on their list does tend to evidence its existence, the HI is not a reliable source for presenting facts about the group. We can of course distance ourselves from their declarations by overtly summarizing or quoting them. Anarchangel (talk) 02:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Soman, Carrite. --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:58, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - These articles on small Internationals are notable for their documentation of the internationalism and multiplicity of marxist political projects. The differences are notable since they arise from different interpretations and applications of theory and are of some help in understanding domestic and regional politics. A reasonable person would accept that since differences in theory and practice exist and are expressed in different organizations, then the different organizations themselves are notable. The international pages help to distinguish and group the multiplicity of communist and socialist parties organizations in different countries, which are themselves notable. Additionally, these groups are relevant to the history of larger events and political parties, particularly in Latin America and Europe. The relationship of a small international to, say the Workers Party of Brazil or Bolivarianism might not be obvious in the article's current state, but is an opportunity for expansion rather than deletion. DJ Silverfish (talk) 14:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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) 18:22, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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 ) 21:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep From the limited amount I know about this grouping it may, like a few other internatonal groupings, consist of one relatively large national group and some small satellites elsewhere. Nevertheless I believe that the PTS of Argentina is significant, one of the larger groups on the Argentine far left, one of the larger fragments of Morenoism, although possibly this article should be merged with the PTS's. PatGallacher (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There may be a tenable case for merging this article with that of its largest section, the Socialist Workers' Party (Argentina), but not outright deletion. PatGallacher (talk) 20:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Article does not meet general notability criteria.--יום יפה (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep- And notice currently same-titled website, although I'm not sure it merits inclusion. Dru of Id (talk) 13:07, 8 April 2011 (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.