Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Cultural Marxism (2nd nomination)

Pre-closing discussion

This page is entirely inaccurate and seems polemical. Cultural Marxism is a thing, Marxists exist many university professors are Marxists. I studied Marxist anthropology under on, that also exists. It isn't a conspiracy, people are allowed to pursue their political ideologies in America. Read this article by a UCLA prof and see if it matches the opinions presented here: http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/culturalmarxism.pdf There are also whole books on the subject and theories that have evolved from the field that are widely accepted in even mainstream circles like critical race theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.48.209.177 02:35, 26 December If you'd bothered to actually read what you're linking to, you'd notice: a) It's a PDF located on a faculty server (specifically in the directory OF THE AUTHOR for the work) meaning it's essentially self-published. Existing on a university server does not mean something is automatically academically deemed peer reviewed. b) The author uses himself as a reference repeatedly (which is obviously circular "I said so because I said so" logic). c) The term is being used as synonymous and interchangeably with early Cultural studies; a much more notable topic that already has a substantial and well referenced article (Marxist influences included) to add this information to, so I assume you're arguing for a merger? d) Cultural Marxism appears in the work 9 times (not including title) where as Cultural Studies appears 90 times, a full 10 times more! (with 38 instances of The Frankfurt School, and 11 instances for Gramsci alone) When will people learn to stop using "but it's in the title" as an attempt to substantiate a whole stand alone wikipedia article claiming there's a well defined school of thought actively pushing for some Marxist agenda. It's literally judging a book by its cover, and it's not good enough! --Jobrot (talk) 01:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural Marxism I note for the record that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural Marxism does not exist. I've looked into it and it's for reasons probably not worth going into. There have been a couple of recent attempts to basically remove this article. (I agree with them to some extent) Disambiguation has been offered as an option - I would say any user not used to our labyrinthine and exhaustive processes would have no choice but to AfD the article as an option to disambiguate in this particular case. I point this out because one user who have !voted has picked up this, and the closers should ideally also note it. Although as I and someone else said elsewhere, disambiguation is an editorial decision, perhaps the closers would consider this if not an option for a close, then not a basis to invalidate anything. -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:15, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Consensus discussion by closers

As this has been deemed a controversial subject and much debated AfD it was suggested that a panel of three editors agreeing on the discussion's consensus might be a good idea. Thus, I would like to reserve this section for discussion between myself, Huon, and Spartaz for the purposes of agreeing upon the consensus. We are discussing this here for the purpose of transparency; we have additionally already held some discussion here and at the previously linked discussion. Sam Walton (talk) 19:08, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As this discussion has attracted the attention of some who aren't familiar with Wikipedia guidelines and policies I'd like to add a paragraph here summarising what this discussion is meant for. Information on Wikipedia must ideally be verifiable, this means it must be cited to a reliable source of information like a news article, published book, or scientific paper; something which is published in a venue in which it is subject to editorial oversight. This isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing. Linked to this is the guideline of notability - a guideline which dictates what sort of topics we should have articles about on Wikipedia, namely those which have been written about in multiple reliable sources. Without this guideline Wikipedia would be a mess of indiscriminate articles on any old topic. As such we need a way of policing what is and isn't notable; Articles for Deletion is one venue for doing so, inviting discussion from editors to prove that a subject is notable or agree that it isn't (here's a nice example of when a subject is proven notable in a discussion). Someone needs to assess the consensus of the discussion though, and usually that's one admin. In this case it was considered sensible for 3 admins to decide what the discussion's consensus was. To make clear: We're not unilaterally deciding what should happen to the article, just summarising what the other editors have decided and turning that into an actionable decision. Sam Walton (talk) 19:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Statements

• Initial statement from Samwalton9:

The keep voters argued that the subject was notable due to coverage in academic sources. The strongest of these sources appears to be "British Cultural Marxism" for example, a paper published in the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. A number of other sources were presented, but most were discredited as either self-published, blog/opinion pieces, or as not discussing 'Cultural Marxism' as a concept.

Delete voters argued that the sources presented by those wishing to keep the article were not reliable or weren't of sufficient number or quality to show that the subject passed the notability threshold. Many mentioned that the Frankfurt School, Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, and Critical theory articles covered the topic sufficiently, and any sources were not numerous enough to additionally justify this article.

Overall I believe there is a consensus to delete this article. The sources presented by those voting to keep have been repeatedly shown not to be sufficient for the topic of Cultural Marxism to pass Wikipedia's inclusion rules. The contentious issue then is whether to redirect or merge. Given the low volume of usable sources presented here I would move to redirect this article, without prejudice towards including any sourceable information from this article into the others mentioned in the previous paragraph. I think we can all agree that another debate on the minutia of how and what to merge where isn't going to be fun for anyone.

As for the redirect location, Frankfurt School and Frankfurt School conspiracy theory seem to be the leading options. Given the similar contention surrounding the existence of the conspiracy theory article I think Frankfurt School is the better redirect for now. I would urge further discussion on whether the conspiracy theory article needs deleting/redirecting/merging/whatever. Sam Walton (talk) 19:08, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Initial statement from Spartaz:

WP:CONSENSUS describes how we should judge the weight of the arguments rather then counting the votes. Something very useful when a discussion has been tainted by canvassing and long entrenched positions. There are a number of themes that I take from the discussion:-

• The content under discussion is a mess, appears not to be well based on the available sources and is subject to entrenched external views. Even the keep side has highlighted problems with the content.
• The delete arguments were well evidenced by detailed and informed discussions on the available sourcing and this analysis came from more then one voter. I did not feel that the analysis of the sources was at all refuted by the keep votes
• The keep arguments were generally of low quality: assertions, citing sources without analysis, non-policy based or based on page views. Where sources were cited they were challenged in detail by the delete side and this challenge was not convincingly refuted.
• There appears to be some agreement that this subject is already covered to a greater or lesser extent on other pages.

Based on this, I find the following views to have consensus:-

1. The existing content is a mess and TNT should apply - therefore the text should be Deleted
2. Broadly the delete side had well founded policy based arguments that overcame the keep arguments and that the subject is best covered in another article. Therefore there is consensus that we do not have an article at this location but redirect elsewhere.
3. There is no clear consensus where this subject could be redirected but that a redirect can be inserted as soon as consensus on this has emerged.

Therefore my judgement is that we delete, salt and insert a redirect when consensus for this has been established. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Initial statement from Huon:

I broadly agree with Samwalton9 and Spartaz.

• Those who argue to keep the article do not agree among themselves what the kept article is supposed to be about.
• The reliable sources given by those arguing that the article should be kept have largely been disputed; the arguments against those sources have not been refuted.

Particularly in light of the latter issue, I see a consensus not to keep the current article. Conversely, many of those arguing for deletion noted that the current topic is already addressed elsewhere under a different name. Thus we should delete and redirect. The most commonly named targets were Frankfurt School, Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, Cultural studies and Critical theory. Among these choices, "cultural Marxism" seems most closely related to the Frankfurt School and the relevant conspiracy, and I agree with Samwalton's reading regarding the best target. Huon (talk) 22:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Spartaz, would you be happy with redirecting to Frankfurt School for now? I agree with you that a discussion should be held if others aren't happy with that as the target, but having some target is probably a good idea. Sam Walton (talk) 22:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• redirects are editorial judgements, with the proviso that we can change the redirect if there is another consensus , I'm OK with that.Spartaz ^Humbug! 23:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Ok, given that we all agree for a redirect and are all happy with that as the current target, I have closed the discussion as delete and redirect. Sam Walton (talk) 23:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Post-closing discussion

PaleoLiberty I think it would be apt to point out that before deletion goes to vote on this particular topic the page is maliciously attacked to decrease its quality in a ploy to deletion due to lack of sources. For instance this archive of the article is of much higher quality than its counterpart that was voted to deletion https://archive.today/YzkIS — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaleoLiberty (talk • contribs) 05:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Going through the references of the supposedly higher quality version you've link to, I find:

Merquior, J.G. (1986). Western Marxism which as a paper back reference failed real life verification (a user actually got it out at a library and couldn't find the statements claimed). It was removed some time later (evidence of this can be found in the edit history).

Douglas Kellner who states that Cultural Marxism and Cultural Studies are two different things, and are only "associated" by sharing some modified strains of approaches to analysis shared between them via The Birmingham School [[1]].

Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer to my knowledge NEVER use the term Cultural Marxism. [[2]][[3]]

A translated lecture from a German university radio program - seems like a very bad way to prove/validate terminology (for obvious reasons).

Jürgen Habermas to my knowledge Habermas never uses the term Cultural Marxism. [[4]]

William S. Lind has been discredited as self-published, extremely POV, and vulgar. He is very firmly in the conspiracy theorist camp going as far as to accuse "The Gays" of controlling the mass media.

So your "higher quality" version of the article has ALL the problems of this one, if not more. --Jobrot (talk) 03:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you to all 3 admins for your careful consideration. Shii (tock) 13:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, good job taking on a difficult task. Chillum 17:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I was 100% sure that Wikipedia would have a page on this, so I am a bit put off by finding the situation as it is. I have to say, "delete and redirect" seems a bit fishy to me as a decision. Wikipedia:Merge and delete -- a "delete-and-redirect" decision implies that the topic itself was deemed notable, but that the de-facto content on the page under discussion was deemed not worth keeping. Because in principle any valid section of any valid article can in principle again become a standalone page under WP:SS. So, "delete and redirect" was the decision, but it was apparently based on arguments of notability of the topic, not the quality of the content. Since the suppression of this topic seems to lie in the general interest of the prevalent views held by average Wikipedians (Wikipedia:Systemic bias), extra care should be taken to maintain objectivity "in spite of ourselves" (Zeitgeist (film series) is just as much a "recentism" and "conspiracy theory", yet it is allowed to take up several pages, either because it has been defended more tenuously or because it holds more appeal to the average Wikipedia admin).

I do not have a problem with the section-redirect, just with the fact that it resulted from an administrative decision (while it should have been the result of the standard editing process). If coverage at the present section becomes too detailed to be reasonably part of the "Frankfurt School" article, I do suppose the natural course will be to once again {{split-section}} it into a WP:SS sub-page. --dab (𒁳) 12:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

The current section is approximately 10% of The Frankfurt School article I suspect split sections are more for occasions where the content in question is reaching closer to 50% of a page's space. --Jobrot (talk) 06:37, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Request to revisit consensus

I've read the discussions that took place in 2014 that led the term Cultural Marxism to be redirected (and salted). At the time the discussion concluded, this is what the merged section looks like. Presently, it looks like this. There appear to be additional mainstream sources about the term since 2014, such as Jeet Heer writing about it in The New Republic as seen here. Since on Wikipedia, consensus can change, I would like to propose for there to once again be a standalone article about this term, which has continued to amass coverage (especially coverage more relevant than what may have existed in 2014). It seems to meet WP:NFRINGE at this point. WP:PAGEDECIDE says, "Fringe theories, for example, may merit standalone pages but have undue weight on a page about the mainstream concept," and the content seems to be getting bloated in its section under a broader topic. Judging from the additional content, especially in regard to contemporary political matters, a standalone article is warranted to talk about the term and its use historically and in today's world. I would suggest Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory for the article title, (which is not salted, but I figured judging from the three-admin closure that a preliminary discussion is warranted). It should go without saying that such an article should follow WP:FRINGE in how it handles the term. To the admins who closed it at the time, what would be the most appropriate way to revisit this? Hopefully such a discussion can mean identifying and evaluating newer sources. Pinging Samwalton9, Spartaz, Huon. Thanks, Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The venue you're looking for is WP:DELREV (if you want the deletion decision overturned) or WP:RFPP (if you want the redirect to be unprotected). I'd try the former. Huon (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Huon, thanks. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)