Talk:Types of socialism

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Contents 1 General discussion 2 Stigma of communism? 3 Proposal to redirect 4 Reason to wait 5 New article 6 Reversion 7 Deletion of this article 8 Turning into proper list 9 Nazism, fascism and socialism 10 Fascism

[edit] General discussion

The opening paragraph is completely POV. "Authoritarian" and "coercion" are strongly POV terms.

Apart from which - not even a mention of democratic socialism, which has long been the main school of socialism in developed countries, and again an apparent attempt to conflate socialism with communism. I'm adding a totallydisputed sticker to this page - at least until I can find some time to fix the more egregious sections. Gatoclass 09:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Since you removed POV words from intro and made some modifications to other sections, I'm removing totally disputed tag. -- Vision Thing -- 11:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry VT, I'm going to have to put it back because there are still things I dispute in this article. I just haven't had time to edit them all yet. Gatoclass 12:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

You should state what are you disputing. -- Vision Thing -- 12:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is not POV. The text dumped here is a scatted, incoherent mess. How can you seriously vouch for the quality of that crap? 172 | Talk 13:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Vision Thing, I'll offer you a compromise: Wait and let the redirect here stand for the next few days; in turn, I'll write a totally new "types of socialism" article. My main priority is making sure that the old text from the socialism article does not resurrected here or anywhere. I am not dogmatic about how the socialism-related articles should be organized, as there is a huge array of ways in which they can be reasonably arranged. But under no condition do I want the crap from the old socialism article rearing its ugly head anywhere. 172 | Talk 13:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that you are trying to totally erase any trace of the Socialism article. Instead of trying to impose your point of view it would be better if you would try to improve current content by discussing changes. -- Vision Thing -- 14:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I am a professional historian trying to impose serious encyclopedic standards on Wikipedia. My rewrite is considered a dramatic improvement by every other editor but yourself, including Cberlet, one of Wikipedia's top professionally published editors. You have not stated a legitimate dispute against my rewrite so far. Despite my misgivings about your behavior, I am offering you a compromise. I will remove the redirect, but only until the article is brought up to standard. 172 | Talk 17:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Here I have only begun to point out why this text dump cannot be saved. This text has to be rewritten from scratch. There is no saving it. 172 | Talk 18:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm welcoming any constructive suggestions for improving article. Don't blank pages. Keep in mind Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes:

"* Deleting useful content. A piece of content may be written poorly, yet still have a purpose. Consider what a sentence or paragraph tries to say. Clarify it instead of throwing it away."

and don't push your POV. -- Vision Thing -- 23:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The problems with the article are not "common mistakes" and the content is not useful, as I demonstrate here. Yet you do not respond to them. I see now that you are not acting as a legitimate editor interested in collaboration. 172 | Talk 02:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

This is obviously a POV fork. The whole page should be deleted. Anyone else want to list it for deletion?--Cberlet 02:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I do. But to save time we can just redirect the article. 172 | Talk 02:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I'm welcoming any constructive suggestions for improving article. If you want to make constuctive changes to it, like Gatoclass did, please do. -- Vision Thing -- 09:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What is the issue here? The topic is highly politically charged, so there are always going to be POV problems. Is the article broadly misleading? Or is it redundant??--Jack Upland 10:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue here is complicated. It started when the scattered mess at the socialism article was rewritten. The response to the rewrite was overwhelmingly postive; but for reasons which I still cannot understand, Vision Thing started reverting back to the old version over and over again. When other editors started rolling back Vision Thing's reverts as vandalism, he eventually gave up. But he then created "types of socialism" as a personal fork, dumping the old problem text here, with no attempt to improve the quality. The topic may be politically charged, but the problem is coherence and accuracy, not necessarily POV. Take a look at the structural and factual problems I have noted in this sandbox. (By the way, I'm not even close to done with pointing out all the flaws.) In my three years on Wikipedia, I have consistently noticed this pattern: when articles are poorly structured, they breed poor content. When a bad seed is planted, the plant usually grows up to be pretty unhealthy. The socialism article lacked coherent organization from the start, leaving it with loose standards of relevance. Over time it developed into a hodgepodge of bad edits of all kinds: POV, original research, tangential asides, sweeping generalizations, controversial unsourced claims, fringe claims, and simply bad writing style. Hence all the problems I pointed out in the sandbox. Vision Thing's attempt to resurrect that mess is misguided. It's a waste of time to try to salvage that mess. 172 | Talk 12:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Issue here is that 172 keeps deleting this article, although it has dispute tag on and although he hasn't made a request for deletion. -- Vision Thing -- 13:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You have failed to state a counter-argument in favor of the text dumped here from socialism responding to a large volume of criticism form multiple editors, including my notes here. As far as the page types of socialism itself, both deletion and redirecting the page are possible solutions. The guidelines in Wikipedia:Redirect include sub-topics or closely related topics: "This is a redirect from a title for a topic more detailed than the target page. When the target page becomes too big, this redirect may be replaced with an article carved out of the target page" (the example offered is distributed denial of service redirecting to Denial of service). 172 | Talk 13:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Socialism is not more detailed about types of socialism than this article. -- Vision Thing -- 14:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

No. Superficially the socialism article is around the same size as this article in terms of kilobytes. However, that's neither here nor there. Substantively, the socialism article contains much more relevant factual content than the fork, which is an incoherent mess (given the reasons I have explained repeatedly and you have ignored entirely). 172 | Talk 14:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I said it to you 2 or 3 times already, if you think there is a problem with some sections, change them, don't delete entire article. That what you call "incoherent mess" was on Socialism for months and nobody made any complaints about it. -- Vision Thing -- 14:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

(1) I can tell you didn't even read the notes I left in the sandbox. I noted many structural problems that cannot simply be "changed" without a rewrite. Further, the "types of socialism" title, irrespective of the content, may redirected in cases of sub-topics or closely related topics because the socialism article already offers a good foundation for explaining the diversity within the socialist movement, as I stated earlier. (2) Re: That what you call "incoherent mess" was on Socialism for months and nobody made any complaints about it. That's a dishonest claim. Before my rewrite, the old version had not just one SIX different disputes tagged throughout the article. [1] It boggles my mind that someone would fight so stubbornly to resurrect that mess. 172 | Talk 15:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Tottalydisputed tag was added by The Ungovernable Force [2] because of these edits [3][4]. They were removed, but the tag remained by accident. Only section which was really disputed was "Controversial classifications" but they wouldn't be controversial if they weren't disputed. Other sections of "Types of socialism" weren't disputed and you are deleting them. Also, all Wikipedia's articles are "work in progress" type of articles. Have you forgotten that?-- Vision Thing -- 16:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What a disingenuous reply. No, just because there is a "controversial" heading does not give editors an excuse to insert factually inaccurate, slanted, and irrelevant material anywhere in the article. And your cavalier dismissal Also, all Wikipedia's articles are "work in progress" type of articles shows utter disrespect for your fellow editors and the project as a whole. Work-in-progress articles may be incomplete; they may be stubs. But existing content MUST be accurate, verifiable, neutral, coherent, and relevant. If you are unwilling to respect Wikipedia's content guidelines, I suggest that you find something else to do with your time online. 172 | Talk 16:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

And all articles that aren't entirely accurate, verifiable, neutral, coherent, and relevant must be immediately deleted? LOL Then you can delete at least half of Wikipedia.-- Vision Thing -- 17:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You are making your contempt for the project's goals clear. Yes, all inaccurate, unverifiable, biased, incoherent, and irrelevant content must be deleted or rewritten. The poor state of many articles on Wikipedia is no excuse for writing new poor content. That's why I rewrote the article. That's why users who act to keep inaccurate and poorly written material in articles are considered "trolls" and "vandals," and eventually banned. Now, regarding the types of socialism redirect, while there are some pockets of factually correct clear writing, that alone does not rule out redirecting the entry. Overall, it makes more sense to follow the guidelines for redirects to sub-topics or closely related topics, as the socialism article also discusses the different "types of socialism" in sufficent detail, without the gross flaws of the cut-and-paste version posted here. 172 | Talk 19:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that content that is inaccurate, unverifiable, biased, incoherent, and irrelevant must be deleted or rewritten, but that is not a reason for deleting whole article. "Types of socialism" is important subject and it deserves to have its own article. You said that you are planning to rewrite whole article. Go ahead and do it, your "History of socialism" is pretty objective, and you will probably do a good job in rewriting "Types of socialism". However, in meantime, do not blank this article. It already has disputed tag and that's enough. Also, do not remove link from Socialism and I won't be adding it back in template:Socialism. Are you ready to agree on this? -- Vision Thing -- 19:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I sense a positive tone in your post above, and I appreciate that. (I'm particularly suprised about the postive feedback on the "history of socialism" section. I thought you hated it.) I agree that in theory a "types of socialism" entry would be helpful. However, remember when I said when a bad seed is planted on Wikipedia, the plant will grow up to be unhealthy. I started work on Wikipedia back in the days when an entry like socialism would get around 50 edits a year, not around 50 edits a week. I've seen this pattern play out over and over again. Thus, I'm really uncomfortable about the idea of the old content from socialism getting pasted anywhere. Given the postive tone of your reply above, I'll offer you a deal: Let the redirect stand and the links to types of socialism stand for no more than one week. In the meantime, I'll have time to write a new types of socialism entry. In return, if I don't meet the one week deadline, I'll stop redirecting the article. 172 | Talk 19:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that my offer was more then fair. However, as an act of good faith, I agree. I won't revert redirect for the next seven days. -- Vision Thing -- 07:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So the deadline I guess is a week after your above post, 07:53, 04 June? I'll go ahead and start work. 172 | Talk 13:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Would it be at all reasonable to have a seperate article for he bastardization of the term socialism, i.e. Fascism, Nazism, etc. ?

[edit] Stigma of communism?

Communism carries a strong social stigma? That's like saying Adolf Hitler and Nazis suffer a stigma because of the Holocaust.

Whose point of view is it that "Communism carries a strong social stigma" anyway? Better to say who opposes it, or at least that the main opposition is American (USA).

Better yet, explain some of the reasons for anti-Communism, such as the estimated 60 million to 210 million civilians murdered by Communist regimes after taking power. (Let alone war deaths for the moment.) --Uncle Ed 01:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You're right Ed. I noticed that myself. The sentence you quote is one of countless problems in the article. That's why I'm rewriting it, and redirecting this article for one week with the agreement of Vision Thing. 172 | Talk 13:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather leave the bad article in place. It has a lot of useful links. Besides, your "agreement" appears to have been made under duress. --Uncle Ed 14:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

So it's "60 million to 210 million" "murdered" by communism now? The number seems to go up every time I visit Wiki! Gatoclass 18:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to redirect

I see no consensus to redirect Types of socialism to Socialism and very little discussion. I have dredged up from the history of Types of socialism the following edit summaries by user:172:

• See agreement between Vision Thing and me on talk. We're redirecting this article for 7 days until it is rewritten.
• Ed Poor, "duress" has nothing to do with it. This article will be restored when it is worth restoring. For now misinformation is worse than no information.

I don't think it's up to one person to blank an entire article for a week. And VT wrote in meantime, do not blank this article which is not much of an agreement. --Uncle Ed 17:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

In that case, here's another vote for blanking the article for a week :) Gatoclass 17:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it's like 2 or 3 : 1 so I "mostly" blanked it. I want to keep the links. --Uncle Ed 18:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's one more pro-blank vote. Really, though, I want to see this article deleted as a POV fork. -- WGee 01:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ed Poor, are you serious!? You see little discussion of the redirect!? Did you even read the talk page before you barged in here!? See the long discussion between Vision Thing and me, that ended on 07:53, 29 May 2006 with Vision Thing agreeing to give me a week to rewrite the article while the page is redirected. In the discussion, I established why this article is so bad that it does more harm than good for the content to be posted anywhere in the Wikipedia main namespace. Stop resotring the article. Restoring the article is a big insult to all the work that I've put in to make these aritcles readable and accurate. Please, please, please, be patient while I rewrite the article. In the meantime, I don't want to see that nonsense posted. 172 | Talk 12:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm only reposting the links. What's wrong with that? --Uncle Ed 15:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The list is built around an implicit POV that needs to be clarified before being posted. The problem with listing "types of socialism" is there will probably never be a consensus on how to differentiate the many different socialisms. As far back as the 1848 Communist Manifesto Marx differentiated between a handful of different types of socialism ("reactionary feudal socialism," "reactionary petty-bourgeois socialism," "reactionary German or true socialism," "reactionary conservative or bourgeois socialism," "critical-utopian socialism," and "scientific socialism"). In Chapters on Socialism, Mill also discussed the "different schools of Socialism," coming up with a much different set of distinctions from Marx. [5] Since Marx's time, socialists have always been writing polemics against each other, categorizing supposed schools of socialism that stand in opposition to their own thinking; and in doing so, they have always been coming up with different ways of differentiating between the socialisms. David McNally, for example, rejected established distinctions, and differentiated between "socialism from above" and "socialism from below." Into a more contemporary era, Soviet Communists developed elaborate classification schemes on the different types of socialism on which they based their foreign policy. Critics of socialism also differ on how to differentiate the socialisms. Even today, when academics write histories of socialism, they too come up with differing lists on the different types of socialism. For example, Mukherjee, et, al (2000) In A History of Socialist Thought: From the Precursors to the Present identify six major schools of socialism: Marxism, Anarchism, Guild Socialism, Syndicalism, Fabianism, and Social Democracy. (Personally, I think their categorization is deeply flawed, leaving out the authoritarian nationalisms associated with Third World socialism.) The examples I've just laid out should help people realize that the topic "types of socialism" is far more complicated than some seem to realize. And it's far too complicated for a drive-by text dump from an old problem article. Ed Poor, please restore the redirect. 172 | Talk 16:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather copy and paste much of the comment you just made, instead. That was a brilliant exegesis! --Uncle Ed 16:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but please, please, please let the redirect stand until 07:53, 04 June-- the deadline by which I have to complete the rewrite that Vision Thing and I agreed to. 172 | Talk 23:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Please let's give it a rest until June 4th. Really, what's the hurry? Let's see the rewrite.--Cberlet 16:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reason to wait

Cberlet wrote in an edit summary:

Others of us see a reason to wait - please stop obvious disruption [6]

I think it's disruptive of wiki collaboration to reduce a page to a redirect, when other contributors are working on it. A promise from one contributor to create a full rewrite at a future date does not justify page-blanking. The links alone are good enough.

How about a page move to Socialism (disambiguation) instead? --Uncle Ed 16:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New article

I'm running a bit late with the new aritlce because of an assortment of server problems I've been having this Sunday, the day I allocated myself for the rewrite. I'll have it up late on June 4 EST, not UTC. 172 | Talk 20:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem if you are sure that you will make it. You can add unfinished version too. This is wiki after all and other editors will help. -- Vision Thing -- 16:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm still running a bit late. Well, my end of the baragin is my promise not to revert the article after June 4 until I post my rewrite, and I'll live up to it. 172 | Talk 05:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion

Why did you revert to May 28th? --Uncle Ed 14:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of this article

I propose nominating this article for deletion, as per WP:POVFORK. Would anybody support this move? -- WGee 21:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Though there are obviously intellectual pitfalls in even broaching this topic, I think having some kind of article like this is helpful for the uninitiated reader. People are always going to come across negative - and dishonest - portrayals of socialism so where is the harm is letting them have the issues laid out for them in summary? I think the controversial section which discusses Nazism is particularly helpful in this context.--Jack Upland 10:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

A POV fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Is there any way in which this article is avoiding NPOV? For example, does it hide or over-emphasize anything? --Uncle Ed 14:02, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turning into proper list

This article looks very sloppy. Either it should be a list or an descriptive article, not both. I vote for making it a list, and deleting all the big sections on Communism, etc. There's really no need to have full descriptions here, because there are separate articles that already do that.Spylab 17:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

I changed this into a proper list, as per what I wrote above. The previous format looked terrible, was difficult to read, and was redundant because it duplicated information already in other articles.Spylab 17:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

See my comment below. You took out Nazism, although this is disputed. --Uncle Ed 17:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

• After that, I took out all of the big sections because they are redundant, so that issue is moot, unless someone wants to put it in the list as a link. I have no idea what section it would go into though.Spylab 17:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

Idea behind this article is to have short overview of different types of socialism, not to have a list. -- Vision Thing -- 18:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

• Ok, then hopefully nobody will re-add all those links that were at the top of the page. As I said above, it should be an article or list, not both. The previous format was a mess.Spylab 18:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

I agree with both of you. The article was a mess, and we need a overview of each of the multitude of types. Eventually, each "type" section can use {{main}} to link to a spinoff (or "sidebar") article, describing it in greater detail. I'm going to copy Spylab's version to List of socialist ideas, though. --Uncle Ed 18:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

How about a compromise. Describe the category as controversial and then list possible inclusions.--Jack Upland 11:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nazism, fascism and socialism

A number of people believe that Nazism is socialism, and a roughly equal number insists that it's not. What's the best way to describe this dispute? --Uncle Ed 17:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Say that it's disputed(?) The Nazis did call themselves National Socialist, but at the same time suppressed ostensibly socialist parties such as the Social Democrats and the Communists. Moreover, they did not carry out a distinct 'socialist' platform as can be distinguished from other governments of the same period (e.g. Churchill, Roosevelt).

Part of the problem is that in (say) the 1960s socialism was wildly popular and now it's unpopular. People who have called themselves 'socialist' include:

• Tony Blair
• Saddam Hussein
• Nelson Mandela
• Albert Einstein
• David Ben Gurion
• Etc

This variation is, I think, a justification for this page - which is continually threatened with deletion. However, the purpose of this page must be to indicate to the uninformed reader how widely and strangely the term has been used, i.e. to educate not to castigate.--Jack Upland 11:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the educate, not castigate part. How about a section on systems which some people say are, others say aren't socialism? --Uncle Ed 13:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• I touched up the Nazism and Fascism paragraphs to more clearly differentiate between those ideologies and traditional socialist ideas (without adding point of view). I also fixed up the writing style so it flows better (such as deleting unnecessary words and moving sentences to more appropriate paragraphs).Spylab 16:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)Spylab

[edit] Fascism

On the removing and reverting of the fascism section: Seems to me this is fine to be there, as it is in the "controversial classifications" section. If there's something wrong in the wording, edit that rather than remove whole thing! BobFromBrockley 12:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Just about every ideology ever invented was accused of being "socialist" by some of its opponents at one time or other. The title "controversial classifications" does not give us a free hand to talk about anything that has ever been called "socialism" by at least one person. This is not the article for discussing the use of "socialism" as a label.

Come to think of it, though, perhaps we should have an article to discuss the use of "socialism" as a label... something called socialist (epithet), for example... -- Nikodemos 07:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)