Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Totalitarianism

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. нмŵוτнτ 20:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Totalitarianism

Unsuitable for an Encyclopedia, totalitarianism is a controversial term and as such Wikipedia should not endorse it as its a violation of NPOV, in addition, many articles unrelated to the topic are included within the Project, such as the country of Germany and several monarchs. Nightmare X (talk) 04:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - While I agree with your statement (and the comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Totalitarianism) that the project is a bit of a mess, XfD discussions are not meant for cleanup. As participants of this project seem to be actively trying to sort out those issues, I'm inclined to let it work itself out internally. As for the NPOV statement, my opinion is that "Totalitarianism" is no more POV than, say, "Authoritarianism" or "Democracy". The only potential NPOV issues are related to the scope of the project which, as I noted above, is currently being sorted out. --jonny-mt 06:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  Question What evidence is there that "participants of this project seem to be actively trying to sort out those issues"? I left a question on the talk page on February 4 and that was the last time there was any activity there. To all intents and purposes this project seems dead. --Folantin (talk) 09:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  The history shows a number of relatively recent edits regarding the scope of the project. Perhaps "actively" was too strong a word, but based on these edits and the discussion on the talk page, I disagree with your assessment that the project is dead. --jonny-mt 10:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  There's been nothing since February 4. Another user and I attempted to start a discussion with the project on the talk page but we have had no response. Nobody's home.--Folantin (talk) 10:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  Proof this is inactive Let's check up on the activities of the four listed members of this project. The last time the "Group president" made any edits to the project was in August 2007. Member Florinpopa10 made precisely four edits to Wikipedia, all of them in October 2007 [1]. User:The Palatine has not edited Wikipedia since last December [2]. User:Vendion has made one edit to Wikipedia in 2008 [3]. I think that clinches it. --Folantin (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Assuming the project can get itself together, having a WikiProject to cover totalitarianism-related articles is a good way to promote NPOV, by permitting a community of editors familiar with the subject enough to identify POV-pushers and work as a group to repel them. In any event, I don't feel that the issues this project may be having are severe enough to warrant deletion. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete As superfluous and almost inevitably failing NPOV. We have no need for this project. None of the contributors seems to have much idea what totalitarianism really is. As I wrote on the talk page: "this project seems a total mess and doesn't actually appear to understand the concept of 'totalitarianism'. You can't just lump all of history's tyrants, dictators, absolutist monarchs and despots (enlightened or otherwise) plus their regimes under this heading. Totalitarianism is a very modern form of state organisation and I'd be very wary of putting anything at all before the 20th century into this category. Adding your project banner to 'Feudalism' is really not on... the major 'totalitarian' articles are already covered by projects on communism and fascism, so this whole enterprise seems superfluous to me". --Folantin (talk) 09:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - this isn't actually doing anything other than placing useless banners on the wrong talk pages. Previous versions of the project page show a complete misunderstanding of what totalitarianism actuallly is. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 17:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - with regret. It is hard to imagine that there will ever be a clear consensus as to what "totalitarianism" means, thus effectively limiting the ability of the project to function. John Carter (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete I was going to vote "keep" until I read what Folatin pointed out about the Feudalism article. On August 24, 2007, Paco8191, the "group president" of WikiProject Totalitarianism, tagged Talk:Feudalism with a project tag — importance high. This proves to me that the editors in the project do not actually know what their project is about. — Lovelac7 22:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.