2601:19C:4480:3090:AD1D:AABA:6624:21B7

June 2023

Hello, I'm SamX. Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions, but we try hard to make sure articles have a neutral point of view. Your recent edit to Revolution of 1934 seemed less than neutral and has been removed. If you think this was a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Additionally, please read Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and Wikipedia:No original research. — SamX [talk · contribs] 07:00, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits referred to above, consider creating an account for yourself or logging in with an existing account so that you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

I respectfully disagree. The content you preserved and allowed to stay, while deleting and seemingly destroying mine, is capitalist, Western propaganda -- absolutely not at all neutral in itself, although superficially presented as such to feign credibility and manufacture consent to its subjective, biased presumptions. The goal is to discredit the socialists who started this attempted revolution, to misinterpret and censor their point of view, to smear them as anti-democratic, to misunderstand and suppress the alternative approach to democracy that socialists pursue, and to allow only one perspective -- that of the capitalist ruling class and of its system of liberal democracy -- and not multiple ones. Nor even an accurate understanding of socialist approaches to democracy. Fairly and accurately describing socialists' views, instead of reflexively spouting false Western, capitalist propaganda to smear them, isn't a violation of neutrality -- it's the pursuit of it, up against a clear editorial bias on your part. The one viewpoint allowed is absolutely not at all neutral, but instead dramatically biased in favor of capitalism, against the left, and against the working class. That you chose the right-wing, capitalist point of view completely unaltered over a neutral, fair analysis of the views of socialists as democratic revolutionaries simply reveals your own bias against socialism, and any of its potential democratic bona fides and merits. I was in the process of incorporating my source when you just deleted and destroyed my work. Under the pretense of objectivity, neutrality, and a diversity of viewpoints, you attack and destroy the work of those with differing perspectives from the US, neoliberal and liberal establishment. How is this scandalous, absolutely biased and ideological behavior on your part allowed with impunity -- with no debate and no accountability on Wikipedia? Please return to me the work I produced, and I will re-upload it with the sourcing -- which I was in the middle of doing when you just deleted it. What's more, in the end, this one paragraph of non-capitalist/non-right-wing propaganda added to this article simply offers an additional perspective on this crucial history that is fair to and actually understands the motivations of the socialist revolutionaries who were the main protagonists. It complements and rounds out the obviously biased, right-wing viewpoint of the so-called "objective" narrative in the remainder of the article. The entire goal of uploading it was to do exactly what you claim to want to do -- offer a fair, accurate account and incorporate multiple perspectives. If having multiple viewpoints and ideological balance is the goal, then your unilateral censorship of accurate, fair representations of socialist ideology has the exact opposite effect of this ostensible objective -- it allows right-wing views while suppressing left-wing ones. This right-wing ideological censorship masquerading as objective truth is beneath the intellectual standards, and poorly serves the readers, of Wikipedia.

I don't have time to reply to this right now, but I'll do my best to provide a more detailed response sometime later. For what it's worth, I didn't "destroy" your work—it can be found in the page's history. In the meantime, please read Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Tendentious editing#Righting great wrongs, and Wikipedia:Wall of text. — SamX [talk · contribs] 04:47, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, here goes. The content that you added did not cite any sources. Citing sources is very important on Wikipedia—if it wasn't, anyone would be able to add whatever they wanted with no way to verify the veracity of said information. This is especially critical if you're editing controversial topic areas, as you were doing. You say that you were in the process of adding sources, which indicates to me that you're taking the wrong approach to editing. Rather than writing what you believe to be true, then going searching for sources to support your assertions, you should be searching for any and all reliable sources relevant to the topic, then summarizing them as best you can. Additionally, please note that original research is not permitted. This includes inforation that is not in any cited source, as well as novel analysis or synthesis of information in cited sources, which your edit seemed to include.

As for the NPOV issue, I admit that I have very little knowledge of Spanish history, and I'm therefore not qualified to evaluate whether the article in its current state is a fair representation of what reliable sources say about the issue. Whatever the case is for this particular article, Wikipedia's aim isn't to spread the truth, but rather to aggregate and summarize what has already been published in reliable sources. If the reliable sources skew significantly toward one point of view, so will Wikipedia. Your edits to Revolution of 1934 were clearly an attempt to introduce a particular POV to the article. While there's nothing inherently wrong with adding the perspective of the Left Republicans, I think your approach was problematic. You characterized the incumbent Spanish government at the time as, among other things, being a a socially regressive and oppressive right-wing coalition that was highly undemocratic in its social relations and influence on society, as well as having an oligarchic landowning structure and implementing fundamentally anti-democratic social change. These are claims are extremely negative and very broad, and extraordinary claims require exceptional sources. These claims could be true for all I know, but they must be backed up by multiple inline citations to high-quality sources. You also added that today's Western conception of democracy is solely consisting of elections and a neutral debate, an understanding now hegemonic following the neoliberal era, decades of global capitalist hegemony, and the collapse of Communism. Not only was this exceptional claim not supported by any sources, but it's only tangentially related to the subject of the article. An article should cover all aspects of its nominal subject, and should not be used as a dumping ground for point-making about loosely related topics.

Your approach to collaborative editing isn't great either. Instead of assuming good faith when I reverted your edits and initiating a conversation to exchange perspectives and reach an agreement, you directed personal attacks towards me, accusing me of scandalous, absolutely biased and ideological behavior, among other things. Respect and civility is one of Wikipedia's five pillars, and is essential when working on a collaborative project. I appreciate that, as a newcomer, you are probably unfamiliar with Wikipedia's confusing maze of policies, guidelines, and unwritten rules, and that having your edits reverted can be very frustrating. Still, you should be aware that adopting a combative approach to editing isn't going to do you any favors, and you'll likely be faced with sanctions if you continue to use this approach, including loss of editing privileges.

I hope that was helpful. You seem to be very knowledgeable about Spanish history of the early 20th Century, and I do hope you're able to take my feedback into consideration and correct course as needed. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. — SamX [talk · contribs] 05:04, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

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