The Four Deuces

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Nomination of Where is Kate? for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Where is Kate? is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Where is Kate? (3rd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

IgnatiusofLondon (he/him • ☎️) 11:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Canadian stuff

Howdy. You might be on to something, over at Monarchy of Canada, concerning the terminology "head of state". Maybe the best thing to do, is to remove it entirely from all 'monarch' & 'governor-general' pages, on the basis that it's a republican terminology. Anyways, it's a general topic that's energy draining. GoodDay (talk) 22:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Radical right

Leave me alone. I'm already tired of your bullying and your No true Scotsman nonsense... DN (talk) 01:15, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

FYI, I created the article in question and am by far the major contributor. If you look through the talk pages, you will see that I continually explained that all the sources I used were peer reviewed. While I don't claim ownership of the article, I am concerned that it is sourced according to policy and guidelines rather than be based on op-eds about Donald Trump.

BTW it's unhelpful to provide links to WP:RANDOMPAGES without explaining their relevance. TFD (talk) 03:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Editors that understand WP:OWN don't make a point of mentioning of such things... Since you claim to be "the major contributor", in all the years this was just staring you in the face, I wonder if you ever objected to it or tried to remove it. Even once, on either the article or the talk page. If not, perhaps it was because even if you disagree with Perlstein's credential or opinions, your personal standard of "all peer reviewed" sources isn't very feasible, or more importantly, policy related (hence the "random" page). Whatever the reason, that other editor might take a cue from your stance and start trying to remove anything they don't like if it isn't peer reviewed (non-"expert" opinion). Let's wait and see. DN (talk) 07:40, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Your posting is a mishmash of insults, paranoia and twisted logic. I don't have time to sort it out. I would just say however that the article is on my watch list and I presented my views in a discussion thread. You'll see if you look through the archives that I have posted considerably there, in particular in reply to editors (most of whom are gone btw) that wanted the article deleted. TFD (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Your posting is a mishmash of insults, paranoia and twisted logic. This is shocking. Is this something you could document with diffs? Because it sounds like an obliquely worded personal attack. SPECIFICO talk 14:28, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

How would you describe DN's posting at 07:40, 6 May 2024 above? TFD (talk) 19:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

If you don't have time, then just leave me alone as I have repeatedly requested to the point of almost taking you to ANI, when Soibangla convinced me to drop it, right before you erased all my pleading with you from your talk page. DN (talk) 20:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

You should expect that when you defend or oppose changes in articles, that regular contributors will post their support or disagreement. You should not take it personally. TFD (talk) 20:17, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Given your pattern of casting aspersions on me [1] [2] [3] [4], you'll have to excuse me if I'm skeptical of your explanation, considering you just called my reply a "mishmash of insults, paranoia and twisted logic"...Some might see that as somewhat hypocritical. DN (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there anything else you would like to add? TFD (talk) 22:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I would add that we can resolve this issue and prevent these kind of interactions if we can agree to pay closer attention to how we phrase things, to avoid making them sound personal. For example, if one of us says "Why would you think that has weight...", instead of "Why does that have weight...", it becomes more of a loaded question. If you aren't intentionally trying to instigate anything here I apologize for assuming you were bullying, and for not being able to reconcile this issue with you on my own. I'm not on Wiki to create drama or tell people what to do, and I realize no one is perfect. Cheers. DN (talk) 22:53, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of 2021 Canadian church burnings for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 2021 Canadian church burnings is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2021 Canadian church burnings until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

TarnishedPath^talk 02:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Stop with the absolutist statements

Using absolutist language like "implicit" in the talk of Mass killings under communist regimes suggests an adamant emphasis on your own personal, uncited opinion. You have provided no source for "implicit", and it would be pretty impossible to find one because it's pretty impossible to prove a notion as implicitly another different notion. So stop with the absolutist, unfalsifiable and unsourced language. Zilch-nada (talk) 14:57, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Can you point to the policy or guideline that prohibits the use of the term implicit?

No Original research says, at the topic of the page, "Articles must not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves." Presumably, "implies" would not be in the policy if statements about implicitness were unfalsifiable.

Certainly I have expressed my opinion on whether the content of the article meets policy and guidelines. That's what talk pages are for. I have referred to reliable sources that explain the implications of the introduction to the Black Book of Communism and the VOC and policy. Unless someone publishes a paper about this article, it will be impossible for any of us to cite a source about the article's content.

BTW, by absolutist do you mean does not allow for shades of gray? Well, that's the type of language encyclopedic articles should use. Statements should be unambiguous, unlike for example fiction or polemical writing. TFD (talk) 23:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'll elaborate further, beyond your conduct on that particular article.

• On the talk page of far-left politics on 31 October 2023, you said "There are no sources for far left politics." [5]. This is a statement that is absolutist and quite clearly exaggerated; if there were no sources, the article "far-left politics" wouldn't exist.
• On the talk page of mass killings under communist regimes on 29 January 2024, you said "Mkukr is itself a whataboutism response to the the Holocaust".[6] That is quite clearly an extreme generalization; no sources imply anything in Mkukr [sic] "itself" as a whataboutist response to the Holocaust. Furthermore, you expanded that paragraph in criticisms of double genocide theory (DGT), a link which you made. I can't see that as anything other than a strawman fallacy; you, without sources, describe MKUCR as "itself" DGT (which is unsourced), and then attack DGT. "The academic community rejects this type of logic" is on an entirely different argument from mine; you erect and attack a strawman. I.e., you ignore the academics which do link communist mass killings, and attack a different area.
• Likewise, on the same day, you said "In this case Mcukr argues that communism is inherently homocidal yet followers of other ideologies act in the same way given the same circumstances." [7]. You provided no extraordinary sources in this extraordinary claim - that followers of other ideologies would act the same; i.e., entirely according to circumstance - and so made an egregious assumption that communist regimes supposedly committed mass killings not necessarily intentionally or consciously, but by circumstance.
• On 8 August 2024, you said "I don't know why you cannot see the double genocide theory as implicit in Mkucr. The French Right had been shamed for years for collaborating with the Nazis..." [8], before citing examples of how you can link the two different topics. Thing is, you are linking two different topics in your own way, then describing that link as "implicit". Thing is, there are no direct nor reliable sources cited in that claim of "implicit", which is a term that suggests a strong, absolute link between two things. That quite clearly constitutes original research; making absolute links without sources.
• Similarly, you said "I don't know if the article should say it is whataboutism, but that is the only opinion that is supported in reliable sources." [9]. To state this is a classic appeal to ignorance; you describe "whataboutism" as the only opinion that is reliably sourced, which is evidently a) not true (no sources in the first place actually describe MKUCR as implicitly whataboutist), but b) impossible to actually say; positive claims like that require positive and irrefutable evidence; to say there is no opinion that states otherwise... (no statement directly states it affirmatively either, ironically).

So to elaborate on your response, "Absolutist" - in the context of an unsupported, uncited argument - refers to linking two things together, in this instance, as implicitly the same, whereby no direct "implicit" link has been made by RS.

• WP:SYNTH: you synthesised sources criticising DGT to create an opinion that MCUKR is implicitly tied to DGT and, thus, unreliable. Making absolute links without sources.
• WP:NOR: Evidently the above applies. Your arguments in this talk page attack the contents of the MKUCR article itself, and thus your claims must be backed by thorough research if you wish your changes to go through. I.e., "implicit" is an example of original research, as is "followers of other ideologies act in the same way given the same circumstances", as is "Mkukr is itself a whataboutism response to the the Holocaust", etc.

Encylopedic articles should evidently use unambiguous statements. By "absolutist" you are defining an unsourced link and saying that that link is implicit. "implicit" is an absolutist term that describes an essential connection. Evidently you provided nothing to cite that absolute connection. So no, you're right that an encyclopedia should use clear language, which can often be essentialist / absolutist (2+2=4), but such language can only be backed by authoritative sources in the first place which makes such essential claims. Zilch-nada (talk) 16:21, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I have clearly explained my positions and see no reason to repeat myself here. I think it would be more constructive if instead of asking me to clarify my comments you just said you understand them and disagree with them.

BTW, a constructive response when an editor says no sources exist isn't to criticize their behavior, call them absolutist and accuse them of OR and SYN. Instead, provide the source they say doesn't exist. Also, if the existence of an article proved the notability of its topic, then there wouldn't be any AfDs. TFD (talk) 01:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I - and ironically enough you have inadvertently - provided various sources on the topic, whether it be the topic itself of the discourse - either affirmatively or negatively. The existence of an article? No. There are many relevant articles = this article is relevant. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, which topic? TFD (talk) 01:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Mass killings under communist regimes, obviously? Zilch-nada (talk) 10:12, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

You also brought up far left. If you think it is absolutist to say that there are no sources, then please provide me a book about the far left.

I also brought up the same issue with right-wing, center right, centrist and center left. They are in the dictionary but are not clearly defined topics. Basically, they are relative terms whose meaning can shift according to the context in which they are used.

There has been no consensus that Mcukr is a notable topic. Google "mass killings under communist regime" and most of the hits are about attempts to delete this article or mirror sites. Outrage was expressed in the Telegraph, Fox News and the Heritage Foundation. IIRC, Metapedia copied an earlier version of this article including its title. TFD (talk) 10:44, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

then please provide me a book about the far left:

• Chiocchetti, Paolo (2016). The Radical Left Party Family in Western Europe, 1989–2015 (E-book ed.). London, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-22186-9. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.
• Cosseron, Serge (2007). Dictionnaire de l'extrême gauche [Dictionary of the far left] (in French) (paperback ed.). Paris, France: Larousse. ISBN 978-2-035-82620-6. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.
• Cronin, James E.; Shoch, James; Ross, George, eds. (2011). What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822350798.
• Dunphy, Richard (2004). Contesting Capitalism?: Left Parties and European Integration (paperback ed.). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-719-06804-1. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.
• Katsambekis, Giorgos; Kioupkiolis, Alexandros (2019). The Populist Radical Left in Europe (E-book ed.). London, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-72048-9. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.
• March, Luke (2008). Contemporary Far Left Parties in Europe: From Marxism to the Mainstream? (PDF). Berlin, Germany: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. ISBN 978-3-868-72000-6. Retrieved 3 June 2017 – via Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
• March, Luke (2012a). Radical Left Parties in Europe (E-book ed.). London, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-57897-7. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.

"relative terms whose meaning can shift according to the context in which they are used." - point precisely how that invalidates "far-left politics" as a concept.

You really are an extraordinary editor. Zilch-nada (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

BTW, let me summarise your unfounded, incendiary and, most specifically, absolutist language, if I wasn't previously clear last week. Bold words show it quite clearly:

• Using "implicitly" to describe an absolute link; notions of MKUCR with DGT
• Saying absolutely "there are no sources for far-left politics", when, in fact, there are visibly many
• Saying "but that is the only opinion... in reliable sources" in describing precisely one of a contentious topic
• Describing the entire topic as "whataboutism response to the the Holocaust", ignoring many other opinions
• Saying "yet followers of other ideologies act in the same way given the same circumstances" as if that would invalidate "MKUCR" - this article - at all (beyond it being entirely uncited; to opine of the absence of ideological role and stress absolute effects of circumstance). Again, it is an opinion, but only one of many which you emphasise

Zilch-nada (talk) 22:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Most of your sources are about "left parties." They emerged after 1989, made up of ex-Communists, left-wing social democrats and people from other left-wing groups and are generally considered to lie between the social democrats and communists on the left-right spectrum.

You will notice that Luke March (you provide both an article and a 2008 book by him) explained that although he originally called them "far left parties," he now calls them radical left.

March says that most of the left parties could not be described as extreme left.

When I first considered the question whether far left, like far right, was a meaningful topic, I used google to search for sources and came up with ones similar to what you have. Indeed the term was used by some writers to refer to left parties but otherwise is not an actual topic, merely a relative term than means different things to different people, depending on context. You must have noticed when you watch Fox News Channel that their hosts routinely refer to the U.S. president as far left. From their perspective he is, because he is farther left than what their viewers find acceptable. But that doesn't mean there is a group of ideologies called the far left, as there is a group of ideologies called the Left and another group called the far right. Even the term Right is problematic because where does the center end and the right begin? But I did find one book about the topic and other books for France.

The rest of your post is a repetition of what you posted earlier and therefore I refer you to my earlier responses. TFD (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

When I first considered the question whether far left, like far right, was a meaningful topic, I used google to search for sources and came up with ones similar to what you have. Indeed the term was used by some writers to refer to left parties but otherwise is not an actual topic, merely a relative term than means different things to different people, depending on context. You must have noticed when you watch Fox News Channel that their hosts routinely refer to the U.S. president as far left. From their perspective he is, because he is farther left than what their viewers find acceptable. But that doesn't mean there is a group of ideologies called the far left, as there is a group of ideologies called the Left and another group called the far right. Even the term Right is problematic because where does the center end and the right begin? But I did find one book about the topic and other books for France.

Precisely none of this invalidates A) the fact that an abundant number of books and journal articles are written on "far-left politics", regardless of how relative, nor B) the relevance of "far-left politics" as a topic, and thus article. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

where does the center end and the right begin? The area of "extremism" or "far"-ness of political views outside the norm can be explained by the Overton Window. The window obviously always shifts and so there is no static far-left or far-right. But the terms are themselves still used in relation to that very window; e.g., radical or extreme actions to further political ideas in the name of equality or workers' rights. That's what the article describes, and should obviously stay that way. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Besides, you said "no sources" to an abundant array of sources. Simply, "there are no sources on far-left politics". That is absolutist and blatantly wrong. Zilch-nada (talk) 01:11, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

So you are saying the definition of "far left" is any of a group of parties that formed after 1989 and are positioned between social democrats and communists in the left-right spectrum? Or rather that is how they were described in the early literature? TFD (talk) 03:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

No. I am saying that those are sources for "far-left politics". You don't have to have a coherent definition for a concept to be described - this article explains that quite clearly. Zilch-nada (talk) 15:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

You have to have some sort of definition in order to define the scope of the article.

My comment to which you objected was made in response to a discussion about what to put into the lead of Far-left politics. The lead is supposed to summarize the topic. However, as I pointed out, "far left is relative and therefore what is far left to one person is not far left to another." [22:20, 27 April 2023] "it means the part of the left that the writer finds unacceptable" [10:57, 28 April 2023] March in fact used the term in an article written for a Social Democratic think tank, where he defined far left as to the right of the Social Democratic Party. He later refined his position in academic literature by saying that many of these parties were not far left. Perhaps that was because Social Democrats were now working with them, so they were no longer unacceptable.

I never said by the way that the term was never used, just that it was used inconsistently, even by the same writers and there was no body of literature that justified an article.

If I am wrong, and there is a clearly defined topic supported by literature, then you should tell me what this literature is and how the topic should be defined. What specifically is your definition as reliably sourced?

On a lighter note, it's ironic to accuse someone of being absolutist when they say a term has a relative meaning? Would that not mean I was being relativistic, which is the opposite of absolutist?

TFD (talk) 17:19, 19 August 2024 (UTC) I disagree with TFD on this (and often see editing decisions very differently than them) but after 12+ years of observation have confirmed immense respect for them in every respect and that they always seek to do the correct thing including with respect to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. So IMO these should be handled as healthy difference of opinion without alluding to any misbehavior. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:59, 9 August 2024 (UTC)