Talk:Centrist Party

Notability

Neither the article nor the party's website shows any evidence of notability. This could be one guy (or half a dozen) with a web site calling themselves a political party. - Jmabel | Talk 07:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I am Rob Panico, CTO of The Centrist Party. Our volunteers are working at the national level to unite centrist state parties and independent voter groups across the country into a national movement. We are working on developing a national platform in consultation with these groups and are in development of a a vastly enhanced web presence which will launch within the next few months. - rpanico | Talk 03:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but as we say "notability first, mention in the encyclopedia later." Where is a citable indication in what would usually be counted as a reliable source (e.g. a newspaper) that this party is anything more than a couple of guys with a website? - Jmabel | Talk 06:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that if we have articles on things like the Freedom Socialist Party, it is possible that this meets a comparable threshold of notability (though it is also possible that it does not: FSP operate a physical party headquarters, publish a newspaper, put out books, etc. and have run candidates who have garnered endorsements from non-party newspapers and scored double-digit percentages in electoins). The references given so far are very minor newspapers; at least one of the linked articles reads like a verbatim press release; and the main contributor to the article so far appears to be its own founder and, according to at least one of the cited sources, likely candidate for president. None of this is terribly convincing that this deserves to be covered in an encyclopedia. - Jmabel | Talk 06:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Article seems somewhat partial to the party. This is at least partially a result of the writing style. Michaelbusch 06:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Expanding on the above: the article reads like a letter of reference for the party. There are no descriptions of their positions on anything or any criticisms of the party. This is to some extent due to the party being newly established, but I'd like this fixed. With suitable cleaning, the article could be useful. Michaelbusch 19:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Your opinion on NPOV is based on what? I went to many other third or minor party's wiki pages [1], [2],

[3], and many more, (take look for yourself [4]) none of the above mentioned and many on the list, do not have descriptions of their positions or any criticisms of the party yet no NPOV tag. Do you know why? I have a guess because you are not familiar with WP:NPOV. Read and you will agree that One is said to be biased if one is influenced by one's biases. You yourself was not infuenced by it "makes it sound like the man walks on water. He does not." So I stongly suggest you read NPOV. --Knowpedia 21:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The section on the founder is particularly bad: it makes it sound like the man walks on water. He does not. Michaelbusch 21:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I know the man personally and I can attest to his water walking abilities. Should we give them their own section or insert them into the intro? 24.63.142.101 09:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

:: Added it to be edited. nothing is known about this other than what he post on his website. I was anticpating someone could shed light on it not delete with out prejudece.--Knowpedia 21:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I am greatly confused by your interpretation of NPOV. The article is not neutral in tone: it is overly partial to this party. It does not matter what other political parties Wikipedia pages say when evaluating this page's adherence to NPOV. I suspect that those pages are also in need of revision. With regards to the founder: copying what he says on his website is definitely not NPOV (consider please Wikipedia:Biographies of Living Persons). But I don't have time to fix it just now. Michaelbusch 21:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I have a few more minutes than I had thought. I condensed and re-styled the bio to something less laudatory and in accordance with encyclopedic style. Michaelbusch 21:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I like the red link on University of the World. I can not find anything about it. --Knowpedia 21:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

University of the World

Discussion moved from talk page of James Grier Miller
The "University of the World" was a concept. Not an institution. Its a linking of university no longer needed due to today's technology. --ⅮⅭⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠ 04:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A theory "University of the World" necessarily not true. Have you not ever had a theory? --ⅮⅭⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠ 04:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I stated early "that I could find nothing on it". I was looking in the wrong places I thought University of the World existed, and it does in theory. Reisman claims on his own webpage to have written papers, essays, worked with James Grier Miller. This is laughable considering its existance never left paper. There is aclaim there was an office, this may have been a office in Miller's house in La Jolla. --ⅮⅭⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠ 04:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The address given on the reference I cited is either an office block or an apartment building (Google Earth). But I agree: Reisman is trying to make himself look good. He is being liberal with the truth, considering that no work by him & Miller was ever published. Unpublished work is possible, I suppose. Michaelbusch 05:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I doubt he has ever worked with Jonas Salk. This is a situation were truth and citation collide. There is available information to support the claim. Yet no evidence exists to prove the claim. Offer the reader/ future editor as much info as possible, and the truth will come through. Some editor may know Reisman intimately and offer more facts. --ⅮⅭⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠ 05:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

My name is John P. Reisman. If anyone would like to see anything I wrote while at the University of the World, please write me via the Centrist Party Web site. I may post some of that work publicly soon. The UW as we called it was not just a concept. The office was located at 1055 Torrey Pines Road; Suite 203; La Jolla, CA 92037 USA (the office closed in 1996). It's international offices included, Argentina; Australia; Austria; Canada; Columbia; Costa Rica; France; Great Britain; India; Ireland; Peoples Republic of China; Saudi Arabia; Soviet Union; Spain; Sweden; United States; Venezuela. It's Board of Trustees included, Dr. James Grier Miller – Chairman; Prof. Joseph Becker – President; Dr. Martin Chamberlain - Executive Vice President; Dr. Kjell Samuelson - Vice President, Research and Planning; Ambassador Jose Chaves -Vice President, International Affairs; Dr. Bela Banathy - Secretary-Treasurer; Dr. Henry Chauncey; Ambassador Jean Gerard; Mr. William C Hittinger; Mr. Richard A. Holman; Dr. Dennis Jennings; Lord Perry of Walton; Mr. Daniel A Updegrove; Dr. Takeshi Utsumi. As to working with Jonas, if Mr. Busch wishes to verify the association he can contact me and I can put him in touch with a reliable source that worked in our office. It is strange to hear someone say that the work we did in our office was laughable, knowing that person never set foot in our office. It is impolite to make assertions with no basis. To say I am being liberal with the truth would be incorrect. 25 February 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpr2000 (talk • contribs)

Jpr2000: Please provide your sources in a form consistent with Wikipedia:Verifiability (and the overlying policy given at Wikipedia:Attribution). Your assertions cannot be included without such documentation. I accept that WP:LIVING applies here, but so to do WP:COI and WP:NPOV, so I ask that you not make large edits to the article without them being approved by consensus. No offense is intended: we simply cannot accept statements without reliable sourcing and must also ensure neutral-point-of-view Michaelbusch 22:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Founder & Views Sections

In light of the above, I have placed an accuracy tag on the founder section. Anyone who has additional information and/or reliable references on the man, please comment here so that we can improve the article. Michaelbusch 05:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I have also placed a POV tag on the Views section. This needs to be revamped to NPOV. Michaelbusch 05:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Third Way

I deleted the following section under 'critisism' " Centrist Party is sometimes described as an idea of former social-democrats which replaces socialism with capitalism, and a strategy to bring the social-democratic parties back to power where they have lost elections. Critics argue that third way politicians are in favour of ideas and policies that ultimately serve the interests of corporate power and the wealthy at the expense of the working class and the poor. Some also classify the Third Way as neosocialism or "neoliberalism with a social touch"."

As:

1. From what I can tell the members of this party have had nothing to do with the left formerly. 2. They CERTAINLY haven't had anything to do with socialism, or social democracy as these are Americans we're talking about and the relevant ideology would be American Liberalism 3. Just because a movement is Centrist doesn't mean its Third Way. For example many Christian Democratic parties such as the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal are centrist. 4. The entire section had just been ripped from the Third Way article and had absolutely nothing to do with the party whatsoever, with just the words "The Third Way" replaced with "Centrist Party" at the start.

If anyone can give me a decent reason why this section should be reinstated I'd like to see it. Otherwise I think it has no place in this article whatsoever and appears to be an attempt at putting in some critisism when none is needed.--CTerry 15:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

They have been criticized and the criticism is cited and notable. Michaelbusch 18:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I checked your 'sources' and I fail to see how the critisism is notable to this particular party. It belongs in the 'Third Way' article. The citations do not mention the Centrist Party at all, and I have yet to see any evidence that this is a 'Third Way' party at all. It is a Centrist Party, which is not nearly the same thing. The Union for French Democracy is centrist, no one in their right mind would call it 'Third Way'. I am removing the critisism again, because it is not valid to this article in way or form. --CTerry 09:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Random edits from interesting places

I received an email a few weeks ago saying asking if it was true that the Centrist Party had ceased operations? And was informed that the wikipedia page had reflected so.

This happened soon after a someone affiliated with a group called the modern whigs, whom we looked up and their executive director seems to be a comedian/attorney with some military experience, had contacted us saying we should join his movement. When I looked at the wiki page in edit mode I can see that this edit was done by this person. We were also contacted directly by the chairman.

Wikipedia is a wonderful resource in many ways. But when people begin changing reality for their own political reasons, one needs to be even more watchful.

Here is the line I deleted.

After some initial attention in 2006, the party failed to gain traction and ultimately folded as an organization (although a relatively unattended Web site remains. ref http://whigsinvirginia.blogspot.com/2008/08/centrist-party-goes-way-of-whigs.html /ref

Currently we are setting up for ballot runs in 2010. We are still active. We don't actually answer to every comedian and every fanciful idea. We seriously contemplate ideas and research our platform considerations. We actually have a lot of platform positions but most are still not visible to the public. We put things online when the information and stance will well vetted.

John P. Reisman —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpr2000 (talk • contribs) 16:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is the Centrist Party relevent if it has not done anything and will not do anything notable in four years? Danprice19 (talk)

Deletion

This entry was deleted because as mentioned above, they have not been active since 2006 and one member -- the founder -- claims that it won't be back up until 2010. In 2010, if they do something notable, then this entry should be revived. But for now, it is not notable. (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 04:08, 30 December 2008 (UTC).

As posted in the articles for deletion: This entry in my mind should be deleted because as mentioned in its talk page, they have not been active since 2006 and one member -- the founder -- claims that it won't be back up until 2010. In 2010, if they do something notable, then this entry should be revived. But for now, it is not notable. This looks like a group comprised of the founder and nobody else, at least in this point of time. Also, they claim "a member of the Centrist Party" ran for Congress in 2004, but this is completely dubious because the party claims to have been founded in 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danprice19 (talk • contribs) 16:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleting extraneous info

Reason is because the deleted info has never been cited and is in fact merely self-promotional. From the AFD nomination, it came out that this party is notable for its attempt to organize in 2006. But even the founder, and only member based on any references, acknowledges that it will not be unveiled again until 2010. As such, the info in this article should be limited to cited and notable information.

Also, the reference to the Congressional candidate was removed because this candidacy was in 2004, but the party was not founded until 2006. The candidate ran as a Democrat and there are no independent citations to show he was a part of this group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danprice19 (talk • contribs) 21:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

State recognition

I am inclined to limit the additions to this entry about lack of state recognition to merely state that this party is not recognized in any state. It seems a bit much to offer a detailed instruction on the process in an entry about a party that as far as any reference can tell has one member and no activity. I will wait a bit because the editor who added it appears to be acting in good faith. Danprice19 (talk) 13:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I gave it about three weeks but the original editor of this state recognition thing failed to return/respond to my inclination to limit the addition. For justification to the latest edit, please see above. Danprice19 (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)