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Proposed deletion? [from Communist terrorism (disambiguation)]

A search in scholarly sources and books returns the Malayan Emergency as the most likely meaning of "Communist terrorism". Other uses are for national liberation movements and insurrections. There also a discussion starting on whether to turn Communist terrorism into a disambiguation page. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

This article should be turned into a redirect page for the Malayan Races Liberation Army who were called "Communist Terrorists", or "CTs" for short during the Malayan Emergency. TFD (talk) 04:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I do not think you are referring to this article – i.e. this disambiguation page. What you may be saying is that Communist terrorism should be a redirect to Malayan Races Liberation Army. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. – I also found references to something in Thailand, but I now see it is only the same old CT under a new name: Communist Insurgency War. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S.S. – Redirecting Communist terrorism to Malayan Emergency would not make this page unnecessary, It would only mean that a {{redirect}} template be placed on Malayan Emergency. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Anyway, instead of discussing this you should just remove the {{Prod}} tag. I am not going to say this on your talk page as it could be considered canvassing. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:49, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I am referring this "this" article. I can't recall where a disambiguation page is used as a springboard for similar "concepts". Reviewing the definition: Disambiguation pages on Wikipedia are used as a process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different articles which could, in principle, have the same title. I confess I am no SME on communism or terrorism, but I fail to see how this meets the definition of a disambiguation page. jsfouche ☽☾ talk 04:15, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Good question. There is near consensus at Talk:Communist terrorism that Communist terrorism should be a redirect to Malayan Races Liberation Army – as that is the most common meaning. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Well that's certainly quite odd to say the least. Even a simple Google book search turns up:
  • +"communist terrorism" = 4,270
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malay = 668 = mention Malay, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malay = 3,610 = no mention of Malay
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malaya = 1,560 = mention Malaya, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malaya = 2,790 = no mention of Malaya
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malayan = 1,040 = mention Malayan, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malayan = 3,260 = no mention of Malayan
and a Google scholar search:
  • +"communist terrorism" = 259
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malay = 82 = mention Malay, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malay = 277 = no mention of Malay
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malaya = 110 = mention Malaya, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malaya = 149 = no mention of Malaya
  • +"communist terrorism" +Malayan = 82 = mention Malayan, not necessarily exclusively
  • +"communist terrorism" -Malayan = 176 = no mention of Malayan
As always, numbers are a bit off since who knows which cache you connect to. Regardless, it would appear that "communist terrorism" most commonly meaning the communist-wrought terrorism in Malaya is a misdirection, not an appropriate redirection. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. I did finally take a look at the discussion at Talk:Communist terrorism and only found this reference. I regret this would appear to be a consensus of one: 1 being the value of 100% being the numerical representation of unanimity. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Good search, Peters. However, this search does not answer the question about the article's subject. Using the same approach, please, identify the events, facts and concepts that should be covered by this article. The previous subject (leftist terrorist groups) were more closely associated with "left wing" not "communist" terrorism, according to gscholar.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:11, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Your research shows that at least a third of the sources show that CT was a term used in the 1950s and early 1960s to refer to the Malayan insurgency. Most of the other sources will show it as a term used by the British to refer to similar insurgencies and by the Americans to refer to the Vietnamese Communists, during the same period. TFD (talk) 15:15, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
The research shows nothing of the kind. It shows that the weird assertions above made by Petri "A search in scholarly sources and books returns the Malayan Emergency as the most likely meaning of "Communist terrorism" to be false. Note that Petri does not bother to actually link to any kind of search to support his contention. Peter Siebert acknowledges this - though he does raise a legitimate point about the article's scope. Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Cannot fully agree with you. In my understanding (although I didn't do a separate studies of this issue), what Petri means is that Malayan Emergency was the only case when the term "Communist terrorism" was used more widely than other terms to describe these events. For instance, although it would be absolutely incorrect to say that "Communist terrorism" is not used by scholars to describe, e.g. Red Brigades, the term "Left-wing terrorism" is being used much wider (hence the move of this section). In other words, to save this article from deletion (or conversion into a redirect page) we need to outline the article's subject. Under the "article subject" I mean the events that are described by scholars as "Communist terrorism" and not as "Leftist", "Left-Wing" or other terrorisms. The bear notion that gscholar finds N results for this term term is not sufficient. All search results must be comparative.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
A search in books for "Communist+terrorism" gives about 4,140 results. Just by looking at the covers it is possible to see, that a large part of these are about the Malayan Emergency. A search for "Communist terrorism" -"anti-communist terrorism" -malay -malaya -malayan -vietnam only gives some 1,730 results. None of the books is primarily about the purported topic of this article. Indicative of this is that the first book result is a Wikipedia rip-off named "Communist Terrorism" by Alphascript Publishing.
Google scholar gives similar results: 259 for "Communist+terrorism" but only 71 for "Communist terrorism" -"anti-communist terrorism" -malay -malaya -malayan -vietnam. Out of these 71 only one seems to be specifically about the topic at hand. Extreme Left Terrorism in Contemporary Europe: from “Communist Combatant Parties” to Militant Campaigns? The title alone should be enough to end this discussion. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

@Paul, I provided the searches to indicate that whatever communist terrorism is, Malaya is not at its scholarly epicenter. As for what else it might be and who might have wrought it, there are thousands of sources to visit but which I only feel it is appropriate for me to discuss in the New Year. Nor has my investigation turned up left(various) terrorism as a more general or wide use for communist terrorism. As with "Communist genocide," the origin of this article, no one appears particularly interested in the proper approach, which is simply representing what sources said regarding the meaning of the term and its discussion. No, everyone wants to argue about whose lede is more WP:OR and then hacking content into unintelligible incoherent pieces—merely my view from the sidelines. I look forward to being able to offer more constructive feedback in 61 days 15 hours 24 minutes 47 seconds. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

If you prefer to discuss the topic later, let's do that in the New Year (although, frankly speaking, I see no formal reason why you cannot do that now). Regarding hacking, I also can resort to this type arguments. For example, when someone prefers to combine all facts and sources about leftist terrorism (a more general category) or, e.g. Maoist terrorism (a more narrow category) under the title "Communist terrorism", and is persistently doing that irrespective to what the sources tell, the most plausible conclusion is that someone dislikes the word "Communist" and wants it to be associated with as many nasty words, terms and events as possible.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
PS. It is still unclear for me what events are at scholarly epicenter of Communist terrorism studies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the disambiguation page has proven its usefulness already! -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

There already was a Proposed Move discussion - why is it being ignored?

In fact, here's the Proposed Move discussion from a month ago which was closed as NO MOVE [1]. Yet, some editors decided to move it anyway. This is highly disruptive and violates Wikipedia guidelines on seeking consensus, discussing changes and following proper dispute resolution procedures. The "I didn't like the results of the discussion" is not a valid reason here. Undo this nonsense. Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:20, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

If there had been the slightest evidence that consensus was being sought by a significant number of editors from the 'keep it exactly as it is' faction, you'd have a point. Instead, the entire process was being stalled through edit-warring, tendentious editing, and worse. Or that's my take on it anyway.
As for 'Undo this nonsense', the changes had been discussed before they were carried out. If objections to the processes being used had been made at the time, they could have been discussed in the proper manner. Coming along afterwards and saying 'I don't like it' isn't good grounds to have it reverted back to the mess it was before. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:37, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Again, I don't see the slightest evidence on the other side either. What I see is a couple editors discussing "how can we get around this RM result that we don't like". The changes may have been discussed but they certainly weren't agreed to. Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Marek, let's get one thing clear: You are not going to undo this change on mere procedural grounds. there has been far too much stonewalling here already, and I for one will not put up with it any longer. you may be able to undo it by presenting a reasoned argument why the previous form was better. you have not yet done that (i.e., you have not really responded to any of the comments or arguments made in previous sections), so that's where you should be focussing your attention.
'no consensus' is not a valid objection to this change. There was no possibility of consensus here given the refusal of several editors to participate in the discussion properly. your task (should you choose to accept it) is to build a new consensus, not gum up the works further by throwing around procedural red herrings. --Ludwigs2 22:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
I would appreciate it if you didn't use that kind of tone. I could reply with a "Ludwigs2, let's get one thing clear: You are not going to ram your POV version of this article down other people's throats. You are not going to delete this article when various AfDs failed. You are not going to move this article when relevant discussion has disagreed with the proposed move. There has been far too much stonewalling and sneaky circumvention of Wikipedia's policies already, and I for one will not put up with it any longer. Etc.".
If you don't like the implications of Wikipedia's policies on consensus, and requesting article moves, when these don't suit your ends, you don't have the right to ignore them. Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Marek, I am a very big fan of consensus discussions, and I know more about them than you likely realize. The thing about consensus as a practice is that it is only robust where all participants approach it with a serious and dedicated intent to work towards consensus. Consensus requires a high level of reasoned discourse, and even one participant choosing to operate on a low level destroys the nature of consensus discussions the same way that a six year old can disrupt adult conversation, by loudly forcing the conversation down to their level. What we have had on this talk page to date are completely non-functional consensus discussions that were worse then useless: the conversations were closer to trench warfare than to productive debates. Now, I am all for starting a new discussion and establishing a new consensus, if that's what you have in mind - as I said, I'm a fan of consensus discussion. But as I see it, this move broke through the defensive lines, tore down the fortifications, and dropped us at a new discussion table where people might have reason to be a bit more collaborative. You seem to be suggesting that a procedural error should cause us to turn back the clock and man the same old trenches once again, so that we can lob the same old arguments at each other a few dozen more times. that's silly. If you haven't got a better reason than 'procedure' to want to go back to the old version then yes, I will IAR your procedure; any procedure that makes the encyclopedia worse can and should be ignored. So are you going to keep harping on procedure, or are we going to get down to practical content discussions? --Ludwigs2 00:07, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
"Procedural error"?!?!? Ignoring a RM discussion that's only a few weeks old and explicitly conniving to circumvent its results, as TFD and Petri have done, is NOT just a "procedural error". It is a deliberate and purposeful attempt at ignoring Wikipedia policies simply because they did not result in an action which agrees with particular editors' POV. It is an example of WP:TE tendentious editing and WP:GAME gaming. I can invoke IAR just like you can. I think YOUR actions are making Wikipedia a worse encyclopedia. And then we can quote IAR to each other all day. Bottomline is that there was NO CONSENSUS for the move/deletion that has taken place outside of Wikipedia's standard procedures. If you want to have a discussion, then undo this first. Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Ludwigs2's comments. Volunteer Marek 's comments seem angry and do not present any reasonable discussion. TFD (talk) 01:54, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
TFD, please refrain from making useless comments which do nothing but ascribe your inferences to other editors statements. Do you really think that calling my comments "angry" contributes anything productive to the discussion? If not, then why are you saying things like that? My comments are not "angry" and I shouldn't even have to explain that. If you have something productive to say, then say it. If not, then don't make what are essentially personal attacks. Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Putting in "?!?!?", "NOT", "WP:TE", "WP:GAME gaming", "YOUR" and "NO CONSENSUS" in several sentences appears to be an expression of hostility. So is your latest posting. While you may have a reason to be angry, please do not insult our intelligence by saying that you are not. TFD (talk) 02:58, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
TFD, any editor have a right to question such drastic changes which have recently been applied to an article on a controversial topic and the motives behind them. Your comments above are indeed out of line in this context. (Igny (talk) 03:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC))

<-- I am neither angry nor are my comments angry. Quit discussing editors and impugning motives to my comments that do not exist. If you continue to do this, I WILL interpret them as a personal attack. This is the second time I've asked you to desist. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

And the reason why I said "WP:TE", "WP:GAME" is simply because that's what you and Petri have been doing. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:07, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Marek, I personally am not 100% happy with Petri turning the article into such a biased dab. That was extreme in my opinion and has to be improved. But the version you recently tried to revert to was even worse, as it violated WP:POV and WP:SYNTH on so many levels. Now you could say that it is debatable, and I am expressing merely my opinion here, but you would have to realize that the current presentation of the same material at left-wing terrorism is much more neutral. For one thing, it does not try to mix Marxism, revolutionary terror, and terrorism in one bowl. Frankly, I am not a big fan of Communism and I realize there has been quite a few excesses in its history. But blaming modern terrorism on Marxist ideology simply because Marx discussed revolutionary violence in his works and advocated terror as one of the tools to overthrow despotic regimes is not something I may ever consider WP:NPOV. (Igny (talk) 03:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC))
Part of the reason why I haven't commented on this before is because I saw that a discussion was under way, it looked like, despite some heated arguments, people were talking to each other and matters were being decided. Then Petri and TFD pull this little trick which pretty much is designed to shut down any further discussion. I agree that the previous version is far from perfect (as I've mentioned to Paul above) but that's a dispute about article content. Sneakily moving the article to a different title - especially against EXPLICIT results of an RM - is an extreme move (and yes, sometimes procedures do matter) and an attempt to force their way in contravention of Wikipedia policies. The previous version, despite its shortcomings is a natural point for further discussion. A nonsense, POV "disambiguation page" is not. If there is some intermediate version of the article you think should be restored instead then please suggest it (though even that is sort of rewarding people who take extremist positions - not you, others - just in order to push the compromise result in their direction. Probably a bad precedent to set up). Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Marek:I see no reason to restore the material, and you have presented no reasons to do so outside of procedural issues. I saw good reason for the material to be moved under policy (outlined in the extensive discussion above), and you have given no reasons why I should change my mind about that. You have done nothing here except complain that someone is not playing by the rules, and you are failing utterly to grasp the fact that I don't care. This isn't about the rules, this is about the encyclopedia and its content. When you are ready to discuss content, let me know. --Ludwigs2 03:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The good reason to restore it is that 1) there was a proposed RM which resulted in "no move", 2) then some editors decided they don't like that result so they came up with a sneaky way to circumvent it, then 3) they did it. That's not "procedural issues", that's a violation of Wikipedia's policies. We can discuss content (and I have been discussing content with folks who are not part of this little trick) once you undo this blatant disregard of Wikipedia's policies. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
QUOTE: You have done nothing here except complain that someone is not playing by the rules, and you are failing utterly to grasp the fact that I don't care - how in the world am I supposed to discuss anything with somebody who takes this kind of attitude? And you were complaining about OTHERS "stonewalling"? If you "don't care" about other people's opinions, just yours and of those who happen to agree with you, then find a different forum to participate in. Wikipedia's about collaborative editing. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The changes are in line with WP's policy of neutrality. Many people believe that WP is the place to right great wrongs, but it is supposed to be neutral. That means that it cannot represent our own personal points of view. TFD (talk) 03:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The changes are in line with WP's policy of neutrality. NO they are not. They are in violation of Wikipedia's policies and consensus. Many people believe that they can win ideological battles that they've lost in the real world, but Wikipedia's supposed to be neutral. That means that it cannot represent our own personal points of view, even if we don't like that fact. Now move it back. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
lol - ok, be that way. I'll be here whenever you feel like having a reasonable discussion. until then! --Ludwigs2 04:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Again, since you say that you "don't care" what others think I don't quite see how we can have a reasonable discussion. You need to adjust that attitude first. Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
No idea what you are talking about. If you believe that "Communist/communist terrorism" is a generally understood concept, then please provide sources. The "real world" btw is not the debate among political extremists but in the academic world. TFD (talk) 04:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
They have been provided many times over before as you are well aware. And there was a discussion on a proposed Requested Move which resulted in a "Don't move". Then you and Petri decided to ignore that discussion, just like you're ignoring the sources that have been provided and pretending they don't exist. Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Re "They are in violation of Wikipedia's policies and consensus." Are you talking about the content move made by me? If yes, then I am waiting for explanations from you on concrete violations of neutrality policy made by me. In addition, as an experienced editor, you should be aware that no consensus is needed to fix neutrality issues.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I am referring to Petri turning the article into a dab page. Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
No one has been able to provide one book, one article or one chapter in a book about "Communist/communist terrorism" or any definition. Even fringe literature does not use the term. TFD (talk) 04:54, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Four Deuces: Marek is yanking your chain, bigtime. it is currently up to him to demonstrate that there is some encyclopedic reason to make this page something other than a DAB page. When he comes up with a good reason we can discuss it; right now he's just gassing about policy, and there's no sense arguing the point with him. Chillax, let him vent. I suspect it will be a couple of days before the three of us settle down to reasonable discussion. --Ludwigs2 05:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Timeline

  • Here, on October 5th, 13:13, TFD suggest renaming the article to "left wing terrorism".
  • Here, on October 5th, 14:53, TFD asks editors to indicate whether they support or oppose this suggestion.
  • Here is the resultant RM discussion, which opened on October 5th, 15:05
  • On October 25th, Petri leaves instructions for TFD, outlining the strategy for circumventing the unfavorable outcome of the RM [2] . Despite dressing it up in the "NPOV" rhetoric, it's pretty much a primer on "How to create POV forks and delete articles (one doesn't like).
  • On October 28th, at 2:29, the discussion is closed by Jafeluv as "Not Moved"
  • Then discussion continues on this article's talk page over various issues.
  • On November 9th, Petri creates the first disambiguation page [3] under "Communist terrorism (disambiguation)".
  • That version is PRODed shortly after [4] by, AFAICT an uninvolved editor with the reason "What is the purpose of this disambiguation page? It appears as more of a list of related articles, and not a true disambiguation."
  • On November 12th, Petri turns the present article into a disambiguation page [5], effectively moving "Communist terrorism" to "Leftist terrorism" in contradiction of the results of the RM discussion that was closed on October 25th (i.e. about 2 weeks after).

There's some steps and various maneuverings that I've left out but that's the essence of the story: -TFD proposed to move the article

-When it started looking like there was no consensus to move, Petri came up with a way to get around that

-Article was moved despite the fact that the RM discussion was closed as "NO MOVE". Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

and this is significant because... ??? --Ludwigs2 05:37, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
You missed discussion to merge which demonstrated the consensus to merge. You missed my move of a pov synth section from here to revolutionary terror. You also did not notice the version of this article right before Petri changed it to questionable dab. Really, the article had no significant content after the synth on Marxism and terror was moved away and the list of left-wing terrorist organizations was moved to left-wing terrorism. Current version of this article does need improvement but not restoration to previous POV synthesis it was before. (Igny (talk) 12:11, 13 November 2010 (UTC))
You also missed a number of prolonged edit-wars involving a number of anon single purpose sockpuppets resulting in several page protections. What I like about the current status is that it lost its appeal to many POV-minded individuals and should provide a stable basis for years to come. (Igny (talk) 12:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC))

suggested structure

The current disambig is not a very good solution, not to mention it is biased to the other extreme out of all possible ways to present an article. Not to mention there is little ambiguity to disambig here. So here is a suggestion. If the article is not turned into a redirect to left-wing terrorism, the following structure should be the basis for further development.

  • Lede should mention the controversial aspects of the topic, in particular that there is no a clear cut definition of the terrorism to begin with, and outline differences between revolutionary terror, modern left-wing terrorism, state terrorism by totalitarian communist regimes as appropriate.
  • section on list of terrorist organizations
( main article: left-wing terrorism) should say that nonetheless there is a number of left wing terrorist organizations which claim adherence to some form of communist ideology. The list should follow. (Igny (talk) 13:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC))
Can you suggest text that would go towards that end? Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I think that should be in the terrorism article. TFD (talk) 13:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

A few comments

Sorry, I can not contribute much to this discussion because of my topic ban, but would like to make a few very general comments.

1. You are dealing here with self-identified Communist organizations ("Communist Party of Nepal" and many others). Using Google searches to "disprove" them to be communist organizations is a bad example of WP:OR. Of course, there were always disputes among communism followers if Maoists belong to real "communists" or "revisionists". But they always identified themselves as real communists.Biophys (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

2. The involvement of communist states in terrorism activities is well established fact and described in every book on the subject. The most notable examples are quite obviously Korean Air Flight 858 and support of famous Carlos the Jackal and Wadie Haddad and their organizations. If this is not described here, then where it belongs?Biophys (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

3. I agree that words "terrorism" and "terror" have a slightly different meaning in the modern literature, although they were used interchangeably by the "classics" like Trotsky and Kautsky.Biophys (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

"Using Google searches to "disprove" them to be communist organizations is a bad example of WP:OR". It would be, if that was what was being suggested: it isn't. The discussion is whether such groups are (in the context of terrorism) more often described as 'communist' or as 'left wing/leftist', and in more general terms whether 'communist terrorism' is a category used in academic literature more or less often than 'left wing/leftist terrorism'. Personally, I don't think that 'Google counts' are particularly useful in this context anyway. What matters is how the topic is discussed in academic literature.
Your comment about the words 'terrorism' and 'terror' illustrates exactly the point that others have been trying to get across, that the word 'terrorism' has changed its meaning over the years (though of course it is a mistake to think that such nuanced words can necessarily be directly translated from one language to another, even during the same period).
Regarding Korean Air Flight 858, I'd note that the DPRK no longer describes itself as 'communist', though Juche is claimed by its advocates to have roots in Marxism/Leninism. Personally, I'd possibly be inclined to suggest that the hereditary gangsters running the DPRK aren't even remotely 'left wing', and if they were accepted to be, we'd have to include the Romanian Iron Guard too - I think this is getting well off-topic for now, so I'll leave it there... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Re 1. North Korean leaders claim the the country is a People's Democratic Republic. Are they being identified as democratic by anybody else?
Re 2. Various states are known to support various terrorists (from a support of Osama bin Laden by the USA to a support of Arafat by the USSR). However, all of that belongs to another article (State sponsored terrorism).
Re 3. Wikipedia should reflect contemporary majority views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Re Korean Air Flight 858. North Korean regime does not identify itself with Communism any more, and many authors agree that their own Juche concept has little in common with Communism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:42, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Part of the (vastly under-appreciated) problem here (and pardon me for stepping outside the OR box a bit) is that revolutionaries picked up marxoid nomenclature all the way through the 20th century, pretty much without regard to the actual system of governance they aimed for. Even the Nazis and fascists were socialists by name, despite the fact that their actual political/economic paradigm was closer to state-oriented capitalism. Marxoid language is ideal for people with revolutionary inclinations: it identifies a clear but ambiguously-defined oppressor (that boils down to 'everyone richer than you'), stimulates an intense pro-group solidarity, gives people a glorious ideal future goal that can be used to justify all sorts of present abuses, plays on the frustrations of poverty and disenfranchisement... Most of these people are no more Communist than David Koresh or Jim Jones were Christian. Nasty people latch onto high-minded ideals because they know that decent people respect high-minded ideals. What you really have is revolutionaries using Marx as a form of propaganda to develop popular support, but who (when they actually achieve power) have no interest in implementing Marxist principles. --Ludwigs2 03:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Probably true, but also difficult to verify directly. Probably why most academic treatments of 'terrorism' (and many other subjects) tend to avoid trying to find a single ideological 'root' in diverse contexts. With an article on 'communist terrorism' one can only really have two possible criteria for inclusion (if the 'terrorist' part is proven!): either you include every group that 'claims to be communist', or you include every group you can verifiably 'prove' to be communist. Given that the latter is likely to result in endless argument, one can only practically apply the former, which then leaves you with the difficulty that the phenomenon you are attempting to describe has arbitrary limits imposed by the terminology used by the groups you are attempting to study. Not a recipe for clarity and understanding... —Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyTheGrump (talk • contribs) 04:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Then let me explain it in a different way. There is a book written by a group of well known historians (a reliable secondary WP:RS). It includes a chapter entitled "Communism and terrorism". As every academic book, it includes a lot of references to other publications on the subject, such as other books, articles in peer reviewed journals, and so on. Does that justify the existence of such article in WP? Biophys (talk) 15:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I assume you are referring to the Black Book of Communism's chapter about Soviet state sponsored terrorism. It would be a legitimate topic, but a POV title. We have btw an article United States and state terrorism (although it is actually about U. S. state-sponsored terrorism. Note that the U. S. article has multiple issues and these derive from POV-pushing by anti-U. S. government editors using marginal sources to show the U. S. in a bad light. It is like a mirror image of what this article useed to be. TFD (talk) 16:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
There are many books of that kind. See here, for example. But I have to stop because you started talking about the Soviet Union. If my topic ban is lifted I may (or may not) come here again to continue this discussion. Biophys (talk) 16:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

More proof that there was no consensus to move/delete

[6]. Obviously there are editors who are opposed to the gutting of this article and the turning of it into a (POVd) disambiguation page. This was born out in the move discussion - which is where the decision was made NOT to move. The fact that a couple others wish to cram their desired result down everyone else's throats - in contravention Wikipedia's guidelines and its dispute resolution process - of is not a justification (I consider Igny's and Paul's suggestions constructive - though they need to be acted upon). At least Ludwigs above explicitly states that he doesn't give a fig for consensus. Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

An edit war isn't necessarily proof of lack of consensus, as I see it. The consensus in question is that of the participants involved in the discussion, and need not include those who choose not to take part in the debate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Huh? I suggest that WP:CONSENSUS does not agree with that novel interpretation. Open an RfC here if you wish to delete an article in this sideways manner. Collect (talk) 01:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
It is hardly novel: it is explicitly stated:
"Consensus discussion have a particular form: editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense. The goal of a consensus discussion is to reach an agreement about article content, one which may not satisfy anyone completely but which all editors involved recognize as a reasonable exposition of the topic" (from WP:CONSENSUS).
There has been a marked reluctance to 'persuade' or 'reason' over this issue, by those who wished to retain the status quo. Instead they have resorted to reversion without discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:48, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Start an RfC then. I assert that several editors disagree on the "consensus" asserted, and that there is no reason to believe that a "consensus" exists at all for this sideways deletion of an article. Absent an RfC, I shall continue in that assertion. Collect (talk) 02:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

With the article now protected, an RfC seems hardly an immediate priority. Can I assume that you will now discuss the issue as to how this type of terrorist activity is best covered, rather than arguing over interpretations of what exactly WP:CONSENSUS means? If progress is to be made, endless going over old ground will achieve nothing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I see that the move made by me has been reverted. In connection to that, let me remind you that the content has been moved after long discussion where I presented exhaustive evidences that a significant part of the content belonged to another article. I also pointed the editors' attention at the fact that in the situation when the neutrality criteria are violated no consensus is needed to fix the issue. I also outlined possible ways to question my conclusions about the article's non-neutrality and encouraged other editors to present their counter-arguments against the prospective move. No reasonable counter-arguments had been presented,, however. In that situation, after waiting for a comparatively long period, I moved the content, and that my step was supported by majority editors.
Regarding consensus, I am very disappointed that the content has been reverted by the editor who proposed no reasonable arguments in preceding discussion, and made no good-faith efforts to reach a consensus, as required by the policy. The concern about the article's non neutrality raised by me was quite legitimate, and this concern was not addressed by the opponents of the content move. The idea that consensus is equal to a right of veto (a right to prohibit something without providing any reasonable explanations) is deeply flawed. I request the editors who renewed this nasty edit war to address to the blocking admin to unblock the article, and then to self-revert. Otherwise, this post (supplemented with needed diffs) will be posted to ANI.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:22, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

PS. I am inclined to agree with Radek that to turn the article into a disambiguation page was at least premature. I would rather support the idea to add into the article some content having a direct relevance to Communist terrorism proper. However, to do that we need some concrete content. The arguments like "Look, folks, the source X described the event Y as Communist terrorism" are not satisfactory in the situation when the sources A, B, C and D described the same fact in quite different way. And, in any event, the content that had already been proven to belong to another article (based on the neutrally formulated search) must be removed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, as I've inquired of Igny above (not that he's had time to respond yet), what do YOU think should go into the article? Somewhere above I believe you state that you think the link between Marx and terror/terrorism does belong here. Likewise out of the list of terrorist groups that are in the article I think there certainly are several, such as the Shinning Path and Communist Party of Philippines which properly belong here and not in "Left wing terrorism" - yes, yes, I know, gscholar searches. But as I've pointed out the difference in hits is mostly due to the fact that one topic ("Communist terrorism") is a subset of the other ("Left-wing terrorism"). This is also indicated in the Left-wing terrorism article via the "See Also Anarchist terrorism etc." link. Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Firstly, independently of what should go into this article, a considerable part of its former content should not be here. This issue must be resolved in one week, otherwise I will have to take further steps.
Secondly, regarding the possible article's subject, I have no concrete idea, because it is not an area of my interests, however, I already proposed several times to give concrete proposals on that account. The discussion of the relationship between Marx, Marxism and terrorism can be included into this article, provided that the evidence (I mean a real evidence, not few fringe books) is provided that we do have something to discuss.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
VM, anarchist terrorism is not a subset of left-wing terrorism (which is Marxist-Leninist) but is classified separately as are nationalist, right-wing, state-sponsored, religious and single issue terrorism. You are taking up other editors' time in responding to you so at least you could read something about the topic before posting to discussion threads and editing the article. You could start by reading the Wikipedia article on Terrorism and the sources provided for Left-wing terrorism. TFD (talk) 06:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Anarchists would beg to differ. Marxism-Leninism is an element of the set "Left-wing". Anarchism (at least some of it) is another element. This is pretty basic. Would YOU stop taking up other editors' time by making non-productive statements which deny the obvious. Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
They may, but we must use the definitions used in mainstream writing that differentiate between Left-wing terrorism and Anarchist terrorism. Could you please note that we are supposed to use reliable sources for writing articles not original research. If you believe the typology used by experts is wrong, this article is not the place to correct their misunderstanding. TFD (talk) 17:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
They differentiate between the two in the same way that biologists differentiate between "oranges" and "citrus". Where is this typology used by experts which you refer to? You know, the one that I allegedly contradict. Link please. Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
See:
  • Understanding, assessing and responding to terrorism: There are seven basic types of terrorists: nationalist, religious, state sponsored, left Wing, right Wing, anarchist and special interest".[7]
  • The new dimension of international terrorism: Six basis types of political inspired terrorism recognized: nationalist, religious, state-sponsored, left wing, right wing, and anarchist.[8] (Excludes special interest terrorism.)
TFD (talk) 23:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

<--[9]. [10]. Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those - they clearly establish that this should be a disambiguation page --Snowded TALK 10:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I'm getting somewhat lost in who's replying to whom, but the sources I provided do not establish that THIS page should be a disambiguation page. They might suggest that the "Left wing terrorism" page should be a disambiguation page. Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree this should be a disambiguation page, but have started a discussion thread below asking editors why it should not be. TFD (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek. Probably agreed with your first point, but cannot agree with the second. Please, provide more detailed explanations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:35, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
That's why I was careful to put the word "might suggest" rather than an outright "should" in there. Hmm, actually left-wing terrorism shouldn't really be a dab either, but rather more of a 'meta-article'. Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
VM, so you provide a source that shows "Left-wing terrorism" as an accepted topic, and there is no mention of "communist terrorism" and your conclusion is that ct is a topic while lwt is not. Could you please explain your reasoning. TFD (talk) 22:58, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Don't switch topics on me mid-discussion. You were asking for sources which show that "Anarchist terrorism" is a sub category of "Left wing terrorism". I did. Now you bring up the left-wing vs. communist thing and misrepresent what I'm saying. Ok, look, in all likelihood both ct and lwt are both legitimate topics and Wikipedia articles. But they are not the same thing - as the sources show there are types of lft that are not ct - and hence one article should not redirect or disambiguate to the other. IF, let me emphasize that IF, one title was going to be a disambiguation, redirect, or meta article for others, then it obviously should be lwt since that is the more general term. In an ideal world though neither one should be a disambiguation and both would be well written and focused. But we're dealing with so much mess here - for example, editors misrepresenting each other's statements and switching topics mid-discussion - that at this point I'm just hoping for something reasonable not perfect.
I mean seriously, are you really saying that (most) anarchists are not "left-wing"? Or are you saying that all "left-wing" is "Marxism-Leninist" by definition, which is also nonsense? If anarchists are in fact "left-wing" and if they are in fact NOT "Marxist-Leninist" then obviously the category "left wing" includes elements OTHER than communists. Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, the conversation became confused. Your first source is about terrorism in asymmetrical conflict. The type of terrorism involved is nationalist terrorism The book refers to "anti-colonial, other national liberation and ethno-separatist groups that used terrorist means". They often hold ideological or religious views but are considered separate because the goals of their actions are national liberation. Your second source omits anarchist, state-sponsored and single issue terrorism, although it mentions anarchism's influence on left-wing terrorism. It recognizes "separatist terrorism" as a separate group, even though many of them are Marxist-Leninist. However, notice what it says on p. 20: "...the most powerful ideology behind terrorist violence is nationalist separatism. It is successively followed by communist-socialist, leftist-anarchist and lastly religious terrorism.... A small number of attacks were carried out...by left-wing and anarchist terror groups."[11] So it seems to be following the standard typology as well, even if the terminology may vary. Notice that no one calls themselves "left-wing terrorists" and the typology was developed in order to understand these actions and the various groups may not fit into neat pigeon-holes.
I am not claiming that anarchists are not left-wing, but that they are normally grouped separately in terrorism studies.
Incidentally, left-wing terrorist groups, e.g., the United Freedom Front, are not necessarily led by people who have a strong grasp of ideology, so it may be difficult to determine exactly what their ideology is. The same applies to right-wing terrorists. While fascism is an influence, would we really use it as a sub-category and try to determine whether Timothy McVeigh was a fascist? TFD (talk) 02:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
BTW, you wrote above, saying, "I'm looking at google books and I'm finding different results, for example [12]. This links to a footnote in Ethnic Profiling and Counter Terrorism which is sourced to "Terrorist Groups - - A List of Terrorist Groups by Type" at About.com. Zalman follows the same typology but calls the group "Socialist/Communist". She does not distinguish between socialist and communist, and excludes anarchists and "National Liberation" groups, such as ETA and PKK. TFD (talk) 07:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I am curious - how would you classify the Irgun? It had both nationalist and political aspects to be sure. There is no doubt that Communists (broadly defined as modern groups deriving ideology from Marx, and not including Amana-tyope groups) are a subset of all terrorist ideologies. Collect (talk) 23:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Moghadam classified them under "ethno-Nationalist/Separatist Terrorism".[13] Their objective was the liberation of Israel. Although they were religious and right-wing, they gave up terrorist tactics when the state of Israel was established. TFD (talk) 00:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sources required for article

Editors who believe that this should be an article rather than a disambiguation page should provide one book or article that defines the topic and outlines the main issues. The current lead sentence in the article is sourced to a book that does not even use the term Communist terrorism, while the article was originally created with an unsourced lead and sections imported from other articles.

As has been discussed before the major use of the term CT was by the British to describe insurgents in the Malayan emergency and also to describe other Asian insurgencies in the 1950s and early 60s.

Please do not provide long lists of sources - just one good source that establishes the concept exists will suffice.

Meanwhile the terrorism in the article is identified in books about terrorism as "Left-wing terrorism and is described in that article.

TFD (talk) 03:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

As has been discussed before the major use of the term CT was by the British to describe insurgents in the Malayan emergency - no, as indicated before this is just one of the ways the term has been used.
Meanwhile the terrorism in the article is identified in books about terrorism as "Left-wing terrorism and is described in that article. - no, as explained above what is going on is that the terrorism is identified as "communist terrorism" but since this is a sub-category of "left-wing terrorism", it is also described as such. Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Could you please provide one book or article that defines the topic and outlines the main issues. TFD (talk) 05:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Re: "what is going on is that the terrorism is identified as "communist terrorism" but since this is a sub-category of "left-wing terrorism", it is also described as such." What is going on is the tendency of some fraction of editors to put everything that is described as "left wing terrorism" (a more general category), and, simultaneously, to put everything described predominantly as, e.g. "Maoist terrorism" (a more narrow category) into this article. This is illogical, and serves as an evidence of someone prejudice against certain words.
One more search result (if someone have already done that, sorry for plagiarism): "Communist terrorists" -Malaya [14] 282 results, "Communist terrorists" 675 results [15]. One third of all academic sources discuss Communist terrorists in a context of Malaya.-Paul Siebert (talk) 06:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
A better search is "communist terrorists" -malaya -malayan -thailand, as the Thailand commies were in fact Malayans. With only 199 results it is evident that over 2/3 of the scholarly results are about the MAlayan Emergency and its aftermath. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 17:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
put everything that is described as "left wing terrorism" (a more general category), and, simultaneously, to put everything described predominantly as, e.g. "Maoist terrorism" (a more narrow category) into this article. - well, I think I've already made it clear that I disagree with that. Groups which are "left wing" but not really communist do not belong in this article. Maoist terrorism does, though it's more narrow, especially until someone starts a sub-article on it. Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Could you please explain what groups you believe practice "left-wing terrorism" but you would not classify as communist? TFD (talk) 06:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
From the list in the article or in general? Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
From anywhere. TFD (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Historically, for example the FAI [16]. Present day, some of the eco-terrorist groups, or various "anarchists" (anarchists don't always like to form groups, for obvious reasons). Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
As explained above, anarchist and special interest terrorism are categorized separately from left-wing terrorism. Do you have any examples that are classified as left-wing terrorism but are not Marxist-Leninist? TFD (talk) 23:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

All of which is not needed per WP. Unless and until there is consensus, as defined by WP, to change the title, the title stays. Nor does WP have any ruyle that titles must be terms found in "peer reviewed literature" at all. In short - the end-run around WP policies is improper, and is conceded to be improper with the claim that "consensus is not needed". Note, by the way, that I have not made any claims as to what I [WP:KNOW]] here, nore have I done "research" on the topic to reinforce any claims at all. My position has been, and remains, that WP has policies which should be followed, if if an editors "knows" it is wrong. Thanks. Collect (talk) 11:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

"Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead."[17] TFD (talk) 14:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Generally done by a small hatnote at the top of the article - not by removing the article and only having a dab page. See Template:about. Commonly used on WP pages, by the way. Collect (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
"If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or redirect to a different disambiguation page, if more than one term is combined on one page)." Is there is a primary topic and if so what is it? Please provide one book or article that defines the topic and outlines the main issues. TFD (talk) 14:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
The "primary topic" is as defined in the lede of the article. Any "secondary topics" for which articles exist are then listed in the hatnote as specified by the template. Simple. Collect (talk) 15:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
What is defined in the lead is not the "primary topic". As has been pointed out to you ad nauseum the most common use of the term was to describe the Malayan insurgency. However, there may not be a primary topic. See for example Tea party. You may believe that it was a chapter in Alice in Wonderland. You may not however rewrite that disambiguation page to make your own interpretation the "primary topic". TFD (talk) 15:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The present contents is an WP:OR WP:SYNThesis and a WP:POVFORK of material elsewhere. It is only kept upright by the scaffolding of page protection. It will melt away as soon as the page protection ends, if not earlier.

If someone wants to keep an article here, he should better start preparing new content from new sources and place it in Communist terrorism/Temp. None of the current content is acceptable under this title.

I have no idea what this new content would be. Most likely it would have to be derived from obscure printed sources, not yet available on the Internet, as any on-line search for suitable content has not been able to find anything. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


Absent a consensus to get rid of this article, the POVfork is the "new article" created by TFD. Especialy since it contains mateial specifically taken from this article, and has no pretense to be an entirely new article. Read the POVFORK definition - it is making a NEW article in competition with an EXISTING article, which is precisely what has occurred. If you find OR - state which sentences are OR - that is how WP editing works. Not by game-playing and moving things around in contravention of any RfC. Thanks! Collect (talk) 17:11, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

A POV fork is "another version of the article (or another article on the same subject)". Are you now claiming that left-wing terrorism and communist terrorism and are the same subject, and rejecting your earlier thesis that the first was a subset of the second. TFD (talk) 17:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
People keep beating this dead horse. Per the section TFD links to, POV forks "arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page". That it not at all how this article arose. At the time this article arose the other article esssentially did not exist, as it was a mere redirect. Indeed, that article had absolutely no influence upon this article. So this is unequivocally NOT a POV fork. In a sense, the other article is a POV fork, as it was merely a redirect and arose out of a content dispute here. Mamalujo (talk) 18:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
If communist terrorism is a subset of left-wing terrorism, then neither would be a fork. Note that left-wing terrorism itself is a subset of terrorism, and there are various articles about the other subsets of terrorism, viz., right-wing, nationalist, religious, anarchist, state-sponsored and single issue. These subsets themselves often have subsets, e.g., we have articles about Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious terrorism. TFD (talk) 18:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Are we agreeing then that both articles should remain? That is a sentiment I had previously voiced. I think the other article is broader and should include anarchist and other non-communist, leftist terrorism. Mamalujo (talk) 18:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
The sources for left-wing terrorism show that it is a generally understood concept and therefore it meets Wikipedia:Notability. Whether or not "communist terrorism" meets notability, it has not been shown. As the sources used show, anarchist and other non-communist terrorism is not usually considered left-wing terrorism. Terrorism is classified according to the objectives. Left-wing terrorism "is a tactic used to overthrow capitalism and replace it with Marxist-Leninist or socialist government". Anarchists of course do not seek to set up any government. As a result their organiations will be less cohesive or non-existant, and their targets different. In the same sense Abu Nidal and al Qaeda are categorized separately as nationalist and religious terrorist groups, although they were both led by Muslims who happened to be terrorists. TFD (talk) 19:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
the article should only remain if you can prove it is discussed in the way this article addresses the topic , in mainstream sources - not u.s govt appartchiks pamphlets and the christian science monitor. The lead is hopeless - makes out communist violence is all about revolution and change, then holding on to revolutionary power, - what ive read of the 1930s for example , the show trials for example, is that it was a counter-revolutionary force, Stalin directed it against dissident leftists like trotsky,and a very different character like bukharin, as well as against other random people that crossed the powers in control- the lead convinces me, as does the father of the article being mmalujo who created it, solely for POV reasons and not a disintersted desire to share knowledge and understanding, that this article is a complete toilet. Sayerslle (talk) 19:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Uh, the Christian Science Monitor is a perfectly reputable newspaper and a reliable source. You're confused by the fact that it has the word "Christian" in it. It's not a religious newspaper and if anything it's leftist (though generally it's known for its objectivity). Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I didn't know that. I do tend to equate 'Christian American' with intolerant right wing. Sayerslle (talk) 01:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
@ Mamalujo. This your statement ("I think the other article is broader and should include anarchist and other non-communist, leftist terrorism.") contradicts to your actions. Are you going to self-revert after the article will be unprotected?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
@ Collect. I also think that conversion of this article into the dab page was at least premature. However, that does not mean that re-insertion of the content moved by be in full accordance with all possible WP policy was justified. Are you going to self-revert after the article will be unprotected?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
The self revert would be to the dab - so no. I have not stood in the way of any responsible edits within the article (I am not really actively involved in editing this article, if you look at the edit history), and articles properly do evolve over time. The modus used, however, offended my sensibilities as it violated WP processes and policies. Why not simply edit using the material at hand, and not delete the whole shebang (a term used at Andersonville, which I just visited)? Collect (talk) 23:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
@Paul. I said both articles should remain. So my answer is no. Of course, if the other article was resurected solely for covert purpose of deleting this article, when advocates of that know it would fail, then maybe that article should return to a redirect. I don't have a problem with that article, if it is going to serve it's proper encyclopedic purpose. But if it is going to serve merely as a subterfuge and pretext to delete this article, then that is another matter. Such duplicitous moves made under false prextexts are a problem. Mamalujo (talk) 23:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
@ Collect and Mamalijo. Straw men arguments. As I already wrote, I do not support conversion of this page to dab. My request concerns only the content I moved to the Left wing terrorism article. Since you provided no serious arguments against this move, and since this move was done to comply with neutrality criteria, you should self-revert, and after that we can return to the discussion of the content of this non dab article. Are you going to do that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I demur. Unless you can show that the claims made in this article are not supported by the cites given, the material in those claims belongs in this article. Is any of the material unsupported by the cites given? Collect (talk) 00:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

No, the onus is on you to show its WP:RELEVANCE. TFD (talk) 01:00, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Onus? 1. The material is and has been in this article. 2. The material seems to have reliable sources for claims (else you would have raised that argument) 3. Changes in articles require something called "consensus." 4. Absent consensus to change, the material stays. 5. As I was not the one who wrote the article, it is not up to me to have to show relevance - it is up to others to show that the material is improper in a WP article. Clear? Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 01:38, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Re 5. The WP:BURDEN says: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." Therefore, it is up to you.
Re 3&4. Consensus is " a decision that takes account of all the legitimate concerns raised". What was your legitimate concern? Consensus in not a right of veto. You virtually abstained from the discussion and then re-inserted the material without any explanation.
Re 2. I demonstrated that according to majority of reliable sources the material belongs to another article.
Re 1. So what?--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The "other article" is a POVFORK, and, as such, it is not valid to claim that an article must be moved to a POVFORK, And second I have stated clearly that the use of a POVFORK to effect a title change which fialed on this page is improper. As for your quaint assertion that I have not used this talk page regarding this dispute - READ the page. I trust this is clear? Collect (talk) 15:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I provided the arguments for the move and I have been waiting for more than three weeks before I moved the content. During that period you provided no counter-arguments others than the other article is a POV fork (which is not a counter argument per se: that would be true if "Communist terrorism" and "Left wing terrorism" were synonyms, which obviously is not the case), and that google scholar results are not autoritative (why???). That meant you de facto abstained form a serious discussion. You definitely interpret consensus as a right of veto. That is a violation of the WP policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Nope, I could see how you could be misunderstand the sequence of events here and how you could misapply POVFORK issue so badly. But you'd just have to understand that this article has been a POVFORK of that article since its creation, and everything would become much more clear to you, as well as to other misguided souls. (Igny (talk) 00:49, 22 November 2010 (UTC))

@Paul. Your edit essentially gutted this article. Most of the groups which you removed self identify as communist. Some may use terms such as Marxist or Maoist, but all are generally identified as being communist or having communist ideology. There never was a consensus for such a drastic change. If you are going to gut an article, simply posting an argument and waiting a dozen or so days doesn't do it. At least you should not be surprised when it is reverted. @Igny, this article is in no way a POV fork. Although technically the other article predates it in time (it was merely a redirect when this article was created), there was no content dispute there that lead to the creation of this article. I created this article and was completely unaware of that article when I created this one. NONE of the content in this article came from that one (the reverse cannot be said). The list of organizations in the aricle were extracted from the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Mamalujo (talk) 01:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Re "Your edit essentially gutted this article." Yes, it did. However, that happened because the article was focused on a wrong subject (as I have demonstrated).
Re "Most of the groups which you removed self identify as communist." They are not reliable sources about their own nature. (For instance, Nazi self identify themselves as Socialists. Can their claim be taken seriously?) Most reliable sources describe them as Left wing, but not Communist.
Re "Some may use terms such as Marxist or Maoist, but all are generally identified as being communist or having communist ideology. " Again, the majority sources disagree with this your assertion.
Re "If you are going to gut an article, simply posting an argument and waiting a dozen or so days doesn't do it." I wasn't waiting. The move was a result of a long and extensive discussion where most editors supported this move.
Re "At least you should not be surprised when it is reverted." I am really surprised when the article has been reverted by persons who provided no reasonable counter-arguments during the long discussion preceding the move.
Re "Igny, this article is in no way a POV fork." I would say, the article can be not a POV fork, so it can be neither deleted not converted into the disambiguation page. However, that is not an argument for re-insertion of the content that was moved to another article to comply with neutrality policy.
Re "The list of organizations in the aricle were extracted from the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations." One more argument in favour of the non-neutrality of the article: the governmental sites are not considered neutral.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:48, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Bad faith article

This article is a complete bullshit.

- From the very beginning this article was arranged to be an attack on the USSR. First it mixes revolutionary terror and terrorism - two completely different things and presents political repressions as a form of terrorism, with an aim to prove that the USSR was a "terrorist state". I already raised this issue.

- Second it presents organizations which even do not claim to be Communist as examples of "communist terrorism". Who for example, could imagine that Fatah can be represented as a Communist organization? This all is well covered in left-wing terrorism and included here only with an aim justify the existence of this article.--Dojarca (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)


Thank you for your opinion and what you WP:KNOW about the reasons for this article. Collect (talk) 23:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Initially this article by 80% composed of the material related to political repressions in the USSR in 1920s-1930s and only a tiny portion was about other countries. The article's message was that the USSR was a terrorist state. It is only after the concerns were raised, and the article was suggested for deletion, the section about terrorist groups in other countries was expanded to include mostly non-Communist groups as of now.--Dojarca (talk) 09:07, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The article was not deleted by any WP process. And it appears that you can not state that any claims are not supported by RS sources. IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason for deletion. Collect (talk) 09:19, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The reason is not the lack of sources, the reason is that most material in this article is not related either to Communism or to terrorism. For example, revolutionary terror is not related to terrorism, and terrorism by Fatah group is not related to Communism. Thus this is a completely made up article. The related subjects are much better suitable for other articles, for example, terrorism by Fatah is related to Left-wing terrorism, revolutionary terror has its own article.--Dojarca (talk) 09:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Collect, could you please provide a book or article that that defines the topic and outlines the main issues and supports the inclusion of the material that was removed from the article. TFD (talk) 15:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The WP article can stand on its own if the sources are reliable and claims are accurate. There is no need for me to WP:KNOW anything here, and it is amazing that you so claim. Collect (talk) 15:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
You need reliable sources that connect them with the topic. Otherwise you could provide an RS for an apple pie recipe and add it. TFD (talk) 15:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Re Collect:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason for deletion. The content was never deleted. IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid reason to undo neutral representation of material either. (Igny (talk) 00:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC))

I can't help feeling that Collect is arguing the exact opposite here to what he's just written in relation to another issue: "The main problem is that the claims MUST derive specifically from the cites, and not represent "combinations of cites". The amonth of SYNTH and OR in the proposal is excessive. Collect (talk) 23:52, 21 November 2010 (UTC)": from here. Much of the difficulty with this article has always been its reliance on "combinations of cites", or WP:SYN as we customarily know it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Collect, even is the claims related to fatah are accurate, how is it related to Communism whatsoever?--Dojarca (talk) 15:59, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

First - I have not done research into PDFLP (which is the more radical organization apparently linked to communism?). The PFLP is commonly described as "Marxist." [18] and [19]. It would appear at least that the term "Marxist" is apt and supported by reliable sources. Do you assert that "Marxism" is unrelated to "communism"? Collect (talk) 16:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
First. You are wrong: The PFLP is commonly described as "Leftist" and NOT "Marxist." 1720 [20] vs 572 [21]. In addition, it is also described as "left wing" (324 resulus) [22].--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
I provided cites using the term - so as I do not assert that I WP:KNOW, I will trust that this is a case of you asserting what you "know." Alas - WP only requires that reliable sources use the term, and that is what is shown. BTW, using google counts is not a valid arguemnt in WP - what counts is that reliable sources cited use the term. Collect (talk) 17:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, in this case, most of the sources cited are probably irrelevant. The section is headed "Terrorist organizations claiming adherence to Communist ideology". The only valid RS would be one that states that the PDFLP actually claimed such adherence. If one is to instead include groups that others claim adhere to communist ideology, one would then potentially have to deal with disputes in every instance about what exactly 'communist ideology' is, and about whether there was RS to validate such claims. Since many of the groups in question are clandestine, I'd think such RS might be difficult to find. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
@Collect. You still are not able to see the difference between google and google scholar (despite my numerous explanations). Re reliable sources, the discussion is not about inclusion or exclusion this content into WP, but about the most appropriate article. Google scholar is a quite adequate tool for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Kindly do not patronize editors. I know full well how the google count game works - and "google scholar" is not a research tool in itself. Using numbers from google scholar does not make google scholar a RS for any statements at all. Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 18:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(out) [23] [In line with its Marxist- Leninist doctrine, sec below), the PDFLP formed its own party:] appears to assert indeed that the PDFLP followed "Marxist-Leninist doctrine." Would you consider "Marxist-Leninist doctrine" to not be "communism"? [24] (Routledge) appears to state POPULAR DEMOCRATIC FRONT FORTHE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE (PDFLP) Marxist resistance movement . [25] also refers to the PDFLP as "Marxist." How many RSs do you need? Collect (talk) 18:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

how about a RS that states than the PDFLP itself claims adherence to Communist ideology, as per the section title? What other sources say about its ideology are irrelevant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Re Scholar. It is a research tool (see, e.g. "A New Era in Citation and Bibliometric Analyses: Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar"Authors: Lokman I. Meho, Kiduk Yang Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology; Nov2007, Vol. 58 Issue 13, p 2105-2125)
Re RS. No reliable sources exists that allow us to say what title is more preferable for some concrete article. We have to decide that by ourselves based on what majority sources say. To use google scholar is the most optimal way to find that. If you know other, more neutral tool, please tell us what it is. Otherwise, your references to separate individual ES cannot serve as a serious argument.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Re "How many sources?" We need a evidence that the amount of sources that call them "Marxist" is greater than of those that do not. For instance Hamas's Rise as Charted in the Polls, 1994-2005 (Jamil Hilal. Journal of Palestine Studies. Washington: Spring 2006. Vol. 35, Iss. 3; p. 6 ) writes:
"Finally, the leftist category includes the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front, the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), and FIDA, all allied with the PLO."
However, neither the word "Communist" nor the word "Marxist" are used in this article at all.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

No we do not count sources - WP:V applies - if a reliable source makes a statement, that is sufficient for the claim made. I can find hundreds of articles which do not mention LBJ's religion - but that does not mean that a source which mentions it is outvoted <g>. Collect (talk) 19:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Continuing on PDFLP. The Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a national liberation movement. By default all national liberation movements are "Leninist", as Lenin is the originator of the principle of the right of nations to self-determination. They also happened to be described as a terrorist organization. I cannot see how their "terror" differs from the violence practiced by many other liberation organizations, no matter what their philosophy. It would be original research to claim, that their terror is some kind of "communist terror". It is not, the terror is aimed at national liberation, not socialism. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Glad to find out that Paul Revere was a "Leninist." Perhaps this is too abstruse here -- but NOT ALL NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTS ARE "LENINIST". Really. And the right of self-determination is found in the Declaration of Independence. A while ago. I do not think Jefferson was a "Leninist" either. Collect (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
@ Petri. Your "By default all national liberation movements are "Leninist", as Lenin is the originator of the principle of the right of nations to self-determination." They are not more Leninist than "Wilsonist", because the same idea was put forward simultanoeusly by Wilson.
@ Collect. The ref to WP:V doesn't work here, because the issue is not in verifiability but in neutrality. Yes, although the info about PDFLP can be added to WP per WP:V, the decision about the most appropriate article for that should be made in accordance with WP:NPOV. Sorry, we do have to count sources for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


Collect, claiming that any organization described as "Marxist" is in fact "Communist" is original synthesis. Note for example Legal Marxism movement which was a pro-Capitalism party, the Mensheviks movement etc.--Dojarca (talk) 01:23, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. We've been through this point already. Not all Marxists are communists, and not all communists are Marxists. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Collect, can you please point us to a book or article explaining what "Communist terrorism" is. You appear to have some sort of concept in mind, but I have difficulty following your reasoning. If no one has written about the subject, perhaps you could explain to us what you believe it to mean. TFD (talk) 15:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF ANY EDITOR TO ASSERT THE "TRUTH". Is that quite clear? You appear to ask me to do something which, as an editor, would be exceedingly wrong for me to do. It is up to the content of the article to explain what the article is about, not the function of any editor. Collect (talk) 16:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Collect, TFD has just asked you to 'point us to a book or article explaining what "Communist terrorism" is'. How does that become asking you to 'ASSERT THE "TRUTH"'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Read again and also read WP:NPA. There is nothing in any WP policy which requires specific sources for the title of an article. None. Zero. Zilch. Nor is it up to any editor to assert what the content of an article ought to be - the article consists of sourced claims relating to the general topic of the article. Period. As I do not assert that I know what "communist terrorism" must mean, perforce it is not up to me to give you a source for such a meaning. Is this quite clear at this point? Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 17:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
"There is nothing in any WP policy which requires specific sources for the title of an article". Really? So if I start an article on 'Invisible blue unicorns that have stood for election to the UK parliament' (here), nobody can object on the grounds that the title refers to something with no RS to demonstrate its existence? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
IOW Collect, you do not know what this article is about. TFD (talk) 17:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Read what I wrote - it is WRONG for me to "know" what must be in any article - even your own BLP. Kindly indicate that this sentence was sufficiently clear. Collect (talk) 19:01, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
It is sufficiently clear from what you write that you'd rather carry on with this pointless Wikilawyering than deal with any substantive issues, Collect. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
If one does know what must be in the article then one's continued commentary may be considered trolling. TFD (talk) 19:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

(out) Read WP:NPA please.. It is not "wikilawyering" to point out that an RfC on the name is the best way to discuss the name of the article. Will one of you post an RfC on it if you feel strongly? Badgering me for pointing this out is inane. If and when a proper RfC is started, one may expect input from other editors, which is the proper WP process. Collect (talk) 20:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

@ Collect. Can your refusal to respond on my previous posts be understood as the lack of counter-arguments from your side?
Re "There is nothing in any WP policy which requires specific sources for the title of an article." WP:NAMES states: "Generally, article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources call the subject of the article."
Let me also point out that I did not support conversion of the article into a disambiguation page. My point is that the content I moved to the Left wing terrorism article belongs to that article, not "Communist terrorism". Please, explain me what concretely is wrong with the arguments in support of this move. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Again - your arguments would be valid in an RfC on the title of this article. My suggestion is that an RfC be started rather than your belaboring some sort of claim that I am obligated to defend the title - in an RfC, all editors get to weigh in on the best choice. So start a valid and neutrally woirded RfC. Simple. Collect (talk) 23:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
"[W]hat concretely is wrong with the arguments in support of this move"? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The purpose of RfC is to attract new users. There is already enough editors who commented here and many were attracted by the AE thread. So no need for a new RfC.--Dojarca (talk) 23:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
You are not obligated to defend the title. However, taking into account that you are not more equal than I do, I am also not obligated to start any RfCs if I do not want to change the article's name (and I do not want to). I just moved a part of the article's content to the more appropriate article - and you still provided no satisfactory explanation of why did you re-inserted it back. And, believe me, you are obligated to explain me this your step (at least, per WP:BURDEN). Please do that asap.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The explanation is simple - the material had been in this article for a long time, and the newer article was a clear POVfork. Absent any refutation of the newness of the article involved, that part is clear. Now the reasons for removal of material from an existing article include improper sourcing, but do not include "I think this newer article is where all this stuff belongs." The burden is on those pushing a change, not on those who insist on following the basic policies of WP. Clear enough? Now either start an RfC, or accept that the title change was not accepted by any consensus. Your tendentiousness on refusing to start an RfC is the problem now. Collect (talk) 00:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The explanation is simple, but unsatisfactory. If you believe the re-created article is a POV fork, feel free to initiate AfD or to take any other similar actions. However, currently it is just your assertion (which is not supported by most other editors). For the beginning, try to demonstrate that "Communist terrorism" and "Left wing terrorism" are synonyms, because if that is not the case, especially if the former is just a subcategory of the latter, your statement is as ridiculous as the statement that World War II article is a POV fork of the Pacific War article.
The arguments that the material had been in this article for a long time also proves nothing (and, in addition, it is simply wrong, because many sub-sections moved by me were added recently).
Re "Your tendentiousness on refusing to start an RfC is the problem now." Please, explain me what kind of RfC should I initiate if I do not want to change the article's title? The current article may discuss Malaya, other examples of Comunist terrorism, the connection between Communist ideology and terrorism, but it should not discuss the groups that are described as "left wing" but NOT "communist" my majority sources. This is a neutrality issue, and your tendentiousness on refusing to recognise that tells for itself.
Regarding the burden, I sustained my burden, because you failed to provide any evidence that the search procedure made by me was incorrect, biased or flawed. Repeating the same baseless claims proves nothing.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
None of the organizations that were in the article self-identified as "communist terrorists", so that argument makes no sense. You indeed created this article without any source for the topic.[26] It is just your own original research that has no place in a serious encyclopedia. TFD (talk) 02:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Collect, you are wrong, the article Communist terrorism is a POV-fork of Left-wing terrorism. The history shows that Left-wing terrorism was created on 3 June 2003, while Communist terrorism was created 29 March 2007 - about 4 years later.--Dojarca (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
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