User:John gowland

My name is John Gowland. I am an ICT teacher in a High School in Western Australia. I graduated with a Dual Honours Degree in Sociology and Politics from Sheffield University in the UK in 1984. I have a Masters Degree in Teaching ICT from the University of South Australia. I have been an active Marxist and member of the Socialist Party since 1980. I have conducted extensive readings in Marxist theory, politics, sociology, economics and history since the late 1970s.

Socialist Party

hi john. in relation to your request from anthony main, the line in the Socialist Party page: "The Socialist Party has been involved in several campaigns" cites the "About" page of the sp's official webpage, which i would argue is not a neutral source. there's a distinction between citing an organisation's political positions from non-political objective factors such as membership stats. e.g. the difference between citing the "About" page to say "the Socialist Party opposes capitalism" to "the Socialist Party has x amount of members". while i've no doubt the sp has branches in melb, syd, newcastle and perth, the line about the sp having "supporters in most other states" appears dubious without a third party source. regards Marxwasright (talk) 05:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

john. in regards to your last message: references 2.3.4 and 5 were never in dispute- they are all fine. all i was disputing was reference 1 as a source of neutrality. i would argue for removing the "about" reference for this line all together.

as for the heroin reform reference, again i would argue this is not a neutral source as it acts as an sp media release. this source and source 1 are quite different to the other sources. i do not disbelieve the sp has been involved in heroin reform but there needs to be a third party source. this is the difference i was trying to stress between self referencing political positions (which i think is fine) to self referencing what an organisation actually does.

agreed "as well as supporters in most other states" should be temporarily removed. Marxwasright (talk) 06:20, 19 November 2009 (UTC)