User:Samwalton9/Cultural Marxism AfD

A page for me to gather my thoughts regarding the Cultural Marxism AfD.

Votes

These are the votes I will be considering in my close of the AfD. I have only included those votes which attempt to make an argument based on Wikipedia policy.

Keep

1. "it is notable, being the subject of multiple books including Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain, Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural Marxism and Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture."
2. "improve with reliable sources representing varied perspectives on the subject in proportion to their mainstream acceptance" - [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]
   • There was debate over whether these sources constituted in-depth reliable third party coverage.
3. "the options should be sorted out on its talk page by people who are now reading the relevant scholarly books, peer-reviewed articles, etc."
   • No specific sources provided
4. "Speedy Keep - The term "cultural Marxism" has significant historical cachet; for example, Here's an academic work from 1997 with the phrase right in its title."
   • Considerable debate over this source and others mentioned in this vote; consensus that sources don't appear to actually discuss Cultural Marxism as a concept.
5. "the subject/term itself is legitimate without question. Google indisputably confirms this, with academic articles on the first page of results."
   • This is not a peer-reviewed article, but is written by an academic.
6. "Speedy Keep - There are academic articles written discussing "Cultural Marxism"" - [8], [9], [10]
7. Provided a number of sources, many if not all of which were refuted as not mentioning the subject.
8. "This article has existed for years without issue until it was changed to frame the topic as some sort of conspiracy theory, and it will be perfectly fine if it is restored to that earlier state."
   • Sources provided with this vote are ones mentioned above. Some possibly usable.
9. "per sources presented [above]"
10. "The term is in common use within many different fields"
    • No specific sources provided
11. "I find the keep reasons to be stronger than the delete ones."

Delete

1. "A few books have been cited as using the phrase "cultural Marxism", but none of them support the existence of a school of thought called "Cultural Marxism"."
2. "there is a complete lack of sourcing to establish "Cultural Marxism" as a topic distinct from "Frankfurt School"."
3. (or Merge) "The academic use refers to Gramsci and The Frankfurt School."
4. "fails WP:NEO; this is a neologism which has all relevant content related to it covered more than adequately elsewhere."
5. "The article tries to argue that modern U.S. liberalism is controlled by Marxist ideology. There already is an article about that conspiracy theory."
6. (or merge) "no reliable sources posit the existence of a school of thought called "cultural Marxism"... the conspiracy theory already has an article. The term itself fails WP:NEO."
7. (or merge) "Nothing in the article seems notable enough for this to warrant a page of its own."
8. "Not notable"
9. (and redirect or merge to Frankfurt School), "The subject of this AfD is a pejorative term, not a field of study, philosophical discipline, or the application of Marxist methodologies or ideologies to culture... We already have separate articles for the application of Marxist methodologies or ideologies to culture... I think there's room for a section at the main article(s) on how "cultural Marxism" has been appropriated (and I think Frankfurt School conspiracy theory should be sent down the same road."
10. "many sources listed here fall under the eyes of WP:ONUS beneath WP:V. Merely because a term exists a few times in articles from B-tier sources does not imply any means of verifying some kind of notability."
11. (or redirect) "Fails WP:NEO: Neologisms... for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. It has been shown that sources purporting to reference this topic either do not, in fact, do so or are not WP:RS."
12. (or redirect) "Other articles cover the same subject matter, and they do it better."

Redirect

This is a sub-heading of Delete because I think a delete vote would also necessitate a redirect.

1. "to anything that's not "conspiracy theory"",

Merge

1. (Or redirect) "the target isn't that important (as long as it's not a conspiracy page)", "These are two niche terms - one academic, one a meme or redefinition of sorts, neither deserving an article at this title, both having existing content elsewhere."
2. "with Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, or merge that article back here. Either one is acceptable. Both articles are essentially on the same topic"
3. (or delete) "merge as a pejorative, there is precious little to be said about it, and it can be covered in the other articles. as a non-pejorative, it doesnt exist and so the option would be delete"

Result

After removing from consideration votes which did not attempt to make arguments based on Wikipedia policy (without initial prejudice as to whether those arguments were correct), I have ended up with the above votes. I've attempted to extract the core argument of each vote, and commented on any ensuing discussion or my own thoughts where necessary. I am therefore considering 11 keep votes and 12, 13, or 16 delete votes depending on how you read it.

The keep voters argued that the subject was notable due to coverage in academic sources. The strongest of these sources appears to be "British Cultural Marxism" for example, a paper published in the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. A number of other sources were presented, but most were discredited as either self-published, blog/opinion pieces, or as not discussing 'Cultural Marxism' as a concept.

Delete voters argued that the sources presented by those wishing to keep the article were not reliable or weren't of sufficient number or quality to show that the subject passed the notability threshold. Many mentioned that the Frankfurt School, Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, and Critical theory articles covered the topic sufficiently, and any sources were not numerous enough to additionally justify this article.

Overall I believe there is a consensus to delete this article. The sources presented by those voting to keep have been repeatedly shown not to be sufficient for the topic of Cultural Marxism to pass Wikipedia's inclusion rules. The contentious issue then is whether to redirect or merge. Given the low volume of usable sources presented here I would move to redirect this article, without prejudice towards including any sourceable information from this article into the others mentioned in the previous paragraph. I think we can all agree that another debate on the minutia of how and what to merge where isn't going to be fun for anyone.

As for the redirect location, Frankfurt School and Frankfurt School conspiracy theory seem to be the leading options. Given the similar contention surrounding the existence of the conspiracy theory article I think Frankfurt School is the better redirect for now. I would urge further discussion on whether the conspiracy theory article needs deleting/redirecting/merging/whatever.

---

WP:CONSENSUS describes how we should judge the weight of the arguments rather then counting the votes. Something very useful when a discussion has been tainted by canvassing and long entrenched positions. There are a number of themes that I take from the discussion:-

• The content under discussion is a mess, appears not to be well based on the available sources and is subject to entrenched external views. Even the keep side has highlighted problems with the content.
• The delete arguments were well evidenced by detailed and informed discussions on the available sourcing and this analysis came from more then one voter. I did not feel that the analysis of the sources was at all refuted by the keep votes
• The keep arguments were generally of low quality: assertions, citing sources without analysis, non-policy based or based on page views. Where sources were cited they were challenged in detail by the delete side and this challenge was not convincingly refuted.
• There appears to be some agreement that this subject is already covered to a greater or lesser extent on other pages.

Based on this, I find the following views to have consensus:-

1. The existing content is a mess and TNT should apply - therefore the text should be Deleted
2. Broadly the delete side had well founded policy based arguments that overcame the keep arguments and that the subject is best covered in another article.
3. There is no clear consensus where this subject could be redirected but that a redirect can be inserted as soon as consensus on this has emerged.

Therefore my judgement is that we delete, salt and insert a redirect when consensus for this has been established. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I broadly agree with Samwalton9 and Spartaz.

• Those who argue to keep the article do not agree among themselves what the kept article is supposed to be about.
• The reliable sources given by those arguing that the article should be kept have largely been disputed; the arguments against those sources have not been refuted.

Particularly in light of the latter issue, I see a consensus not to keep the current article. Conversely, many of those arguing for deletion noted that the current topic is already addressed elsewhere under a different name. Thus we should delete and redirect. The most commonly named targets were Frankfurt School, Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, Cultural studies and Critical theory. Among these choices, "cultural Marxism" seems most closely related to the Frankfurt School and the relevant conspiracy, and I agree with Samwalton's reading regarding the best target. Huon (talk) 22:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)