User talk:Bduddy/Archive/2007 January

Category American liberals

Buddy, please take care when adding people to the American liberals category. The current definition is unsupportably broad and vague. Moreover, it is not at all universal -- even in America -- so it is defined basically only by reference to the definition. Moreover, I question any category that would include such disparate political views as the Democratic Party and socialists under "liberal". A, such broad subcats necessarily are overinclusive -- the Dems for instance are certainly not comprised solely of liberals by anyone's understanding of the word (Zell Miller?). B, it seriously mistakes how political ideology is defined: socialists, for instance, even American socialists, do not ordinarily define themselves as "liberals" -- you may as well define left anarchists as liberals. The term liberal is apparently defined in the category, and being applied, in a completely arbitrary fashion, and given that it has a significant POV connotations in the US, I think it is really wildly inappropriate as a category. ... Moreover, how are you sourcing these category additions? Howard Zinn's article describes his beliefs as incorporating Marxism, anarchism, socialism, and social democracy -- are you going to add him to American liberals under the current vague criteria, anarchism, socialism (the subcat), and Communists or Marxists? .... I started discussion at WP:Categorization of people on this issue. In the meantime, I would really urge you to refrain from putting the category on anyone who does not clearly and unequivocally self-define as an American liberal and who is uncontroversially in that category. --lquilter 12:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)