Talk:World Socialist Party of the United States

NPOV

About 90% of the article is accurate, given the free indirect quoting of the WSPUS itself - I'd suggest perhaps excising the last pareagraph (or at least altering it) because that does give a partisan impression. I'll have a wee edit this afternoon.--Red Deathy 07:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Hopefully a bit better now - I'll give it another crack later.--Red Deathy 16:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd say that this was written by someone at the WSPUS. It's very transparent. DeeKenn (talk) 05:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That's doubtlessly true, and also understandable. As long as NPOV is maintained, there's no great issue. I've toned down a few things here and there and I'm sure the ideology section could use a helping hand from an outsider, but the fact of authorship is neither here nor there as long as things are truthful, verifiable, and written neutrally. Carrite (talk) 16:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

There's multiple problems with this page. The Canadian SPC paper was called the Western Clarion for most of the time period. The link to Pritchard is to the wrong Pritchard. I don't believe the real pritchard has a wikipedia page. Does someone know how to fix this through disambiguation?Rmalhotr (talk) 22:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

"Pelle" spamed the wspus post with his own political views. Hardly objective. Fnbrill (talk) 01:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fnbrill (talk • contribs) 00:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

_______________ The part about "anarchist activism" being reformist is obviously factually unsound and just sectarian slandering of anarchism by some overzealous WSMer. Someone should correct it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.109.147 (talk) 05:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Removal and revert of word press cite

Can you explain why wordpress is a reliable source? (for citing to https://bataillesocialiste.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wsp-us-the-ussr-and-leninism-this-is-not-socialism.pdf) --Obsidi (talk) 17:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Nobody is citing Wordpress itself; the citation you're referring to is an official publication of the WSP(US) which happens to be reproduced on someone's blog. Though that publication certainly doesn't say anything about the WSP(US) being "libertarian socialist", so it can't be used to support the claim in the article. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That may be true (I looked, but couldn't find it saying anything about "libertarian socialist", but its a long document I assumed I missed something until I could go over it completely. If its an official publication, you would think they would have a website somewhere where they would host it themselves. Anyone could potential edit that document and then host it on their own site otherwise (we cant verify if it is actually there words if it isn't from them or a reliable source). --Obsidi (talk) 02:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

There's also:

* Anarchy Magazine, Volume 3, page 178 (1963) which explicitly calls them "non-state libertarian socialists"

* Center for a Stateless Society which describes them as one of the "quasi-anarchistic libertarian socialist models"

* The "International Libertarian Socialist Alliance" page that calls them a "movement for global libertarian socialism"

... to name a few. fi (talk) 04:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Fine, then some or all of these sources could be used to support the claim instead. (I don't know anything about their reliability, though unlike the WSP(US) publication at least they actually use the proposed wording.) However, it would probably also be good to mention and cite the WSP(US)'s own denials that it is a "libertarian socialist" or "libertarian communist" organization, which can be found in its various publications. (I don't have access to these at the moment, and their website is currently down, though their opposition to libertarian socialist/communist movements is alluded to on the page "What We Are Not" on a rather ancient version of their website which is still archived online.) —Psychonaut (talk) 09:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

If they reject the label then I think you could make a case for either including it or not. The point is, it deserves discussion. fi (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

an editor readded libertarian socialism without discuss and with a source. no where in the source does it mention libertarian, without objection i will tag and eventually remove the ideology unless a source with the actual term is presented. Darkstar1st (talk) 12:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Did you perhaps overlook the previous section, where said editor is discussing the claim and has proposed various sources? Your contribution to that discussion would be welcome. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:44, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

i did and have offered no debate as none of the sources above were inserted into the article. of the 3 sources above, i could find none that mentioned world socialist party of the u s and libertarian socialism. perhaps an editor could provide the exact text, if so i would be happy to improve the source. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:09, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I've merged this section with the one above. Now that I've read the citations provided by User:Finx, I can confirm that none mentions the WSP(US) by name. Two of them mention the party's umbrella organization, the World Socialist Movement, and one of them (contrary to his claim of an "explicit" mention) doesn't appear to name the WSP(US) or WSM at all. In case I have overlooked something, User:Finx, could you please provide the full quotations from each source which mention both the WSP(US) itself and the "libertarian socialist" descriptor? —Psychonaut (talk) 13:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

No, and I'm short of caring. If one is an extension of the other then it makes sense that a reference "explicitly" applying to one applies to the other the same. Anarchy, I just misread because I was in a hurry while reverting a POV-warrior's little crusade. I generally don't edit Marxist articles because I don't know enough about Marxism. Speaking of which, can you elaborate on your bizarre claim earlier that these self-proclaimed Marxists categorically denied being Marxists? Haven't seen a source on that. If I had to guess, impossibilism is probably the most correct label, but they actually do deny that one. fi (talk) 19:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

As I recall, your argument that the WSP(US) describes itself as "Marxist" rests solely on the existence of an article they had published about Marxism. Do you really profess to see no distinction between writing about something and claiming to be something? —Psychonaut (talk) 20:08, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Then I suppose you should correct this article, as well as the one on the WSM as a whole, since they both describe the group, above all else, as Marxists. fi (talk) 21:04, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Neither article states that the groups describe themselves as Marxist, so there's nothing to correct here apart from your own misconception about how the groups identify themselves. If reliable third parties call them Marxist, then according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, that's how they ought to be described in their respective articles. (Though as I mentioned upthread, their published objections or qualifications concerning this characterization should probably be noted as well.) —Psychonaut (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Both articles describe them as classical Marxists, in political philosophy/ideology/lead sections. My "misconceptions" aside, it seems rather worth noting that they do not agree. fi (talk) 00:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I'm undoing User:Darkstar1st's latest edit because the edit summary is just plain false (which probably says something the for editor's sincerity and diligence on this whole crusade). I have nothing at all invested in whether the WSM gets labeled libsoc, or anything else for that matter. If consensus is that a label is a bad fit, or that they weren't impossibilists, or somehow only ironically Marxist, or that they were really staunchly conservative anticommunists, or whatever, that's perfectly fine by me. There's no need to say that references weren't given when requested. They were. fi (talk) 06:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Darkstar1st's edit summary says the reference is being removed because the "source does not mention libertarian socialist". He is correct, and two further users here (myself and User:Obsidi) have independently confirmed that the term appears nowhere in the source. Having read this discussion yourself, you must have known this as well, and yet you reinserted the reference anyway. When people knowingly introduce false information into articles, this is considered vandalism, and engaging in this behaviour repeatedly can lead to a loss of editing privileges. Please either undo your edit, or else replace the spurious reference with a correct one. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Again, there's references up above calling the WSM libsoc, provided on your and User:Darkstar1st's request. You're welcome. Insert them if you want, or discount and ignore them if you want, with an edit that notes what you've actually decided to do, instead of some made-up nonsense about there not being a source given in discussion. That's the only bullshit here. Please don't waste any more of my time with these blathering, irrelevant temper tantrums, as you have done repeatedly both on article talk pages and on ANI. If you believe I'm guilty of vandalism, take it to the noticeboards. I will not be undoing my edit. User:Darkstar1st's nonsense edit statement was either the product of gross incompetence or dishonesty, and I really don't care which. I have made myself perfectly clear and if you want a slap-fight, go take it to a message board. fi (talk) 09:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

To be perfectly clear, then, you will allow User:Darkstar1st's edit to stand as long as he explicitly states that he is discounting the sources you proffered above? —Psychonaut (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

To be blunt, I'm absolutely baffled how the user hasn't been permanently blocked or at least topic banned yet for repeated wingnutty histrionics on the same political topics again and again, without showing hardly any serious interest in contributing to Wikipedia; but apart from that, like I said, I'm not dropping in sources to interfere with consensus. I did it on the naive assumption that somebody involved with this topic might be interested in writing a better article. If libsoc is not appropriate, okay then. If they're not really Marxists, then they're not Marxists. So, in a word, yes. I have this offbeat opinion that "discussion" involves some level of consideration or at least acknowledgement when you make non-rhetorical "requests" and others actually answer them. fi (talk) 11:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

While you're at it, I would also strongly recommend marking "Classical Marxist" and "Impossibilist" (an exclusively Marxist tendency) with a "dubious" or "citation needed," as you've stated emphatically (though, of course, unsurprisingly, without a shred of evidence) that the left communists described in all of these articles in fact adamantly rejected the Marxist label while handing out pamphlets titled "GUIDE TO MARXISM." It would also follow to remove this section of the article on impossibilism. Best of luck. fi (talk) 10:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding "bogus" sources

User:Darkstar1st - please elaborate, for the benefit of future editors, why you've judged the sources "bogus" as ruled in your last edit. fi (talk) 11:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• bogus 1, you struckthru, this means you agree your source is invalid.
• bogus 2, this blog post/?RS? [1] was written by the obscure writer Kevin Carson the day before the tagged category was reverted. not scholarly or peer reviewed, the piece is opinion citing no sources nor mentioned in secondary sources. [2]
• bogus 3, both 2 and 3 refer to the world socialist movement, not the us party specifically. the WSM does not mention the term libertarian on their site. the http://www.wspus.org/ is offline, so maybe we can use that as a source when the account is reinstated? Darkstar1st (talk) 01:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, just some comments. On the first, the source is perfectly valid and in no way "bogus" (it's a well known anarchist journal), but the passage says something different pertaining to something else (as far as I can tell, the global and historical socialist movement, not the WSM specifically), so that's out. On the second, it may have popped up high in search results because it was recent, but Carson's a pretty well known and notable commentator (probably the most widely known Mutualist today), so I'm not sure why you're trying to delete that BLP article. Do a quick search, and you'll quickly find it's not just a random guy with a twitter account. You seem very eager to wholly erase any material you disagree with from WP the very moment you discover it. On the third, the larger political group includes the smaller one, so it seems valid. So, I'm not sure how calling any of the sources "bogus" is appropriate, but I still have no firm opinion on the label one way or the other. Would you mind posting an RfC? If you want to remove it after that's posted, I'll leave that be, though I think the tag is probably more appropriate in the meantime. fi (talk) 06:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

libertarian socialism

the category has been challenged and tagged. the tag was removed without discussion and no source was added to the article. the party does not claim to be libertarian socialist. the ideology should be removed, or a source added to the article. Darkstar1st (talk) 07:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)