Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Union of Revolutionary Workers of Austria - Marxist-Leninist
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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. —Korath (Talk) 14:28, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
Union of Revolutionary Workers of Austria - Marxist-Leninist[edit]
Alleged Austrian political party, which, however, has no political relevance whatsoever and has no google hits except Wikipedia mirrors. Delete as non-notable. Martg76 19:15, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Weak keep. More detail would be great, but political parties, even minor ones, are in general at least deserving of a stub. Slac speak up! 23:16, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I think that if the were a real political party, they would have at least some presence on the web. As is, we can't even verify that they exist--the only Google hits seem to be WP mirrors, AFAICT. Delete--these guys are not notable. Meelar (talk) 23:53, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
- Comment: Maybe they have google hits under their real name, whatever that is. Kappa
- Keep. The article states that it "was a communist group in Austria" (emphasis added). It probably folded before the Internet gained widespread use. In any case, Soman (the creator of this article) is an expert on leftist parties, and I trust that he has his facts straight. —Seselwa 01:47, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Keep. Since the article names their periodical, confirming the existence of the Vereinigung Revolutionärer Arbeiter Österreichs (Marxisten-Leninisten) is no more difficult than visiting the website of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) and searching their online catalogue. Perhaps we should have a policy not to translate the names of political parties in article titles, especially when there is no official translation - the result is sometimes outright silly and often misleading and confusing, particularly with all these small fringe parties with very similar names (cf. Life of Brian). / Uppland 04:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Keep. The source claiming the existance of a group using this name comes from International Maoism in the Developed World by Robert J. Alexander. If anybody can contradict his claim of the existance of such a group, I would be interested to know. Note that Alexander only mentions the English version of the group's name in his book. --Soman 18:14, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Comment: The question is not so much whether this group exists or ever existed, but whether it is noteable. I don't think the mere fact that it published a journal establishes that. There are lots of groups publishing all sorts of pamphlets. How is/was that group noteable? Did the group ever have any candidates for office? It does not seem so. Martg76 15:26, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Comment: I don't see the point in that argument. Why have an encyclopedia limited to the things all people already know about? Nowhere in the article text is there any reference to the eventual size of the group. That is not to say that it is unimportant. We should see that importance is valued differntly to different people. A political group might have only 2-3 members, but publish theoretical material that influences other groups. A group in one country might be very small, but connected to an international community of political parties and organizations, which in its totality will have some significance. You obviously value the importance, or 'notability', of a political faction in terms of its electoral performance. That shows ignorance to the political history of the radical left, were many groups consiously decided not to participate in any electoral process. --Soman 18:35, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- "Importance" or "notability" is a criterion for whether something or someone should be included in Wikipedia. You are of course right that influence by means of publications can constitute sufficient importance. However, notability should normally be explained in the article (if it is not obvious). In this case, we can only presume notability, which I think is not Wikipedia policy. BTW, I came accross this article in Category:Political parties in Austria, a subcategory of Category:Austrian politics. (Other than that, this page is an orphan). Assuming that this group had influence outside Austria, should it really be listed there, given that its influence on Austrian politics is non-existent? Is/was it a an actual political party rather than just a group of people with political goals? Martg76 20:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.