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Responses to Objectivism

This article is a POV fork from Objectivism (Ayn Rand), which was created against consensus. Historically, the last time the criticism was removed from the main article into a fork, the result was that the main was whitewashed while the fork was eventually deleted, with the net effect of censoring the main. This is yet another effort, as demonstrated by the uniform support given by those who are fans of Rand and the uniform protest by everyone else Al 00:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Note A survey was taken in Talk:Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) under "Survey: Move Criticism section to its own article." The result of the survey was 6 to 2 (a 2/3 majority), in favor of creating this article for the purpose of cutting that section down to a summary. RJII 18:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. For the reasons stated above. I want to mention two more things. First, there was already a vote to sniff out a possible consensus to create this article. What we found was a lack of consensus, because all the Randists voted to hide the criticism in a new article, but noboody else agreed with them. Despite this lack, Crazynas made the error of copying and pasting to create this article. In short, it should never have existed. The second thing I want to mention is that there has been a recent influx of pro-Rand sock puppets, so I expect them to come here and stack the vote. Al 01:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment First I would remind Alienus that AfD is not a vote. Second, consensus was reached, with six editors agreeing to the move and two disenting, Alienus tried to improperly close the staw poll after less then two hours after it was put up. Crazynas 01:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Sigh. The consensus-seeking straw poll was not a vote, either, but an attempt to determine whether a genuine consensus existed. The result is that no such consensus was found. Putting aside the issue of sock puppets for a moment, the fact is that there are two factions -- the Randists and everyone else -- and there was absolutely no overlap between the votes of these two groups. (This remains the case thus far on the AFD). There was no consensus to create this page and no hope of ever gaining such a consensus, which is why I declared the effort futile. Al 01:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
      • mmmmmm that doesn't change the fact that you declared the straw poll closed in less then two hours, when it normally takes days (or weeks) before it is determined that consensus is reached(or not). I agree that consensus hasn't been reached in that straw poll, however it dosn't require consensus to create an article. Note that it wasn't a Randist that nominated this artice for AfD, nor was it a POV fork (as you claim), it is adminstrative, and that is all. Crazynas 01:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Duh. It was immediately obvious that the poll would not result in a true consensus. Creating an article doesn't require a consensus, but forking one does, and the sole purpose of this article is to be a fork. Since there was no consensus for forking, this article has no reason to exist. Of course, you'd like to pretend that we need a consensus to delete, but that's not true in this case: we need a consensus in order to keep. Oh, and as for it being administrative, the fact that all Randists voted pro and the rest of us voted con shows that this is not the case. Remember: WP:AGF is not a suicide pact, and the presence of sock puppets dispell any hint of good faith. Now, let's shut up and let other people weigh in. Al 01:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Misplaced Pages:Consensus says that what happened there was not a consensus. What happened was that one side gathered their numbers together to outnumber the opposition and create a tyranny of the majority. Nobody agreed on the fork except for the Randists. -- LGagnon 02:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep As I am the creator of this article, I should explain my reasoning. The current article is copied from Objectivism (Ayn Rand)#Responses to Objectivist philosophy. This is not a POV fork, rather it is a stylistic change, and it is not without precedent, there are four other sub articles Objectivist metaphysics Objectivist epistemology Objectivist ethics and Libertarianism and Objectivism. Each of these articles is summarized in Objectivism (Ayn Rand). I created this article because the responses section was overpowering the article, 48% by wordcount, and is generally unweldy. Although the section in Objectivism (Ayn Rand) has not been trimed down, and will not be until this AfD is resolved, with this article to provide in depth analysis of the responses, an approprate summary could be created on Objectivism (Ayn Rand). Crazynas 00:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. As mentioned by Al, this is a retread of a previous problem. The last attempt to create a separate critism article was used to delete researched info from the main article. This seems to only be a second attempt to do so. Please note that only fans of Ayn Rand are in favor of this fork, while those who oppose it are either neutral editors or others who are not fans of Rand. -- LGagnon 00:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Keep it all in one place, please. ' 03:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. The above, by my interpretation, counts as a vote for merge. Lucidish 18:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep All the bickering over whether Objectivism is a "cult," over who is a "randroid" or not is distracting editors from working on improving the main article portion of Objectivism (Ayn Rand). If we can keep all this stuff in its own article, then I think people will be better frame of mind to work on improving that article. Also, it's way too large in comparison to the rest of the article. The focus of the Objectivism (Ayn Rand) should be the philosophy itself. Right now that article is horrible at explaining Objectivism. Criticism is meaningless if no one can understand the philosophy in the first place. Let those who want to argue over whether Objectivism is a cult have this article to themselves. RJII 03:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • If it were focused just on what Rand says about it, the article would be POV. Which is what this fork is trying to do to the article. -- LGagnon 03:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • POV? It's you and Alenius that have been writing the stuff. Someone simply moved it over to its own article. RJII 03:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Just a note here: So far, not a single person outside of the Randist faction has endorsed keeping this article. This is a hint as to its purpose. Al 04:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Textbook POV fork. I'd say merge back into Objectivism, but this info is already there. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment if this article gets deleted then for balance Objectivist metaphysics Objectivist ethics Objectivist epistemology will need to be merged back into the main article for balance, I trust Alienus, as an admin will do this because of the Pov issues involved. Crazynas 05:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Huh. That doesn't actually follow. See, "Responses to Objectivism" is intended as a place to hide away criticism, since so many of the responses are critical. In contrast, the child articles for the Objectivist take on various general categories of philosophy are much more legitimate. There is no hidden agenda behind their existence, nor is their existence inherently POV. Also, who said I was an admin? Al 05:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. Accusing people of having a hidden agenda without absolute proof isn't a good way to gain supporters. I haven't even been following this until today, but comments like yours make me want to support the other side. jgp (T|C) 18:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Regarding you being an admin, I thought you did... at some point on the talk page, if you didn't and/or your not, sorry. Well I did not create this article to hide away criticism, I created it because of balance go look at the main article, half of the entire thing is criticism, although I do agree that there should be a section about responses, criticism or not, I don't think that it should domanate the article. Although I agree with many of the points of Objectivism, that's not why I'm here, I'm here to make a better encyclopedia, and I work on this article because I know somthing about it. Whatever you think, I'm not pushing Pov like you said at one point, one dosn't have to be netural about an article to edit neturally, and thats what I'm trying to do. Crazynas 06:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Must have been some sort of misunderstanding. In any case, regardless of your intent, the others who have signed on to the bandwagon have hearts that are not quite so pure. You see, the reason the main article has so much criticism is that there's so much out there. Balance isn't about forcing a specific ratio of positive to negative, but rather to accurately match what's happening in the real world. Consider that creationism is likely to be heavy on criticsm, not because the article is POV, but because the truth is that there's much to criticize. The appropriate rule is the one about "undue weight". Al 06:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete per LGagnon. Tevildo 09:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep: Not only is the main Objectivism (Ayn Rand) too long, it is being manipulated by Randophobes like LGagnon to reflect their irrational hatred for Ayn Rand and for Objectivism in complete violation of NPOV. The Fading Light 11:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete of this POV fork per A Man in Black and LGagnon. Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge but fix terribly written article. The Objectivism (Ayn Rand) article is currently 45k, which is longer than a Misplaced Pages article should be. Either that article needs to be edited down aggressively, or it should be broken out into separate articles. I don't particularly care which. The two comments I'd make about "Responses to Objectivism" are as follows: (1) The name is bad. (2) It's poorly written and unsourced. Nandesuka 13:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Hi, Nandesuka. Small world. Weren't you just personally attacking me a minute ago? Must be a coincidence, not wikistalking. After all admins always follow the rules they're sworn to enforce, right? Al 15:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Quoting the definition of wikistalking, "This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful.". There was nothing disruptive, insulting, or otherwise venomous in Nandesuka's comments. jgp (T|C) 18:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• • With all due respect, the disruption comes from the fact that he is the ONLY non-Objectivist to join the Objectivists against me. This has a disruptive effect, however it might have been intended. Al 01:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Other than Nandesuka, who just so happens to have a history with me and no interest in Objectivism, every vote to keep has thus far come from acknowledged and obvious Objectivists. This once again confirms the "POV fork" theory. Al 15:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Is this article intended to be along the same lines as articles like Criticism of Christianity and Criticism of Islam? If so, since there are so many other sub-articles on Objectivism already, I could see this article following the same pattern that is used to handle criticism in other articles - that is, a brief outline of the major disputes, with a link to the main article. But if that's the case, it should be located at Criticism of Objectivism, not Responses to Objectivism, IMO. -- Vary | Talk 15:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, it is not being used for the same purpose. This is a retread of a previous situation in which the Rand supporters used a criticism article as a method of deleting cited information criticizing their ideology. The purpose here is POV censorship, not legit forking. -- LGagnon 15:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Merge to Objectivism (Ayn Rand). I don't see a need for a separate article. However, given the size of Objectivism (Ayn Rand), some breakup might be inevitable, which is why this is a weak merge. Note that this article is not a POV fork. A POV fork is when each point of view is given its own article. This article is titled Responses to Objectivism, not Negative Responses to Objectivism or Positive Responses to Objectivism. jgp (T|C) 17:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I'm changing my vote. Two reasons: one, as per Nandesuka, Objectivism (Ayn Rand) is large enough that it should be split up; two, the arguments to delete this article are paper-thin, and primarily consist of incivility and personal attacks against people who want to keep it. jgp (T|C) 19:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
  • You're right about the title, but not the content. Due to the overwhelming negative responses, any article listing all responses is going to contain primarily criticism. Isolated into a fork, it becomes POV. Only when taken as a balanced part of the main article can it be NPOV. Al 19:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • As per WP:NPOV, Misplaced Pages isn't required to give equal attention to minority opinions. If Misplaced Pages gives proper proportionate (not equal) attention to each side, there are no POV problems. If the overwhelming opinion of Objectivism is negative, so be it. jgp (T|C) 19:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not disagreeing with you on this point. Certainly, if the majority is negative, then we should not give undo weight to those who are positive. Having said that, the net effect of moving the responses to Objectivism here is to purge the main article of negativity, thus destroying the neutrality of it. Does this clarification help you understand my view? Al 00:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep. The material here, from what I have read, is thoughtful. Sure, some of the "bite" should be taken out of the intro, and editors should take pains to make their comments cited. But the deletion of this page would be tantamount to intellectual suppression. (However, the points made by Vary re: the name of this article are very good, and which I support.)

Also, merging would be unwise, for two reasons: first, it's not unheard of to have separate pages for critiques, especially when (as with this case) there are so many ways to critique that it's worth its own article; second, (and less seriously), fanatics on the Objectivism page will likely make a critical article there impossible (although this consideration has no merits in itself, it might save critical errors from wasting their time). In any case, a link from the Objectivism page could and should be made to this one. Lucidish 18:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote change to Strong delete, due to violations of process noted below by Al. Lucidish 01:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? Al is the one trying to get the article deleted. RJII 16:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I mean that you should not split an article when there is no consensus. That's a violation of process. Lucidish 16:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not the splitting of an article. This is the creation of a new article. Whether they want to delete the information in another article is another issue. RJII 16:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No, elimination of content from one article to be placed in new one is called "splitting". They are not separate issues. Lucidish 17:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

But, it hasn't been eliminated. You say there should be no "splitting" without a consensus, but HERE is where it's determined whether there is a consensus to allow this article to continue existing. You're vote counts as part of the consensus or lack thereof. Voting because you think there's no consensus makes no sense. Also, note that a survey was taken on the Objectivism discussion page whether to create this article for the purpose of cutting that very large section down to a paragraph or two with a link to here. The vote was 6 to create, and 2 not to create (Alenius and Gagnon). I would say that's a consensus. What Al is saying below is innaccurate. See for yourself in Talk:Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) under "Survey: Move Criticism section to its own article." It's unfortunate that he has mislead you. Please reconsider your vote, given this information. RJII 17:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• • I don't think you understand the history of Rand's followers on Misplaced Pages. They did this before to delete cited info. First, a criticism article was created, and then they forced it into deletion to get rid of the criticism permanently. This seems to be a second try at that. If we keep it in the main article, they won't delete the article. This is absolutely needed to avoid their censorship tactics. -- LGagnon 15:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Can you point us to the diffs of the earlier AfD? More to the point, if something silly like that does happen again, we just make sure the material is appropriately merged back in to the main article. Nandesuka 16:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • My main point was that there are so many objections to Rand's philosophy that they deserve their own article. Re: deletion, I'm quite plainly against that, for the same reasons you seem to have. I severely doubt there is any "consensus" here, so the article will not be deleted. Lucidish 16:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete'. POV fork. If the pro-Rand faction are as rational as they pretend to be, they'd see the criticism section belongs in the main article. -- GWO

A point of order. Given that the issue of creating this article was brought up on the parent article's talk page and failed to gain a genuine consensus, the burden is on those who support its existence to explain why it should continue to exist. In other words, we don't need a consensus to delete, we need a consensus to keep, and no such consensus exists.

If this article is allowed to remain, the POV of the main article will be hugely shifted pro-Rand, which is why the Randists uniformly support keeping this article. It is also why this article must go. Al 00:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

At this time, Nandesuka is the only non-Objectivist to offer even tepid support for keeping the article, and even he says "or merge" and admits that, as a stand-alone article, it's terrible. I think that this makes it entirely fair to say that the only people who support the existence of the article are Objectivists, which further supports my concerns that the goal of doing so is to shift the POV strongly towards Objectivism by isolating (and later destroying) all criticism, just like last time.

I also want to clarify one thing: while the creation of this page was out of order, I don't believe that Crazynas acted in bad faith. However, he did act in error and that error has since been coopted by the other Objectivists to further their stated goal of making Rand look as good as possible. Crazynas was just trying to be bold, and while I respect his intent, I cannot abide by the results.

Finally, I want to add that it is entirely reasonable to be concerned about article size, and I support fair measures to trim the main article down. It's just that I don't see this as a fair measure. Once this matter is settled, I will be glad to work with other editors to see how we can break out portions of the main to shrink it down, without shifting away from neutrality. Thank you. Al 01:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Not true that "Nandesuki is the only non-Objectivist." I'm not an Objectivist. RJII 03:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than refuting this myself, I will direct anyone who doubts my claim to look at your history. Thank you for understanding. Al 03:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No thanks for you calling me a liar. RJII 03:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Reasonable people can honestly disagree on such matters of classification. Please assume good faith and do not take everything as a personal attack. Thank you. Al 18:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What Alienius is saying above is false. There was a vote on the Objectivism talk page. The result was 6 to 2 to do this. Only 2 voted against. Those two were Alenius and Gagnon. 6 to 2 represents a conensus. It's not just a majority, but 2/3 in favor. See for yourself in Talk:Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) under "Survey: Move Criticism section to its own article." RJII 17:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The poll to determine whether Objectivism (Ayn Rand) should be split failed to gain consensus because it was uniformly supported by Objectivists and uniformly objected to by by non-Objectivists. The fact that people voted right down the party lines, so to speak, showed that there was no meeting of minds. It's clear that any temporary majority was no more than an artifact of greater participation by Objectivists, which is a fine example of why voting is evil. Moreover, speaking of fractions is meaningless when dealing with small numbers.

Fundamentally, we are not discussing whether a new article should be kept. This is not a new article; it is a fork of an old one. Moreover, it has been seen by almost all non-Objectivists as a POV fork, which is good reason in itself to remove it. Not a single non-Objectivist has fully endorsed keeping this article, while all Objectivists have done so. Remember, consensus can never trump the rules and cannot exist when there is strong factionalism.

Consider the parallel case of the cult labels. Multiple reliable sources have been put forth to show that there are articles and even books which call Objectivism a cult and Rand a cult leader. True or false, it's verifiable and notable, so we should report it. Once again, however, all of the Randists oppose this and all of the non-Randists support it. The result: party-line voting and no consensus to remove the tags.

We have to get past this partisanship if we're going to get anywhere. The first step is to burn this POV fork to the ground and salt the earth. The second is to require that everyone vote based on the rules, not merely what result they'd like. Otherwise, we will never achieve anything close to neutrality. Al 18:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

False again. I voted to create this article, and I'm not an Objectivist. You keep misleading people here. You've told them that there was no consensus to create this article, but there was. Then you tell them that the only people that voted in favor are Objectivists. But, that's not true either. RJII 18:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No, of course not. You just act like one in every way. It's a bizarre concidence. Al 18:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Look up "Randophobia." Everyone that opposes you is not an Objectivist. There is no particular way that Objectivists "act" that is different than any other person. Everyone, including you, is human. RJII 18:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with this comment. I'm not an objectivist, and the uncivil actions of the Randophobic faction here makes me ill (gotta love personal attacks like "I have not disenfrachised anyone; you Randists have" coming from LGagnon). All I've noticed from this discussion is that people who have a passionate, irrational hatred of objectivism are trying to get this article deleted. jgp (T|C) 19:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So, how long have you been a Libertarian? Al 19:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not a Libertarian. I do not like your tone, and you have just proved to me that you are trolling. jgp (T|C) 19:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Your user page identifies you as having views that I cannot distinguish from Libertarianism. Perhaps you're a fellow traveler, then. Al 20:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You're really confused, then. Being a libertarian doesn't make someone an Objectivist. But, I don't identify as a libertarian either. I'm an individualist. RJII 20:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete POV fork, no question. Aguerriero (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)