ASP is under attack and slated for deletion at Wikipedia. Help give your organization new life and take a stand against their bias: American Socialist Party

Wikipedia has deleted "American Socialist Party", block, and rerouted the title to an outdated Socialist Party of America wiki. The editorial abuse there has led to a letter writing campaign. Contact Wikipedia Foundation and demand they reinstate our page.

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I'm a socialist, and I'm excited about the prospects of this new American Socialist Party.

You have some misunderstandings about how Wikipedia operates. That's okay. You aren't the first to make these same assumptions.

First, the "editors" at Wikipedia are everyone who presses the edit button there. You are one of the editors at Wikipedia. You are an unregistered editor, identified by IP, but to change this you'd simply go to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... =Main_Page and register a free account.

The editors are not elites, nor are they chosen by the Wikimedia Foundation. Everyone on Earth is welcome to be an editor, and the Wikipedian ideal is for all 7 billion of us to be editors.

So the editors who showed up to participate in the article's deletion discussion at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... list_Party were just regular people, volunteering their time. The Wikimedia Foundation did not direct them to consider deletion, and the Wikimedia Foundation absolutely will not override their decision. The Foundation never, absolutely never, reinstates an article that the community of volunteers chose to delete.

Unfortunately this means your letter-writing campaign is a complete waste of your time and theirs. It will not work, because that's just not how Wikipedia works. Nor will it convince anyone that Wikipedia has a bias against socialism. I have not encountered any sustained bias against socialism there. There are a few individuals who have such a bias, as is to be expected. But there are also many socialist Wikipedia editors, as well as socialist administrators. Some of the editors who voted to delete the ASP article are socialists, including Carrite, who is sympathetic to the recreation of the article at some point in the future when it can meet Wikipedia's community standards.

So, why did the article get deleted? For the very same reason that most new articles at Wikipedia get deleted: they do not meet Wikipedia's standard of notability. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Notability

I understand it's frustrating to read someone doubting that your organization even exists. It clearly does exist. Probably they meant that it hasn't been demonstrated that the organization yet exists as more than a collection of webpages. But even demonstrating an organizational structure outside the internet would not be sufficient.

Going through Wikipedia's archived deletion discussions at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... iscussions should be instructive. You will see thousands of similar arguments. "Why are you deleting my band's page? Why are you deleting my client's page? Why are you deleting my company's page?" The answer is always the same. It does not yet meet the notability requirement.

Basically, when you have several articles in sources independent of the ASP, substantively documenting the activities of the ASP in non-trivial detail, the ASP will definitively meet Wikipedia's notability requirement and the article then will not be deleted. Unfortunately, receiving that level of media coverage may take several months or years of work. But don't be discouraged; that work will be worth it.

I hope this answers your concerns, because I'm worried that this letter-writing campaign reflects somewhat poorly upon your new party. At least, it shows you did not take time to understand Wikipedia's policies before reacting. But like I said, this is not a big huge deal. You certainly aren't the first to make this very same misunderstanding!

I'm happy to answer any questions or other concerns you may have. I wish your party great success, in peace and solidarity.

There are no assumptions, the policies are clearly posted and argued. The code only user interface is the problem. Most readers in fact do not edit or try to change existing information to keep it current limiting what is in fact actual.



This is falsehood number one, I had a profile and it was deleted by editors from Wikipedia.org who are known members of other socialist parties and tendencies. We expect that this bias would not happen, but the fact is abuse does happen by those who have no business in the Wild West Wikipedia professionally editing something they have no information of/on themselves. Even the very title "American Socialist Party" has been blocked and rerouted to keep anyone from try to edit or make people aware such an organization does exist, now or ever. A letter writing campaign does bring voice to what should be at the very least be an open title.



Falsehood two, the fact is there are those with more ability than others at Wikipedia.org who only have their say. I have been threatened several times for speaking out against this poor choice in policy. This compounded with the user interface only allows those with more ability to cite, reference, and etc., materials.



This is de facto elitist. Those persons in fact did not take actual efforts to create, but rather to destroy even the very name/title. That is even less than democracy than the worst dictatorships of the world's history.



Then we shall waste our time calling those editors out on the carpet so the Wikipedia Foundation can take a review of this for themselves. Those that took down the very title, "American Socialist Party" will have to explain how they determined the information.

The problem with too many styled socialists editors is bias against any new organization popping up. New ideas are not allowed in ideological differences and are oppressed by such editors. Our organization is intended to fight such bias directly and work for unity as our masthead clearly shows socialism's basic principle, "Thesis + Anti-thesis = Synthesis".



The very fact the title was removed when it was "Notable" enough to exist for years clearly points to the bias and hateful claims of internal hate by some groups.



Everyone has to start somewhere, this organization had a year long talk before ever going to Wikipedia.org and having the door slammed in our faces. We expected such a page would come under personal attack due to bias of known editors. This has help in one way, a policy review in being worked up. The problem is that this very review will also be list on every website of ASP which means, "It is still a collection of webpages." The difference is that information will be more disseminated for public consumption.



Changing the user interface to a more modern point and click would help bring in those without coding skills. It is not the policies that harm.



Do yourself a favor, setup a Google Alert for "American Socialist Party" (make sure to use quotes). I read many things people write everyday about us that are in fact not famously posted. How is it everyday people know about us and yet those claiming to be "in the know" actually know less? It is directly because of their personal bias for unity to protect their tendency or specific ideology they fear "loss of control".



The very fact someone came here to try and discourage actual people from writing says they have a fear of loosing their status within Wikipedia.org by the foundation who has ultimate control and can lockout those same editors from ever touching "American Socialist Party"'s title again. Showing we are real people and being active is what those editors directly asked for and we intend on giving them what they want. Reminds me of an old joke, "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself."



Why does Wikipedia Foundation not require real and verified names for all its editors and/or professional references?

As a side note, ASP intentional waited until close to this 2010 election to post to Wikipedia.org to help bring attention to socialism. This is gearing up for elections in 2012 when and where more voters are most likely to to be active. To slam the door on the very title smacks of hateful and ill intent against this organization.

The gods of Wikipedia intentionally redirect ASP to a defunct organization with intent to lie about us as not being real people and yet the same gods-of-wiki claim to stand for social justice.