Barack Obama has begun to use a campaign slogan of "Forward" for his 2012 reelection campaign. Wikipedia has a year-old page titled "Forward (generic name of socialist publications," which lists a number of publications, past and present, associated with both Socialism and Communism, titled "Forward" in other languages.
Liberals now want Wikipedia to remove the page because the data provided on the page is being used to connect Barack Obama's new slogan with Socialist and Communist publications using the name "Forward."
At the very top of that page is a notice:
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page.
Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the Guide to deletion.
Below is a screen shot taken on 5.5.12, in case the page disappears. Click image to enlarge.
From the page:
In the English translation, the term Forward has historically been used in the titles of socialist and politically left-leaning periodical publications.[1][2] The context of the title connoted an "urge for progress".[3]
Vorwärts! (German for 'Forward', with an exclamation point as part of the name) was a revolutionary German emigré publication issued in Paris in the mid-1840s. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were amongst the contributors to the magazine. Whilst the publication was short-lived, it had a lasting impact and served as an inspiration for later socialist press outlets. A second Vorwärts (without exclamation point) was founded in 1876, being an organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and with Wilhelm Liebknecht as its first editor.[4] In the years before the First World War, the term 'vorwärts' was almost monopolized in German political discourse by the Social Democrats, and the name was used for various publications and organizations.[5]
The German Vorwärts inspired socialists around the world.[6] The Yiddish daily Forverts, founded in New York in 1897, was named after the German publications (which were well-known amongst Jewish radical circles at the time). Rather than using the Yiddish word faroys, a transliteration of the German name was used.[4] Another prominent example has been Vpered (Russian language for 'Forward'), the publication that Lenin started after having resigned from the Iskra editorial board in 1905 after a clash with Georgi Plekhanov and the Mensheviks.[1] The name did however fall out of fashion in Russia after the October Revolution. A Volga German Bolshevik newspaper named Vorwärts was re-baptized Nachrichten as the Soviet leadership wished to avoid associations with the German Social Democratic organ.[7] The Liverpool Forward was published from 1912 to 1914 in Liverpool, United Kingdom.[8]
Other publications named Forward (in different languages)
- Avante!, of the Portuguese Communist Party
- Avanti!, organ of the Italian Socialist Party
- Eteenpäin, Finnish-language newspaper in the United States
- Új Előre ('New Forward'), a Hungarian-language newspaper in the United States
- Forverts, commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward
- Vorwärts!, 19th century journal of the Communist League
- Vorwärts, the central organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany published daily in Berlin from 1891 to 1933
- Adelante, a Communist-party organ in Cuba.
Despite listing examples of Socialist and Communist publications, which is what the title of the page indicates it is about, Liberals are determined to push Wikipedia into removing the page.
It is clear this is a liberal effort to remove the Wikipedia connection between Obama's campaign slogan "Forward" and historical and current publications directly related to Socialists and Communist publications , by the language used in the ongoing Wikipedia discussions regarding the deletion of the page.
Examples:
I have thus submitted it to be deleted. SkepticAnonymous (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)SkepticAnonymous (talk) 19:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- I believe I know why this article was created. It was a "disambiguation" deliberately made to cause tilted mentions on the top of certain pages. See my re-edit comparison here. SkepticAnonymous (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
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- New slogan by Obama-Biden 2012 campaign. There ya go. If you're far enough on the right wing loony fringe even a tepid, unprincipled, warmongering, capitalist centrist like Obama looks like a Socialist; ergo, out comes the POV tarring brushes for an exercise in Baffling 'Em With Bullshit... Carrite (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Delete -OR at best, patent nonsense at worst. This is Campaign 2012 fooliganism related to the new Obama campaign slogan, with the Right Wing POV warriors starting the offensive to skew WP content with a view to affecting public perception of that campaign. Start taking names for the inevitable topic bans to follow. Carrite (talk) 23:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
The creator of the page attempts to explain the page was started before Obama took the word "Forward" as his campaign slogan.
Comment. I might try to give an explanation as to why the article was started (in the spring of 2011, obviously without any linkage to the Obama campaign). I had wanted to write a passage for the Vorwärts article on other publications named after it, but was then confronted with the fact that there had been 2 'motherships' so to speak, and it was not possible in a non-OR way to determine which was related to which. The conclusion is that the term, or better said the name, has a specific place in early modern socialist discourse. For me, the intention was never that the article would merely be a link page or disamb, but would be dedicated to the evolution of the name and its usage. The subject is notable, it is not OR, it is not POV, and Wikipedia should not be tailored to fit political campaigns. Btw, 'Mitt' is the Khmer Rouge word for 'Comrade'. --Soman (talk) 08:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
No matter, liberals still continue to hammer on the article following the comment above. It appears there are more "keeps" (keep the page) than there are "deletes" (remove the page)
Examples of the "keep" comments:
If the article is over a year old, then how is this political shananigans? Don't let politics in here, if the president choose a slogan that happens to mesh with something from the past, that should not affect whether or not this article is on here. If there is verifiably false data, that should be adjusted or removed, but to throw out the whole thing flies in the face of the purpose of this site. Peterwesson (talk) 16:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
If the article was accurate before the Obama campaign adopted it then it is still accurate. Keep it and lock it down to prevent politicising it. Deleting it would actually BE a political act by Wikipedia; freezing it would not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GaJoe1950 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- — GaJoe1950 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Obvious keep. The article has existed for over a year, and its creation cannot be attributed to an event that had not yet happened. #1: The article does not remotely meet G1. #2/3: That articles are being used for attacks is not a reason to delete them, that's a reason to protect them and/or hand out blocks. #4/5: As far as sources go, the article is pretty well-sourced. The nominator was clearly throwing out a bunch of reasons to see if any stick. Well, none of them have stuck. --Chris (talk) 17:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- Strong keep. Meets notability and verifiability. I agree with Chris: users, not an article, should be punished for bad behavior. And depending on how it's presented, I'm not even sure that a well-sourced mention of Obama's new slogan is bad behavior. The controversy has clearly become notable in itself. SpectraValor (talk) 18:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- Keep'. Neither is this article nonsense nor are spurious personal attacks a reason to delete an article that has been in existence for more than a year. Chris has said it all. De728631 (talk) 18:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
There are plenty arguing to keep the page since it is a year old page, but the very fact that liberals are so up in arms and insistent on attempting to force Wikipedia to remove the page, stinks of their desire for censorship.
Revision history of the "Forward (generic name of socialist publications," page, found here.