The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Trending towards keep. Most editors are of the view that we should be able to work out which regimes to include based on reliable sources listing a regime as totalitarian. Sandstein 11:30, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of totalitarian regimes[edit]

List of totalitarian regimes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This page is a bit flawed for a couple of reasons. First of all, what can be classed as totalitarian is disputed and the article does not exactly define what makes these countries totalitarian. Some may seem obvious but a lack of a definition may confuse some who may not find it so obvious. Secondly, it's quite a trivial criteria and is essentially "List of authoritarian regimes supported by the United States" all over again and according to WP:LISTDD, a list should not be based on something so trivial. Third is that this could be viewed as a POV fork which violates WP:NPOVVIEW and even on the article it states that some countries like Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan being totalitarian is disputed. Finally, the factual accuracy of the article is disputed and there needs to be additional sources for verification. For those four reasons, I propose the deletion of this article. I am aware I already proposed the deletion of this earlier this year but the consensus was keep but things need to be improved and so far I have yet to see any improvements on this article. The Ninja5 Empire (Talk) 04:47, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 04:53, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete This has been on my watchlist for 6 months or so and I've been observing the back and forth edits that support the nom's rationale. At root it's because there is no clear authority or understanding of what a totalitarian state is. One of the sources directly asserts this, saying "There is much confusion about what is meant by totalitarian in the literature" (#17 Rummel, R.J. (1994)). This confusion leads to endless churn and disagreement over what to include or not. It's not black and white only POVs. Given how the term 'totalitarian' is often used by political enemies to disparage former or current regimes, it's biased to find a single commentator who uses the term in a reliable source without some broader examination of the literature. If it must exist, it should be in prose form where editors have room to play out back and forth opinions and let the reader decide if it's totalitarian. -- GreenC 06:13, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Just because it's controversial doesn't mean it should be deleted. Benjamin (talk) 06:16, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Deletion is not cleanup. If there are problems with the present article - take it to the article talk page (which seems rather sparse) - and if you don't reach a consensus - try a RfC. Totalitarian regimes are clearly discussed as a set, and meet WP:NLIST. Icewhiz (talk) 06:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 06:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. List meets WP:LISTN, as totalitarian regimes are discussed extensively as a group or set by independent reliable sources. WP:LISTDD is an information page for prospective list creators, not a guideline or policy. Issues regarding the content of the article should be handled with editing and tagging, not deletion. — Newslinger talk</spanm> 13:19, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I’m against the deletion of the article, I agree it needs some expansion and work but right now it’s not like it’s inaccurate, and it’s really useful when someone is looking for a list of dictatorships and stuff, I find it really useful, especially for ideologies. The History Nerd5 (talk) 15:26, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete What is and isn't "Totalitarian" is down to opinion. Too ambiguous to have a Wiki article. Perhaps only populate this list with governments that openly called themselves Totalitarian. AlessandroTiandelli333 (talk) 17:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is and isn't totalitarian is down to what reliable sources say. That it might be called "opinion" is irrelevant. Benjamin (talk) 18:10, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is missing the point. Totalitarian is a matter of controversial opinion. This list is highly POV by favoring the sources that say yes, while completely ignoring sources that say otherwise. There's no room to discuss the pros and cons of why a regime might be called totalitarian, who is calling it totalitarian, and to give space to opposing POVs. The list is highly biased and will continue to be battleground. -- GreenC 18:17, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I said before, just because it's controversial, doesn't mean it should be deleted. Work out disagreements on the talk page. If a regime is called totalitarian by most sources, then so it is. Benjamin (talk) 18:27, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is no academic agreement on the meaning of totalitarian, I provided a source above, there is no way to just "work it out". Wikipedia was not designed this way, it was designed to allow for multiple POVs on controversial topics, not a single POV chosen on the talk page. A list is completely inappropriate for this topic. -- GreenC 18:33, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There doesn't have to be a perfect agreement. If there's disagreement, decide if most sources go one way or another, and then mention the disagreement on the article for that particular country. Benjamin (talk) 19:06, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That assumes it's even possible to decide if debates weigh towards one or another or somewhere in between. This is why we allow for inclusion of multiple POVs fully explained and expanded upon in prose format and let the reader decide. But that is not practical in a list article, where inclusion automatically labels it. -- GreenC 19:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there may be some edge cases, but I'd think usually the plurality of sources would go one way or another. Benjamin (talk) 19:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC

No actual totalitarian regime calls themselves “totalitarian” they don’t do that, why? Because they want to have a good international image and to be able to import and export stuff (in the case for less powerful totalitarian countries). I agree with the idea of adding totalitarian states to the list that are described by most sources as “totalitarian”, just because some Stalin loving communist weeb is throwing a fit about Stalinist Russia being on a list of “totalitarian regimes” doesn’t mean we should delete it, if we are going to delete this because it might offend other people then I suppose we need to delete every other dang article on Wikipedia that has the slightest bit of controversy or has offended someone. The History Nerd5 (talk) 23:00, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith. Reliable neutral academic literature says "There is much confusion about what is meant by totalitarian in the literature", the controversy is real outside partisan questions. -- GreenC 23:56, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any really high quality source that would say that North Korea isn't totalitarian? That the USSR wasn't? Like I said, there might be some disagreement about edge cases, but there are also cases where there isn't. Benjamin (talk) 07:14, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, but significantly reduce/change the list per sources. See here, for example. My very best wishes (talk) 00:05, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - responding in order to Nom's points. Regarding the first point, the failure to define would only have any reasonableness if we felt it was impossible for any definition for the majority of totalitarian countries to be satisfied (even if as simple as most reliable media refers to them as such). The second point regarding countries added under trivial criteria seems more of a clean-up point, the list itself doesn't seem unviable and trivial. Third, the presence of edge/potentially wrong cases doesn't indicate a POVFORK. It may be NPOV but it isn't unjustifiable. The factual accuracy of the majority of listed countries isn't really disputed. The need for clean-up remains, but a failure to progress doesn't change the underlying reasons for an article either warranting a Keep or Delete. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:39, 16 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep and rewrite, of course. I was already writing my reasons for delete; I agree with AlessandroTiandelli333 that we should have a clear definition of what totalitarianism is. I would add that it is a term often confused with authoritarianism, and there are some examples in the list which do not belong there. However, as Icewhiz explained, AfD is not and should not be a cleaning up project. An article like this one (perhaps paired with one on Authoritarian regimes) enriches Wikipedia. Den... (talk) 03:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.