Template talk:Socialist parties in the Netherlands

I have reverted user:Onecanadasquarebishopsgate's actions before and will do it again, but I'll argue my case here. The new version is problematic for three reasons:

1. The use of party images on templates violates fair use policy
2. The template is based around a simple criterion for inclusion. Having gained seats in parliament. If we don't stop there we can add a host of parties to the template from the International Communist League, via the League of Socialist Propaganda Clubs and the PSP'92 to the Socialist Union. Having gained seats in parliament is a reasonable criterion
3. The red flag is not used by any Dutch party as a sign of socialism and was not used dominantly by any party, the PvdA uses a rose and the SP uses a tomato.

I hope that we can discuss this and come to some kind of compromise - C mon (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the first point. However, I disagree with the point about inclusion. The template is called "Socialist, Communist and Social-Democratic political parties in the Netherlands", as long as they are what the title states then they can be included. We cannot ignore the parties that have not gained seats in parliament - for example the NCPN have gained seats within Dutch municipalities and were very successful in Reiderland.

As for the third point, I included it because it represents communism and socialism. Have a look at this image [1], Dutch communist and socialist political parties definitely use the red flag. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 20:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The NCPN is an irrelevant political party in Dutch politics, putting it on the same line as the PvdA and the SP overstates its political importance. It has no national importance. Moreover there are many other communist and socialist political parties (esp. historic) which are not included, because they were not nationally important: consider the PSP'92, the Socialist Union, the Socialist Workers' Party, Socialist Alternative Politics, the League of Communist Propaganda Clubs, the Independent Socialist Party, the International Communist League, the Communist Unity Party Marxist/Leninist, the Union of Communists in the Netherlands, Solidarity '93, Group of Marxist-Leninists/Red Dawn, Marxistisch-Leninistische Partij Nederland, Solidara . We need a criteria for inclusion, having won seats in an election is not such a strange criterion for inclusion. It is used for instance by the Dutch government (for party finance) and on other templates (such as {{Dutch Political Parties}}. Please explain what kind of principle of inclusion would allow for the inclusion of the NCPN, but not for the other parties. C mon (talk) 21:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well firstly it has national importance - it is after all a current national communist party. Your last comment tells me that the other parties you mentioned are not current. We are not here to judge the importance of the NCPN - though it has been proven that it has the potential to win elections in municipalities (so it has some influence over Dutch politics). The Dutch government does not decide what is included on Wikipedia - as far as Wikipedia is concerned, if it is communist, Dutch and current then it belongs in the template.

The principle you are asking for is the collection of Wikipedia's policies, especially WP:NPOV. But I see what you are saying about how Wikipedia sometimes needs conventions - so maybe we should replace the template with two templates - historical Dutch socialist/communist parties, and current Dutch socialist/communist parties. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 18:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Several of the parties listed still exist: solidara currently has seats in the Dutch senate, PSP'92 participated in the North Holland provincial elections. We need a clear criterion for inclusion: having seats in parliament is the best there is. You still have been unable to offer me another criterion.

Your "compromise" is absurd. This template is designed to cross cut historical periods. There is a template for current parties and a [[:template:Historical Dutch political parties[template for historical parties]] and then three cross-cutting period template for the three main ideological families: socialists, liberals and Christian-Democrats. Adding a special template for current socialist parties would be redundant, because all those parties are included in the contemporary parties template as well, the same is true for the historical template, which are included in the general historical parties template. C mon (talk) 22:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You say that I am still unable to offer you another criterion - you never asked for another criterion, you asked for a principle, so I provided a principle for the most basic of criterion - if the NCPN is communist (yes), Dutch (yes) and a political party (yes) then it belongs in the template.

You say that I am still unable to offer you another criterion - you don't need another criterion apart from the obvious - the template's title (except for the Dutch political parties template, I'll explain).

• 1 template for the Dutch political parties with the criterion you suggested. This template would be too full otherwise - there's no problem here.
• 3 templates for the 3 ideological families without the criterion you suggested. Otherwise it would be pointless, it would just be the Dutch political parties template divided into 3 groups with some historic parties. Must we wait for the NCPN to become historic (if it does) before we can add it to the template?

Wikipedia cannot judge the importance of political parties, yet it is often better to wait for the problems to arrive before solving them (putting the cart before the horse often causes more problems than it solves). I have yet to see a problem with including the NCPN that does not go against WP:NPOV or WP:SOAP. Any suggestions? Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 18:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't see how your proposal works. While you argue that a template for contemporary parties would be too crowded without a criterion for inclusion, you claim that making templates that also involve historical parties without the criterion for inclusion are not too crowded. But the number of historic parties is much larger than the number of contemporary parties, far more than the 3 times that the split in three party families would offer. So if the contemporary template needs a criterion for inclusion so would the cross-cutting party-family based ones and the historic templates.

You claim that a cross-cutting template is pointless because it would just be the contemporary parties of a party family with some historic parties, but on each of the three templates (this one, Template:Dutch liberal political parties]] and [[:template:Dutch Christian Parties}}) the large majority is historical parties (66,%, 80% and 88%) respectively.

Moreover, you start referring to wikipedia policies, but I think that including the NPCN would go in against both WP:SOAP and WP:NOTABILITY, because, the NCPN is just too insignificant to be included. For templates criterion of inclusion are necessary otherwise they become arbitrary collections of links. How do we decide which prominent communists get on the template:communism? Which ideologies get on the template:ideologies? We need criterion for inclusion for that.

Even if the NCPN would be historic wouldn't work because for historic parties the criterion for inclusion (having won seats in parliament) still applies. That's why the Internationale Kommunistenbond is not included either. C mon (talk) 21:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTABILITY does not affect the content of articles, it only affects the creation of seperate articles - so that policy does not apply here. As for WP:SOAP, it works for both opinions - you could say that including the NCPN supports the NCPN, but you could also say that not including the NCPN shows that editors favour the SP, PvdA and GroenLinks over the NCPN. How do we decide? We use sections, for example the NCPN and Kommunistenbond would be under a communist section, and so on. This template is confusing because it isolates certain parties, such as the NCPN, as if they don't exist. We can't really judge if the parties have any significance, how can we? The goal of many communist parties is to concentrate more on demonstrations, for example the Communist Party of Britain was in London last week. They may not win the next general election, but I don't see Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats taking part in as many demonstrations. The CPB has a presence as the largest British communist party and as a supporter of anti-war coalitions, but that won't be found at the polling station. In fact, the BNP has also not won any seats in the British parliament - yet it is one of the most discussed (and controversial) parties in the United Kingdom.

Why have the templates in the first place when we can just link to the list of political parties? If there is a historic party majority in the three templates then why not remove the current parties and rename them as historic parties templates?

I suggest we include all the parties and the templates in a sandbox and continue finding a compromise from there. We could also leave the real templates alone for now so as not to affect too many articles. I think a compromise can be found, what do you think? Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 10:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I'm willing to compromise but we are currently in gridlock and not showing any movement. I stand by my criterion, and you stand by having no criterion. I have created two version, one with a criterion for inclusion and without one. C mon (talk) 13:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With criterion for inclusion

Without any criterion for inclusion

Good. Now we need to find a compromise between the 2 templates. Significance is difficult to measure as there is no scale (seats in parliament, demonstrations, media are all ways of gaining significance). Any other ways of measuring the parties, such as size? The NCPN website is awful as far as navigation is concerned, do you know if the NCPN is larger than the other communist parties? I know they have gained municipalities and I haven't heard of any other current communist party gaining them. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 11:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No the compromise should be the following: all parties on the template (I'm not going to cater to a criterion of inclusion which is oriented at including the NPCN, but excluding others) but we separate them in levels of importance. Like this: C mon (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good, I think this a good version. I'll edit the template now, if you have any other suggestions then please list them here. Thanks. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 11:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]