Talk:List of dictators/Archive 4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Duplicates

Now that the list has survived AfD, should it be merged into List of dictators? We could have the "list of lists" followed by the long table. Gazpacho 20:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

  • That might be an idea. But I think the "list of lists" while very relevent deal with the matter less directly and should be in a "see also" section perhaps. Or put into a paragraph together. If so, maybe there should be one of those italic sub-headers directing to the "List of Roman dictators" for the minority who will be looking for that. With those caveats I concur with your suggestion. jucifer 21:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Continents

I have always understood "the Americas" to include the carribean. Is this wrong? jucifer 00:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Often, but not always, it is used that way. I don't see any disadvantage in being explicit that we mean to include the Carribean.

Cutoff date

From the Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836:

the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism. . . . . the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet. . . . civil society is dissolved into its original elements.

It doesn't use the word "dictator," but I can't see what distinguishes it from many other Latin American dictatorships. Setting the cutoff at 1800 puts us a little after the American and French revolutions, which started the modern trend of republicanism. It catches Napoleon, Santa Anna, and all of the officially titled dictators listed at dictator. And it's a round number. Gazpacho 10:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Modern day/modern usage

I think there is some confusion here which is my fault. I think the article can be moved to "List of dictators" as it now stands (with the Roman note). That is what people would be looking for, and it would clear up any ambiguity in the definitions. Does anyone object?

jucifer 18:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

List of dictators currently is a content page with links to several related pages (including this one). So you can't really move this over that. I suppose a merge of some sort might be possible, but given the link back here, it seems easy enough for readers to find this list. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
True, but it was only started during the AfD and I have added all the content into a "See Also" headed at the bottom here. It's just that modern day refers to a vague period and modern usage refers to group of people that broadly correspond but not clearly, so I think that "modern day" is not really adding anything here. jucifer 19:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, fine with me to move then. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
At the suggestion of Jiang and the approval of Lulu, and with no expressed dissent, I will move the article to "List of Dictators". I will archive the extensive comment on the talk page there, and add the stuff that is here to there to ensure continuity. I will also provide a brief explaination. jucifer 00:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI

I am going to relist this page for deletion five days after the closing of the vote at the earliest, possibly somewhat later if my schedule does not allow to list it on Wednesday, barring considerable progress in the article. I will relist the article unless the criterion for inclusion of any leader becomes 'source X calls leader Y a dictator,' not that Wikipedia is classifying Y as such. Given the NPOV policy, it must be clear that Wikipedia is withholding editorial judgment, not endorsing the work of X or classifying Y on its own.

Further, progress must be made on the row entitled "years of rule." Years of dictatorial rule do not necessarily coincide with with the holding of any official office and vice versa. Despite all the nonsense we saw on the VfD thread, with some users asserting, "It's quite easy to figure out who is a dictator," it is not easy. Figuring out a criterion consistent in every row for "years of rule" down the entire column for every "dictator" will be quite difficult when one runs across figures who ruled largely informally such as Plutarco Elías Calles and Deng Xiaoping, will be a challenge. (I'm fundamentally skeptical that this can be accomplished within the confines of rows and tables embedded in an encyclopedia adhering to NOR and NPOV. But I wish everyone willing to give this article a chance luck, as I do not look forward to relisting it.) 172 20:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose. I think you should really give it a decent rest. If nothing else, I am confident that a large number of AfD voters will vote against a new AfD, in principle, if it is listed so very quickly after the defeat of a prior one (which is how they should vote: I would vote against such a rapidly renewed AfD on any topic, even if I otherwise thought it merited deletion). Anyway, I am entirely certain that a new AfD would be defeated by an even larger margin now that we've worked on the page. Other than a stubborn insistence that such a list must always be POV, I no longer see any concrete POV dispute here. I'm sure someone can argue about a particular name or its annotation, but in general, I think we have obtained a good quality, NPOV list now. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Duly noted. I hope to see more acknowledgment, though, that the entries are on leaders 'regarded by some to have been dictators,' so that readers go away with the understanding that many of the matters brought up on the list are subject to further debate and research.
To the other users adide from Lulu, who is already familiar with what I am about to say, progress on the introduction will help avoid a relisting of the AfD. Less important than the focus on the pejorative implications of the term should shaper specification of the POVs of those using the term for any given leader, the limitations of what the term reveals, and the ambiguities associated with figuring out when to use a particular definition. I recommend that the users intersted in writing the intro take a look at Jeremy Shapiro's comment on the AfD. Shapiro's comment has been the most insightful basis for circumscribing the matter of 'listing modern dictators' stated so far. (I read it thinking, "I wish I'd been as clear all along." But I guess that there's no need to be hard on myself for not working on same level as someone like an associate of Habermas.) Save the personal references, perhaps the text of the comment can serve as a rough template for writing the intro. 172 23:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Curiously at this point I might switch around to go delete if this went up again. I don't think there's anything inherently POV or wrong about such a list. I do think it seems to be attracting people with a POV agenda or who are just generally petty. That and the idea is maybe already better covered by other lists. Still it might be improving so I'm undecided. I probably just won't vote either way if it's relisted.--T. Anthony 06:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Jeremy Shapiro's comment

Just for ease, 172 recommends Shapiro's comment for inclusion in the intro. I reproduce it here just to keep things together. I also have great respect for Shapiro; however, I'm not sure we want a much longer intro, since readers can follow the link to dictator for much more discussion.

Comment I have some serious problems with the article, and I can think more clearly if I try to articulate them rather than jump into Keep or Delete. First of all, I should say that I have a problem with the whole nature of lists on Wikipedia as well as in popular culture generally, where they often scarcely count as knowledge or even information but more as sound bites, and I don't think I've seen a good argument for them except when they are indisputable historical facts, e.g. list of British kings, Nobel Prize winners, and so on. I notice that in the breakdown of Wikipedia articles with the most hits, one of the top ones is List of French people. I won't even comment on such an absurd idea.
Be that as it may (and clearly I differ on the value of lists from others on this page, for me the main issue with the dictators list isn't even whether it constitutes original research or not or is NPOV. It's rather that, even though the term "dictator" is meaningful in a general, everyday sort of way, in reality it means rather different things in different historical contexts, and lumping all of these dictators together without explaining those contexts and the reasons for including each one distorts the political and social reality and tends to encourage simple-minded thinking, which isn't what Wikipedia is supposed to be doing. It seems clear that there is a huge difference between dictators who simply grew into or inherited a dictatorial position in some authoritarian state structure, dictators who usurped power from a constitutional republic or democracy, totalitarian dictators, and dictators who created a totalitarian dictatorship in the first place -- I'm sure that there are several other categories -- and, similarly, what it means to live in different dictatorships is quite different, depending on the nature of state power, the extent of countervailing powers, and various other factors. And it means something quite different to be a dictator as absolute ruler who by sheer will have thousands of people slaughtered and to be a dictator as the top dog in a bureaucratic dictatorship without such power. At different times in my life I have visited three different countries that legitimately count as dictatorships and had dictators -- one a Communist society, one a fascist dictatorship, and one an authoritarian constitutional monarchy -- but they operated quite differently from one another, and even though there is a sense in which the boss of each country was a dictator, the term obscures as much as it reveals, and putting them together on a list would really be distorting of the political reality.
Furthermore, one could contest whether by definition the king in the constitutional monarchy was a dictator, even though if you knew anything about the society you would have to agree that he was. One way to think about this would be to ask ourselves, would be want to have a list of "rulers"? In that case we'd have to add George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Jacques Chirac to that list. But to have them on the same list with Stalin and Hitler would be kind of silly. There are lists of "national leaders" and "heads of state", but those can be defined objectively and bureaucratically. So it seems to me that, to keep a list of dictators on Wikipedia, there needs to be a stronger and clearer argument not only as to why, but as to what it actually means (which I guess is similar to those who say that it's inherently POV). It also seems to me that there would need to be a prior discussion as to the subcategories of dictators (e.g. those I mentioned above and some others) and what the criteria would be for allocating individuals to those subcategories. Jeremy J. Shapiro 14:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

(Old) Disputed

If there is a current POV, verifiability, or original research complaint that is not simply a generic dislike of the topic or an exercise in WP:POINT, please place it here per editing guidelines. Please consult the respective guidelines to identify the alleged violation with specificity.

The mere existence of scholarly debate over the term is not a dispute by WP standards (in fact, such is true of essentially any scholarly topic). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

What is POV?

Incidentally, if editors advance a "categorical POV" argument, this same argument applies recursively to WP as a whole. A large percentage of the articles in the individuals listed say (usually right in the first paragraph) that the person is/was a "dictator". So if the very use of the word is claimed to be POV, editors should equally try to stick the NPOV tag on all the linked pages, and presumably nominate them all for AfD as "inherently POV". Basically, I don't buy it. If the same facts can be NPOV if stated on individual pages, there's no reason they suddenly become "inherently POV" if collected into a list.

It is true that not every article of a listed name describes the person as a dictator. Most do, but not all. Those that do not should certainly be accompanied by some sort of external citation of the usage. Better still, the corresponding articles should (eventually) be be modified to include the description. But external sources are not automatically bad. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Lists are easier to attack on this or any other issue. In the case of their articles calling them dictators you'd have to do enormous work to eliminate all that. Destroying or criticizing this is comparatively easier.--T. Anthony 13:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

More silly boxes

Hmmm.. Ox - Oxen; Box - Boxen. I like it! jucifer 23:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It's an old computer joke. Several VAX were described as vaxen (by joking back formation). Later, unixen was less widely adopted. But boxen for multiple servers is common: e.g. "My Linux boxen". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Individual named: ruler/leader/person/???

I changed the "Leader" of User:172 (which was a change-over from "Dictator") to "Ruler" because "Ruler" implies autocracy while "Leader" implies that the whole country actually follows the guy (when several citizens probably don't). Besides, the whole argument is silly. We might as well title the column Big Brother or Tyrant or Tenno or some such thing. — Rickyrab | Talk 05:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

And I'm changing it to "person" because "ruler" carries a suggestion of popular illegitimacy. I guess many editors just haven't had the pleasure of a edit-warring with a totalitarian apologist, but I have, and it's made me wary of saying something is so just because other Americans agree that it's so. Gazpacho 06:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

"Person" is almost the same as "Human", which sounds extremely ridiculous. You're better off leaving the field blank because it's obvious that the dictator in question is a "person" (well, duh!). I don't think "leader" necessarily implies popular. It only implies responsibility and power, which is a reflection of reality. The negatively connotations in "ruler" are already present in the word "dictator". It's about time that we renamed this article list of persons! --Jiang 06:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, change it back to leader per Jiang. With all the problems on this list (btw, if it hasn't been clear already, I'm still not a big fan!), the POV connotations of "leader" is not one of them. 172 10:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Holy crap! There is a list of persons! I say leave it blank, it is not needed. jucifer 14:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed

Going through the Europeans I removed Quisling and Szlai. If anyone knows otherwise go ahead and replace them.

  • I had previously removed Castilla, Nunez, Belzu and Gomez. jucifer 16:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Alphabetization of Asia

Correct alphabetization for Asia section: Akayev, Aliyev, Arif, Assad, Ayub, Bakr, Chiang, Choybalsan, Chun, Deng, Diem, Ershad, Gayoom, Karimov, Kaysone, Khamtai, Khomeini, Kim, Lon Nol, Mahathir, Mao, Marcos, Ne Win, Niyazov, Park, Qassem, Saddam, Suharto, Than Shwe, Yahya, Yuan, Zia-ul-Haq —Sesel 18:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The list of American rulers used to be in alphabetical order. Now it's totally random -- not by date, not by last name, not by alphabetical order of the country. Why is that? User:Zoe|(talk) 00:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  • They are in order, but by their first names! jucifer 00:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

How many Americas

Someone broke out the Caribbean from the continental Americas. I'm not quite sure why, but I have no objection. Maybe just size of the lists. I like what I did to put the subsections under a higher level "Americas" section. I wonder, however, if we should break it down further, and break "North, south and central" into... well, "North", "South" and "Central". Not sure if Mexico should be North or Central if so though. Any opinions? I don't feel strongly, but I guess I'd be moderately inclined towards the subsections (just because it matches geography a bit better: we don't lump together "Eurasia" despite the closer land-mass connection). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, if North America doesn't include Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean, then there aren't any North American dictators - I can't think of any leaders of the U.S., Canada, or Newfoundland who would qualify (Huey Long, perhaps?) john k 19:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, probably Mexico should be North. I don't think Huey Long ruled a sovereign nation: LA was technically part of the USA, even if some of them did speak French :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

New title?

Why was this moved without discussion. "Modern era" is even more ambiguous than "Modern day." No consensus? Three people in favour with no dissent. It was moved to allay concerned mentioned on the talk page. jucifer 11:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried to move it back from this pointless new title but the history has been deleted from the old article. How did that happen? jucifer 11:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. Given Stirling Newberry's prior efforts to edit as a WP:POINT effort to "make the article deserve deletion", I have to wonder if this mess has less the perfect intentions too. The prior move was discussed, and no disagreement was expressed on this talk page. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Jesus. What a mess. I don't even know what page I'm editing anymore. jucifer 17:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We should be back where we belong at List of dictators. I think if we get an admin skilled in the tools, we can get the edit history pasted back together onto this page, where it belongs. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
What the hell happened to the history. I went back to April 2002. How was he able to do that? jucifer 17:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't tell me that this Stirling Newberry is an admin? jucifer 17:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure of everything that happened here, but Lulu told me the page history got lost, so I've moved the page back to List of dictators with the old page history, and now List of modern-era dictators and List of modern dictators are redirects. Hope this is okay. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks. jucifer 18:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We should all give our thanks to the saintly admin, SlimVirgin. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussion on relevant Main articles

Would it be a reasonable to ask that the subjects of this list have mention of dictator in their Main article ? Should a Category Dictator to point to this list ? Wizzy…☎ 20:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere in this talk page, I think that external citations of the "dictator" usage should be adequate, but mention of the usage on subject article is desirable. I would generally oppose a category, however. This is a case where a list is better, since it allows much needed annotation to describe the membership considerations. A category (like the pre-annotated list) treats everything in it as undifferentiated and alike. That's not desirable for something as contextual as "dictator". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I, too, object to a Category:Dictators. And I think it odd that the creation of a good article here should be dependent on the existence of good articles elsewhere. If our article about some alleged dictator is really bad, that shouldn't be reason not to list it here if citations can be found. john k 20:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Categories are brutish things. Also, by the way, just because someone is on the List of Lutherans doesn't mean that that need be on the page - it should ideally. Everyone is free to edit the articles of all the names on this list as they see fit. jucifer 21:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Certainly the annotations are very useful context, and I was really thinking that this page might be 'pasted' into the category description page. (and I am aware of the obvious objections to that). It was just that I followed some of those links, and thought that the people who checked those pages might be good editors over here. Perhaps a short item on their Talk pages would be in order. Wizzy…☎ 21:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Letting regular editors of the respective linked pages know about this page would be useful. They might be more knowledgeable about the particular ruler, and either wish to include the "dictator" description on the individual page and/or opine on the inclusion here. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

How to alphabetize?

Many of the names here are not obvious to me how to sort. Different languages have varying orthography. For example, I just moved Ngô Ðình Diệm to "D" in the sort order, and John Kenney moved it back to "N". That strikes me as wrong, especially given that he's called Diệm in his article (after initial mention). But my knowledge of Vietnamese is basically nil. Likewise, some of the Spanish and Arabic names are sometimes confusing as to which is the family name for sort purposes.

I wonder if we can follow a convention for added names to give a comment indicating the sort key. For example, perhaps Diem would be entered as:

[[Ngô Ðình Diệm]] <!-- N -->

(Or with a "D" if that's actually right). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

How about Continent/Country/Date - not name at all ? It would give some useful extra context, and we can spell that :-) Wizzy…☎ 22:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought of that. Countries change names sometimes, so we'd have to decide how to handle that. But date seemed like the tricky part: which date is the one to use? Year of birth? Year when head-of-state? Beginning? End? Year when dictator (if different)? I do kinda think that if a date is a sort key, it should have higher precedence than country; that lets a reader group contemporary events on the same continent, which is harder to do if countries are a higher precedence key. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the date to use is when head-of-state. That puts them in proper context with their peers, and is verifiable. Wizzy…☎ 06:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I suppose alphabetization rules for each language is verifiable too; you just need to know it :-). But I like Wikiwizzy's idea. Let's sort Continent/First year as header-of-state (or other ruler)/Name. That still leaves us trying to figure out name alphabetization in edge case where two dates are the same, but that's a smaller problem. Anyone else object to this change? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I didn't mean to move Diem at all - I seem to have accidentally reverted the article through editing an out of date version. In terms of the rest, I agree that a country/date format might make more sense than a name based alphabetization. On the other hand, name based means would be easier if you're looking for a particular individual. I would add the caveat, once again, that not all dictators are heads of state. Mussolini, Primo, Metaxas, and Salazar, for instance, were all only heads of government. Many communist dictators were only heads of the communist party. Some other dictators have other titles entirely, or none - Noriega was head of the Panamanian national guard; Qaddafi has no official title. john k 06:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

POV descriptions

The listing of certain individuals here is always going to be controversial. There is certainly going to be disagreement for most entries on whether the individual qualifies as a "dictator." To be NPOV, both sides of the argument - for and against applying the label "dictator" - must be presented. The current "Notes" section only explains why the individual qualifies as a dictator. We must balance it with well-cited opinions on why this individual is not a dictator. For example, under Deng Xiaoping, I put "resisted creating a personality cult". Of course, there's more, and we need to be much more comprehensive than this.--Jiang 09:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I enthusiastically agree with Jiang's general point. But we should resist getting too verbose in the notes area, since more of that discussion will fall in the individuals much longer article. I think the way I did Castro is a pretty good pattern (obviously, details vary between rulers): Say who calls him a dictator (US press), give a few links, very briefly characterize the respects in which he does or doesn't match. But fit the whole bit in a couple sentences, with readers implicitly directed to the subject article. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorted by date!!!

Whaa?

When did this happen?

Kudos to the user who changed them - it must have taken effort. I must say though, I don't see much benefit this way. jucifer 03:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Take a look a bit higher on this talk page. The notion seemed to have reached rough consensus (if only because we don't know how to alphabetize some of the names :-)). Someone else went ahead with Africa (I think Jiang, but I might remember wrong); so I date sorted a couple others (I believe Oceania and Caribbean). Feel free to finish the rest. It's actually not all that hard to do with a bit of cut-and-paste.
I do think it has a benefit (as I say above). Seing a rough chronology of these dictators gives some idea of historical trends and patterns. It's not an overwhelming gain, but it seems moderately better as new names are added. To find a particular name should be covered by browser search functions, even if you don't know a dictator's date (or even country). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I guess. It's perhaps a bit unencyclopaedic though. It's a list not a chronology - but I see the point. jucifer 21:33, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV warning

For this list to be NPOV, each and every entry needs to be accompanied by verifiable and notable references in which these people are described as dictators. Once that is done, the article to remain NPOV needs to be moved to List of people described as dictators. Read also Wikipedia: Categorization of people ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Starting in the new year, each entry that does not have a reference (from a verifibale and reputable source, see Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources will be moved to Talk:List of dictators/unreferenced. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

This effort to impose a unilateral editing procedure by Jossi is contrary to WP standards of cooperation. Specifically, the idea about "/unreferenced" seems neither proper nor workable. Please chill a bit, and discuss your ideas with other editors, Jossi. The rename of the list I strongly oppose, since that would be a wholly different list that would require different criteria (not entirely unrelated criteria, but different from those we've reached consensus on).

See for example one of the criteria: may be autocratic, oppressive, despotic, or tyrannical. That depends on who is looking. Ask a Cuban if Castro is that, and the chances is that he will say the contrary, and even say that Bush is autocratic and oppresive. To remain within NPOV, we have to attribute these assertions. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

That said, in general the stated goal is proper. Any name listed here needs to meet WP:V. However, this list is not a simple yes/no thing as some are; different individuals were/are dictators in for particular years (which are not necessarily identical to their years in power/office) and in certain contexts and respects. The annotations we add are a lot more important than simply some newspaper somewhere that once used the word "dictator" of a figure. Probably such reference is necessary, but it's nowhere close to sufficient.

Sorry, Lulu, I don't buy that argument. References are absoultely necessary. You may need to refresh your memory on WP:CITE.≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Moreover, in most of the listed names, their Wikipedia articles themselves provide sufficient evidentiary support. It's not our procedure at Wikipedia to assume the editors of all the other pages are a priori wrong. In fact, if an individual's WP article does not provide sufficient support, the citational weight external links would need to meet should be treated as extremely high.

Rather than playing WP:POINT games with spurious tags, or make threats about imposing some new non-consensus rule, why don't we try starting out by tagging any entries that seem questionable with {{fact}}, and address any problems one-at-a-time. List this:

Blaz Foobar / Somewhereistan / 1901-1999 / Rule with an iron fist, really bad guy.[citation needed]

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Lulu, the burden to provide references is on the editor that adds an entry to this article. Just by a short sampling, many, many of the entries have no references about the "dictatorship" quality of these people. One obvious example is Juan Perón, in which an external link [1] is provided that has nothing to do with the characterization of Peron as a dictator. Also note that in that article there is not even one mention of the word "dictator". And that was a random one a picked up from the list. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
This burden is acknowledged, and has been met to the consensus of active editors. In numerous cases, listed names have been disputed, discussed, annotations refined, citations provided, or sometimes names removed. I'm not saying this article is flawless, nor even that I have myself examined every reference and description. But rather than come in gang busters and insult the work of other editors (many of whom have done quite a bit more than I have), why not show some WP:FAITH and work incrementally on specific issues you have, provide better citations, and so on? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Any editor has th right to challenge the NPOV status of an article. Please do not remove the template until my concerns have been addressed. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Jossi, you're not the first or the tenth editor to come along and decide to impose some brand new approach on this article, contrary to the carefully worked out consensus. The concerns you state seem to be the very same generic "I dislike this article" concerns that some editors raised in its failed AfD. As stated, I cannot see any way that the alleged POV dispute could ever be resolved, in principle. And that seems to be your intent.
If you have some specific and answerable concern, please state it. But just writing an essay on why the criteria are subjective doesn't provide something that can be satisfied. Moreover, your example is completely inaccurate: may be autocratic, oppressive, despotic, or tyrannical is explicitly one of the non-necessary items that help illustrate inclusion, but are not criterial. This page has a history, and a number of hard working editors. Please try to assume a little good faith on our parts rather than merely try to disrupt the page on your first edit. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)