Great Leap Backwards: Why Did Wikipedia Scrub a Year & a Half Old Article Titled 'Forward (Generic Name of Socialist Publications)'?

Wikipedia has scrubbed another article showing the relationship between the imperative "Forward!" and leftwing publications.

You may recall last week when The Blaze reported that a Wikipedia article titled “Forward (Obama-Biden campaign slogan)," which drew a connection between the president’s “Forward” campaign slogan and famous leftwing publications, was slated for removal.

The “controversy” portion of the Wikipedia article read: “The name Forward has been frequently used as a name for influential leftwing newspapers and publications, denoting an urge for progress.”

Related: ‘Forward for Communism!’: Is Obama‘s New ’Forward’ Slogan Really a Coincidence?

Apparently, some users felt that the article didn't meet the high standards set by Wikipedia and it wasn’t long before the article was slated for deletion and removed.

The entry as it appeared before deletion.

But it looks like Wikipedia has taken it one step further (forward?): the online encyclopedia has also decided to delete another article -- this one a year and a half old! -- titled “Forward (generic name of socialist publications)."

If you try to search for the article, all you'll find is this:

Click for a larger image.

After a little more digging, you’ll find Wikipedia's justification for removing the article:

Reading though the various comments here, various good points made on either side, but in the final analysis it seems clear that (as an editor noted below) "There is little or no connection between the disparate publications of the same or similar name other than similar ideological outlooks." While the publications listed in the article are indeed individually notable, there does not appear to be a unity between them except in terms of sharing some name and being socialist in character. As several editors raised, this is a significant synthesis case.

This is how the “Forward (generic name of socialist publications)” article appeared before it was blown away:

Click for a larger image.

And this is what was written on the page before it's deletion:

In the English translation, the term Forward has carried a special meaning as a title for several socialist or left leaning publications. The context of the title connotes an “urge for progress.” Vorwärts!(German for “Forward,” with an exclamation point as part of the name) was a revolutionary German émigré 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 Democrat Party of Germany and with Wilhelm Liebknecht as its first editor. 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.

The German Vorwärts inspired socialists around the world. The Yiddish daily Forverts, founded in New York in 1897, was named after the German publication (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. Another prominent example has been Vpered (Russian language for “Forward”), the publication Lenin started after having resigned from the Iskra editorial board in 1905 after a clash with Gerogi Plekhanov and the Mensheviks. The name did 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 association with the German Social Democrat organ.

As the Independent Journal Review notes, Wikipedia's decision to delete the article was most likely based on the non-controversy surrounding the Obama campaign’s “Forward” slogan.

“This never would have happened if Obama’s campaign slogan were something other than ‘Forward,’” the Journal Review writes.

“I don’t think that anyone on Obama’s campaign team wanted to make a reference to communism or socialism. But what it does say is that their team was ignorant in choosing a title,” the article adds.

Indeed, even the laziest “Google” search shows that the word "Forward" can be tied to socialism, creating yet another headache for White House staffers.

"It is representative of the administration to make a petty mistake like this that could have easily been avoided with a 5 second internet-search," the Journal Review concludes.

Reasons for deletion. Click for a larger image.

(H/T: Gateway Pundit)