Talk:Deng Xiaoping

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Introduction box[edit]

Hello, I was advised to not get into an edit war. So I want to resolve an issue I have with this article. I would like the ideology to be pit in the little info box, instead of the redundant information of that he was Chinese or a politician. I would do it so you can access information more easily and it’s simpler to understand. Would it be fine if we did so? Grizi fu (talk) 07:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the idea of bringing forward more of his ideological stances was a fine one, and for that reason I was the editor who brought forward Deng's contributions to the Socialist market economy and his ideological contributions to Socialism with Chinese characteristics being regarded as Deng Xiaoping Theory.
Why do you focus on market socialist in particular, among the other available characterizations? It is less precise than these and less specific to the Chinese context. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I focus on the market socialist part as I think it’s very complicated for people that have less interest in political economics, what his ideas were, that’s why I want to put the market socialist part in the info box, so people get ideas more easily Grizi fu (talk) 07:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your rationale better now. I think it is good to want to be clear for general readers. In this instance, I would continue to recommend the existing terms, as I do not think the benefits in simplification outweigh the benefits in precision.
Also generally, I recommend finding ways to describe ideology in a way that avoids a "Wikivoice" conclusion that a person or thing "is" or "was" a specific ideology. It can often result in contention or many extra characterizations being added. In the Deng example, someone might ask -- why would we say we was a "market socialist" instead of saying we was a communist? Or he was a Marxist-Leninist? Or he was a pragmatist? And so on. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your point, but could I make a suggestion ? How about we put in the article, what you already wrote but then put in a subordinate clause his ideology and the in brackets deng xiaoping theory, for those who want more explanation? Thus we both would be happy and the article would be easier to understand and the overall quality of the article would even improve a bit. Would this be a good idea? Grizi fu (talk) 07:03, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]