Category talk:Centrist stupidity

Myth of the Middle
Centrist stupidity explained. Good article -- not sure where to put it, though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Who's deleting all the entries?
I think Harry Reid and Bill Clinton are pretty good examples of "centrist stupidity", as well as some of the other entries. Why all the deleting all of a sudden? ClothCoat (talk) 18:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. I'd label Reid and Clinton, along with the likes of Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Al Gore, Chuck Schumer and the rest of their ilk as well to the right of center.  They're only "centrist", much less "liberal", in the context of the ignorant worldview of Boobus Americanus.  Centrist to me means Ralph Nader.  Noam Chomsky is genuinely left of center, but only just.  Secret Squirrel (talk) 01:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The stupidity part fits them to a T, though. Secret Squirrel (talk) 01:47, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ""I'd label Reid and Clinton, along with the likes of Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Al Gore, Chuck Schumer and the rest of their ilk as well to the right of center" I fully agree with that statement. However they fit under "centrist" more than the they do "wingnut" or moonbat" and they stay close enough to the center to go under this category.
 * "in the context of the ignorant worldview of Boobus Americanus Ouch but you should keep in mind that you should consider that different countries have different spectrums, though I would agree that an international spectrum is usually more accurate.
 * "Noam Chomsky is genuinely left of center, but only just" That's where I have to disagree with you. He is a "Leftist", a radical, and he is quite proud of it. Not even he considers himself left of center. Nader is one of the few American politicians who fits the center-left label, along with Elizabeth Warren and the progressives. Could you add all those people back please? This category can apply to people close enough to the center and this is the definition of centrist put forward by most people. Thank you. ClothCoat (talk) 02:54, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought this was a category for "scams and delusions peculiar to those of a centrist/moderate/Third Way mindset," not people. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:54, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah that too. That's why Brooks is here, because some centrists love him for being a "reasonable conservative", even though he's a hack. This category, if it's like extreme moonbattery and extreme wingnuttery, can apply to stupid centrists or stupid things/people centrsits fall for. ClothCoat (talk) 17:53, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, it was, before a certain textile item fond of sorting people into political pidgeonholes showed up. :(--ZooGuard (talk) 19:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Just trying to help. I just assumed that the category was like Extreme wingnuttery or extreme moonbattery, which is kind of loose with these terms. However if you'd really like for me to be that way I'll create categories "Center-right silliness, firmly right-wing silliness, left of center siliness, centrist achievers, etc.". Stop being a prick when I'm trying to fit people into categories that were already here and I'm trying to follow the rules your own wiki set up. I mean seriously the categories pages are embarrassing some have only like 4 subjects in them we're not goddamn Wikipedia which has so many pages it can be more precise with it's categories. I mean seriously fuck you, unless you actually want to do something to help. ClothCoat (talk) 20:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if I was too harsh, but I don't think that your categorization efforts are useful or meaningful. And please don't cite "rules" - this wiki has very few written rules, and I don't remember anything about sorting politicians by categories. You did create Category:Right of reason so my assumption was not baseless. :) RW's category tree has grown idiosyncratically, with people adding new cats on a whim, that's why it's somewhat confusing for people who crave order in one form or another.
 * As for the categories themselves, identifying the fringes is always more easy than drawing shades of gray between the moderates. So having categories for "extreme moonbattery/wingnuttery" is compatible, but not having stuff like "right of reason" makes perfect sense. Putting articles in cats like that one is inherently subjective, because it involves determining how much someone deviates from some ideal line of "reason", and in what direction. In such situations, the articles would be either the subject to edit warring about the cat, or their catting would reflect only the view of the most persistent catter - in this case, you.
 * (Not to mention that what counts as "left" and "right" is different in the US and Europe, so pegging some universal "center" is a bit difficult.)
 * As for this particular category, I tend to agree with Nebuchadnezzar - it should be limited mostly to concepts, with minimum people.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:03, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok then. I only created the "right of reason" because we had a lot of pages written like "Oh, this guy leans to the right but he's not crazy. Woah!" and there were so many of those pages I just figured they should go under some sort of category. The name is taken from the "pundits" page by the way. I do think it's important to have decent categories so that people can easily jump between pages they're interested in but if you don't want to fine. However what if the "concept" is a person. Brooks and Krauthammer for example are people centrists adore for being "reasonable" even though they're consistently wrong, so should they go here or not. And I thought a lot of people liked the right of reason page. ClothCoat (talk) 18:42, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Also one of the main reasons I created the Right of Reason page was because Weaseloid (or however it's spelled) complained about the way I wrote the William F. Buckley (I broke it up into Good/meh/bad, like the Chris Christie/Stephen Harper/Huey Long pages) because it made us sound like a liberal rag or something of the like. So I thought that it would help counter such accusations against Rationalwiki if we had a page of sane conservatives. Basically if I make a page of sane conservatives I get yelled at, if I sound too liberal I get yelled at, if I follow the format in other pages I get yelled at, etc. I'm basically getting yelled at by different people for acting the way someone else wants me to act. It's quite confusing. ClothCoat (talk) 18:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Rename to Centrism of the golden mean
This category just keeps causing issues. It is intended for centrists who keep espousing other ideologies rather than their supposed existence in the relative middle of the political spectrum, usually born out of a desire to adhere to the Balance fallacy (which lands them in all sorts of authoritarian stuff, which makes them missional). In practice however, we keep having clueless driveby lefties on the wiki who keep adding it to every single centrist in existence. As a result, I propose moving the category to Centrism of the golden mean instead. Moving can be done with User:Inferno Bot (would need a short demotion to sysop to do so, but I've done that in the past). Opening with a vote out of the box, since I don't think a lot of discussion is needed (feel free to suggest better names though, this one is basically stolen from s suggestion. 00:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Move it!

 * 1)  00:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) Still snarky, but also more informative. And will hopefully lead to less use as a substitute for article content. 22:26, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't move it!

 * 1) Centrists can be stupid for other reasons, take Bill Maher (currently in the category), for example. You could argue they don’t belong in the category at all in that case, but each article would have to be checked for that, it’s not a judgement a bot can make. All of our other political insanity categories (other than the sparsely populated “hard green”) have simple, broad insulting names. If you didn’t know what “centrism of the golden mean” meant (and I’m sure some people don’t), you’d probably assume it was complimentary; gold is good. Christopher (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Goat
We’ve got Category:left of reason and Category:right of reason (which I always thought were poorly named, but that’s besides the point). What do people think of a similar category for centrists? The only category for centrists (other than Category:Centrism) being negative is bound to lead to people painting all centrists in a negative light. Christopher (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The thing is, this category is supposed to be for dumb centrists such as those who abuse the balance fallacy, not all centrists which it's turned into via misuse. Pardon me while I yell into the void and get angry at my fellow left-wingers for misusing category systems. 22:44, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It's simple. We kill left of reason and right of reason. GeeJayK (talk) 00:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed! I would nominate them for deletion myself if I understood the actual process of doing so better.-Flandres (talk) 00:53, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I would vote to delete them as well. Bongolian (talk) 02:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Nominate them on AfD. I'll have Inferno do it if it passes. 09:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Did the nominations myself. 11:05, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

this category is dumb...
...and its application is even dumber AMassiveGay (talk) 11:58, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Mama mia, why was this category kept?
A failed AfD. It failed by a small margin though. Sure, centrist kittens-in-a-blender-esque stupidity is a thing. But so is conservative wingnuttery. So is authoritarian moonbattery. This category isn't useful. Why is Iraq War here. Or Mumsnet. Or Thunderf00t. Is it for people who support reform over revolution. They don't want to implement universal basic income? They think GMOs should be labeled but don't want to regulate it any more? Maybe it's for some high-profile center-left newspaper or radio talk show that didn't totally explore the systemic injustices? You tell me. 🍝 I think I belong here though since I don't have very committed stances in every political subject, such as my opinions regarding Israel-Palestine. 02:21, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. I missed that AFD, or I'd have voted in favor of deletion. This category doesn't seem useful and I'm surprised to learn it even exists. - Linneris (talk) 14:03, 5 February 2023 (UTC)