Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 4
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There is a paucity of editors actively watching the anarchism article at the moment it seems; outside input would be welcome at the talkpage regarding current disagreements. Ciao, Skomorokh 22:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
A major ATF project: Timeline of anarchist history
Zazaban has just added a "work in progress" entry for a Timeline of anarchist history, a lofty and important subject for the Anarchist Task Force, which should likely be another of our flagship articles, along with the Portal, main Anarchism page, and the Topic outline. I was also thinking about creating such a project prior to my revamp of the ATF page, placing links to a timeline of history in my sandbox'ed and completed version of the Lists of anarchism topics, and creating a sandbox'ed Template:Timeline of anarchist history, and set it aside realizing the revamp would be an easier affair. Putting it frankly, a timeline is a massive undertaking. Allow me to explain. My basic model is the Timeline of United States history, which is a basic list of decades. Each decade is itself a list of noted events with currently existing articles. The timeline page includes a template which, aside from linking to each decade, also lists several topics (economic, military, etc) of history. As the subject encapsulates a single region, it does not include a section for histories by region. An anarchist history would need to include major events by date and decade, as they relate to existing articles; it would need to include important topics (history of anarchist theoretical development; history of militant anarchist revolutions; history of anarchist economics); and it would need to include sections by region. Now two of these already exist to a degree. The anniversaries for the anarchism portal, with a little cleanup, could serve as a proto-list for a list of events by decade. The current List of anarchist movements by region can be translated into a list of anarchist history by region. This would actually be superior to the current set up, as this would account for regions which have had no significant "movement" per se, but which have had a noted history of anarchist influence; Anarchism in India would be a key example of this. And finally, we would need articles on topics. The history of the Bonnet Gang, the Black Guards and the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, Propaganda of the deed and the Spanish revolution, Kim Jwa-Jin would create a history of militant anarchist history events. Combining articles on anarchist economic theories and practice would crate a history of anarchist ecnomics. Those are just two examples. There's no way it could be done in the following year, or perhaps not even into 2010. And while we're at it, what about a Timeline of anarchists, based on the Timeline of philosophers? The History of anarchism, and the main Anarchism page and its section on anarchist history would have some of the weight lifted off of them, as they could point elsewhere for more details. And to get back to the inspiration for all of this, the Topic outline: History of anarchism needs to be changed from a chronological timeline anyway. It should look something more like the Topic outline: History of the United States; no descriptive sentences in need of citation. Just include a list of links to events, topics, and histories of regions. That would quickly allow us to nominate the Topic outline of anarchism to featured list status.
Now, after reading all of that, I'm sure you can understand why I decided to just revamp the ATF page instead. It was a somewhat easier goal to achieve. I even question if we shouldn't set it aside in favor of the still as yet unfinished List of anarchists. In the coming year, we might want to make this a major ATF project, but right now I'd rather we put the list of anarchists first. So what does everyone else think? Is this large scale plan of mine over the top? Are some of these ideas useful? Or perhaps we should aim the bar a bit lower?--Cast (talk) 23:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
- I appreciate all the thought and effort, but this seems like biting off more than we can chew considering the work being devoted to existing projects. There is a trickle of new content being added to the portal, very few DYKs or ATF-contributed new articles, the list of anarchists is unchanged and our work in progress articles have made little progress in 2009. If you think you will have the time to make something mainspace-worthy, then by all means go ahead, but I wouldn't hold my breath for outside momentum to help it along. Skomorokh 22:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
- I more or less intended to work on it myself right now, and only put it here in the hopes that at more a couple more people might pop in and help. At least for the time being. I figured we should be up to finishing it in 2011. Zazaban (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry for this late response. Don't get me wrong; I am under no illusions about our current condition and didn't write this up as a proposal for a major thrust of effort. In a larger sense, I wrote it for my own record, as I needed to put these ideas down just so I could take my mind off what I was thinking about doing, so that I wouldn't worry about forgetting it. Now I can let it slip my mind a bit, knowing I have it set to the record for later. I'll return to it myself, when I feel I can devote time to it, and as usual, I wont' go in expecting help, though as Zazaban stated, getting the notice and assistance of a few individuals down the line would be useful. Even if this doesn't look like anything more than secondary input, suggestions and advice would be useful. One simply should not count on anything more. --Cast (talk) 04:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
- I more or less intended to work on it myself right now, and only put it here in the hopes that at more a couple more people might pop in and help. At least for the time being. I figured we should be up to finishing it in 2011. Zazaban (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
London Action Resource Centre
The London Action Resource Centre article was recently the victim of a bad faith AfD nomination, following what seems to have been the fallout from a period of edit warring. It survived the AfD after others recognized it's value and speedily kept it. If anyone has the time, this could use some intervention from cool heads in the ATF, but may not be an immediately pressing issue. Given that it was speedily kept, there is no way this will be deleted anytime soon. We might want to let warring parties calm down amongst themselves before we surge into the battlefield and restore a peaceful Wiki-utopia. --Cast (talk) 05:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- I've had a look at this a few times before, but there really is a paucity of online reliable sources covering the the LARC. Skomorokh 22:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
There is currently a great bickering going on about what the definition of individualism is. One side says it is exclusively capitalist, while the other says that it can include socialism. Somebody please help. Zazaban (talk) 02:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
- You're not representing the dispute correctly. I'm on the "other side," and I do not argue that individualism is exclusively capitalist. I do argue that it's not socialist, hence the term SOCIAList rather than individualist. Hence the terms INDIVIDUALIST anarchism and SOCIAL anarchism. To argue that social anarchism is individualist anarchism is incoherent. Jadabocho (talk) 01:56, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Message to all anarchists on Wikipedia
The AI/IAF/AFI has renewed interest in wikipedia. I hope that ochlarchists like Zazaban and Skomorokh can be more matter of fact this time! The AI is certainly not a "hoax/spam/non-notable; worth keeping an eye on for quality control", see my arguments below. AI/IAF/AFI is significantly the largest anarchist organization in the world. This is based on reliable, independent third party sources, and I hope thus that my scientifical contributions will not be deleted.
- If adding true and easily verifiable information to the IFA-IAF-Wiki-page, that is clearly misleading and biased, is vandalism, you have a wrong interpretation of the concept vandalism. My additions isare100% according to the Wikipedia principle of verification. If I am blocked it is real vandalism. You are a vandal asking for blocking me, for adding true and easily verifiable information to the IFA-IAF-Wiki-page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.202.78.10 (talk) 03:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
- This again? Already dealt with User:Anna Quist in multiple venues, the addition to the IAF article was clearly done by the same person.
- If you want to know what the heck is this about, you can start with Talk:International_of_Anarchist_Federations and then follow the links in the second ANI thread on this user. Also discussed here in July 2008. The last waste of time with this person was at this MfD where it's clear how fed up people are with this crap. Enric Naval (talk) 17:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
- This strange person harassed us at the forums at anarchism.net for more than two years, don't expect them to leave wikipedia alone any faster. *sigh* Zazaban (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
- If you want to know what the heck is this about, you can start with Talk:International_of_Anarchist_Federations and then follow the links in the second ANI thread on this user. Also discussed here in July 2008. The last waste of time with this person was at this MfD where it's clear how fed up people are with this crap. Enric Naval (talk) 17:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:47, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
- Am I right in thinking this is up and running satisfactorily at the Workstation? Or does it need tinkering? Skomorokh 10:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps it is because I set it within a template to be transposed. It may cause hiccups where caches need to be purged before it will be updated. I've been thinking it needs to be given a dedicated page, or be transposed to the workstation page directly. --Cast (talk) 15:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Small request
¿Qué cuentas, compadres? The portal needs a selected article for April 2009. I've selected the Unabomber, but the article doesn't contain a great deal of material about his relevance to contemporary anarchism, so I've asked our resident primitivist Maziotis to write a few paragraphs spec, and they have asked for others to collaborate. I'll be travelling next week and might not get a chance to look over things, so if someone else could make sure everything goes smoothly, I'd appreciate it. The template is {{Portal:Anarchism/Selected article/Layout}}, a useful model is Emma Goldman, and if all else fails and nothing is coming together by March 31, the page can just be redirected to this month's entry. Muchas gracias, Skomorokh 13:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin
Does anybody have a copy of this book, by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakomovic? Please respond here or on my Talk page. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
- Cast (talk · contribs) used it to write a large chunk of Manifesto of the Sixteen. Incidentally, I've been thinking of starting a little library list on the Resources page for these purposes, if others thought that would be a good idea. Skomorokh 07:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I do not own a physical copy, instead relying on Google Books, and being just lucky the pages I needed were scanned. If Shabazz needs the work in dead-tree format for the sake of some element which is not available online, be it an index or a missing page from a digitized copy, I'm afraid I can't be of any help. --Cast (talk) 10:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
- Pardon, forgot to respond to the library comment. I would think such a resource would belong on the WP:ANCITE page. Incidentally, as we speak a troupe of anarchists are creating a new library system, intended to be somewhat advanced and far more comprehensive than those currently in use. The anarchist library can be found at The Anarchist Library.org, but is still under construction. In the future, we may be able to just link to this website rather than create a comprehensive list. However, the Library, as we might expect, will feature free essays and books. Newer works will be held by copyright, and I wouldn't expect them to appear on this website. --Cast (talk) 16:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks. The page I'm looking for isn't on Google Books. Oh well.
- I think a "library list" would be helpful in situations where people are looking for specific books. See Talk:Emma Goldman#Homestead Plot for a recent example. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 17:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
On the library idea, check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/References (scroll down). If our library was just a few books I had lying around and whatever else others felt like chipping in, would it be worth adding as a subpage of WP:ATFR? Definitely a good idea to integrate The Anarchist Library and other freely-accessible resources that become available. Skomorokh 02:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Taskforce pages formatting
Pursuant to this comment, is it possible to add edit section links to the different modules on the ATF pages? It's a little annoying having to open the entire page to edit a few lines of it (and I believe a contributory factor to my consistently screwing up the column distribution of DYKs/showcased content!). Incidentally, see here for a way of making columns automatically so that editors only have to add entries to a long list rather than an individual column. Skomorokh 02:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- The simplest way that I know of would be to emulate a portal system. That would mean creating a "box" template and then fitting each section into a sub page. I've known of this method from the beginnings of my effort to compress the task force page a year ago, and chose not to follow this path because it would prevent us from following edits easily. We'd have to add every transcribed sub-page to our watchlist. It seemed to me that doing so, new editors wouldn't know to add each page to their watchlist. I was even reluctant to initiate this tabbed page system for that reason. We all originally only had to watch a single page. Now we have to watch five. Further more, I saw a dramatic reduction in participation to rescue ATF-related pages for deletion when we began using the article announcement bot. When it updates, it is transcribed, and does not notify watching editors of new changes. If we do decide to pursue a system similar to the portal boxes, the code I've used for the topic headers on each ATF page can easily be transformed into a template, and transcribed. I was already considering doing that. It wouldn't be necessary for us to transcribe the content of each section, and would reduce the amount of coding on the editing page. However, it would do nothing to change an editor's need to edit the whole page. Regarding the automated column construct; that seems to be the css coding for reference lists. It only creates two columns, and reduces the text to a smaller size. I would need to do more experimenting with it to create a template that automatically creates balanced columns, and I simply wouldn't know where to begin that. --Cast (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
If anybody could come and offer their voice at the talk page there, that would be great. There is a discussion over major additions being made to the article. Zazaban (talk) 19:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Anybody know Esperanto?
There's a fairly long article about Russian anarchist Olga Taratuta in the Esperanto Wikipedia. See eo:Olga Taratuta. It would be great if somebody could help translate it. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find an online Esperanto translation tool. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 21:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
- I know a very little bit of Esperanto. I could create a sandbox page based on my crappy translation. Zazaban (talk) 21:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yep, I speak Esperanto fluently, I'll have a look at it when I get the chance. Just a heads up though - online translation tools are only ever useful to get the gist of a text (but even then you can get misled). If you're attempting to transfer information between different language Wikipedias, it's always best to find somebody who knows both languages (which is what you've done!). If somebody else has more time to do it, you'll probably get in there before I do! Sumthingweird (talk) 15:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Epic edit war at Individualist anarchism.
It's gotten so bad the page has been protected. Can we have a few more people come in and put in their two cents? Right now it's just Me and and two other people, neither of whom seem at interested in compromise. It would be nice to see some more neutral third parties. Zazaban (talk) 05:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
"The Last of the Masters" peer review
"The Last of the Masters", a work of anarchist fiction by famed author Phillip K. Dick, is currently up for peer review with Wikiproject Novels, with the ultimate intent being to drive it towards GA status. While not a core article for this task force, it is nonetheless within our realm of interest, and any ATF member is welcome to take part in the review. --Cast (talk) 06:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
- Can't claim to have worked on many fiction articles, but I'll give it a look in the next week if time allows. Best of luck with the development, Skomorokh 06:58, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for all of your effort. Although I've still yet to receive an actual peer review from the WP:Novels members, I've received enough third-party input from yourself to encourage me to nominate it for GA status now. If successful, the peer review process can continue in order to simply provide me with further advice for how to improve it into FA-class status (an unlikely prospect, but as is appropriate considering the article in question, who can say what the future holds?) --Cast (talk) 03:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry I haven't given it a very close look. I'll be on hand to help with any objections from the reviewer. The paucity of of third-party coverage makes this one a tough sell. Skomorokh 03:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for all of your effort. Although I've still yet to receive an actual peer review from the WP:Novels members, I've received enough third-party input from yourself to encourage me to nominate it for GA status now. If successful, the peer review process can continue in order to simply provide me with further advice for how to improve it into FA-class status (an unlikely prospect, but as is appropriate considering the article in question, who can say what the future holds?) --Cast (talk) 03:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
There's a thread here questioning the existence of this organisation. Can anyone verify or attest to what the article states? If we can't, I'm tempted to send it for deletion. Skomorokh 18:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- Going through the article history, I've found the originating editor. Leaving this person a note to plase come here and join this discussion, I'm hoping we can get some explanation from that angle. Lets see if we can spare a few days for a possible response. If none is forth coming, go ahead and proceed with the process. --Cast (talk) 04:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.
We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.
If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Spanish translation help needed
One of our compañeros in the Spanish Wikipedia has left a request at the portal talkpage asking for the article es:Biófilo Panclasta to be translated for use here. Anyone willing to give it a go? I'd ask Nihilo 01 (talk · contribs), but I suspect this is not his flavour of anarchism. Skomorokh 12:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Talk page tag?
I've been working on Donald Rooum and noticed that the talk page is not marked as belonging to this task force. Do you have a tag for this?--Peter cohen (talk) 23:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes: {{Philosophy|anarchism=yes}} — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
- I went ahead and added the tag Shabazz's presented to you, along with a few extra appropriate banners. Happy editing, and thanks for your effort on that page. --Cast (talk) 01:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
This travesty needs attention, and fast. I'll get to work on it later, but right now I'm busy watching Dune. Which is awesome. Zazaban (talk) 03:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Egoist anarchism
The article on egoist anarchism is more or less complete. I will move it into the main space tomorrow. It's probably worth preparing to make whatever edits and links to other articles that need to be done so that the addition can go fairly smoothly. There is a list on the article's talk page. If there's anything you want to add before it goes live, do it now. Zazaban (talk) 01:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
"The Last of the Masters" GA nomination
The nomination process for "The Last of the Masters" has been on hold for some weeks now, and I'm finding it more difficult as time goes on to devote my effort to it. Feel free to peruse the comments made on the process on the article talk page. I would appreciate any minor effort others could put in to editing up the Thematic analysis section to fulfill the reviewing editor's comments. If these are not fulfilled soon, the nomination will fail. --Cast (talk) 19:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
- Congratulations on prevailing in that epic struggle! I wonder if we are over the quality article threshold for the portal? Skomorokh 08:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- I think we are. We'll discuss it more on that topic. Thank you for the encouraging cheer. --Cast (talk) 16:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Rouge Forum
A new article for the Rouge Forum has been created just today (8/23), and has been added to the anarchism category. Problem is, there is no actual reference within the article as to how it is associated with anarchism. Further, the article is completely devoid of third party sources. While certainly the topic seems interesting, it looks destined for an AFD nomination in the near future. I intend on contacting the author and communicating the need for improvement, but I may need a little more help. A quick search on the internet reveals no news references to this group, but it seems to be an academic organization/collective, and that may mean finding results would require a search in educational fields I have little or no background experience in researching. Anyone used to writing articles for academic articles could possibly be of great help in adding verification to this article. --Cast (talk) 04:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Some of the wording in this article is phenomenally ugly. I think the information is useful and encyclopedic for the most part, but the grammar and such needs to be worked with. Zazaban (talk) 20:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Yo Z, I've put in a request at the guild, don't hold your breath but I've offered a reciprocal copyedit so hopefully it might attract someone. Skomorokh 08:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Systematic removal of any mention of anarchism from Free Territory.
User:Aleksandr Grigoryev has been attempting to remove any mention of anarchism or anarchy from the article on the Free Territory. He is claiming that the anarchist label on it was Soviet propaganda, which is patently false. Could somebody help me out here? Zazaban (talk) 05:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you very much for pointing this out to us. I hope I can be of help in this situation, as I care a great deal about this sort of issue (anarchist revolution and systemic anti-anarchist bias in national "histories"). The assertion that charges of anarchism would be the result of Soviet propaganda strikes me as very unusual. Common Soviet propaganda was that the anarchists were either disorganized rabble at best, or at worst, petite bourgeoisie, counter-revolutionaries. I'll do some browsing in the anarchist wing of my local library (which has a surprising number of books on the subject, I've learned.) There is bound to be something there on the Free Territory. Edits and sourced additions will be forth coming. --Cast (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
- I think what he was attempting to imply was that Makhno and his followers were in fact nationalists, and the claim of them being anarchists was a Soviet attempt to discredit nationalism. I'm not sure though. I've never heard anyone claim that the Free Territory was not in fact anarchist. Zazaban (talk) 23:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Checking in
Summer's out, just stopping in to register a pulse and see who is around. Sorry I wasn't around to keep the new article announcements or portal featured articles going the past two months, but I plan to overhaul both in the next few days. So comrades, who is alive and about this season? Any suggestions for a [modest] agenda? Skomorokh 08:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm here, and as encouraged as ever. I have a few projects on my table. I'm currently trying to put together an external link template for The Anarchist Library database, allowing editors to connect articles on authors and specific essays to the tagging system of the @ Library website. I'm also putting together an article for Burnout, a MINX romance graphic novel published in 2008 about monkey-wrenching. (It's not related to this task force, so I haven't set it as a collaborative sandbox project.) My experience with Anarky comic book articles should get that off to a good start. I'm also making trips down to my local library system and finding citations for the Free Territory. While I'm at it, I'm going to try to look up stuff on Kim Jwa-Jin and the Shinmin Autonomous Region. And that brings us to what can be on our agenda. Cleaning up the potential articles list. It's been building up since we started the Task Force, but few articles ever get translated into a finished project. I think part of the weakness of it is that interested editors don't paste their IDs next to the project, so others cannot alert them to new research, while over time the original editor loses interest. We should try to jump on these potential articles more in the future, whenever possible. --Cast (talk) 16:40, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm here, really been wondering where everybody's been. Zazaban (talk) 20:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
- So it's the three of us, then? Well, others may not be active at the moment, or they may not even be monitoring this page. Alright, we'll carry on without them. Anarcho-nerds unite!--Cast (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Haha good stuff (my mental image of Cast is now set in stone)! Let me know if I can help with the Anarchist Library project. On the topic of potential articles, do you all remember User:Potemkin01/Manifesto? Begun as a paltry stub with a few links attached in userspace, gradually picked away at, list of anarchists-like, over a few months, and now a topic for which there was no comprehensive coverage available online is now a fine encyclopaedia article in English, German, and today, Spanish. Know hope! Ok, I'm off to the portal... Skomorokh 19:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- There's a ton of work-in-progress articles we should probably do something about before we start too many more. A lot of them are nearly finished. By the way, would anybody care to help with Anarchism and Esperanto? I stopped when I realized my esperanto sucked. Zazaban (talk) 22:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Isn't that something like freemasonry? Sorry dude, know absolutely nothing about Esperanto, haven't seen it referred to in an anarchist context either. I'll try to get started on some of the works-in-progress this weekend. Skomorokh 23:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Uh, freemasonry? Esperanto is a language. There's a half-translated article in the 'work in progress' section over at the workstation. Anyway, I'm currently working at User:Zazaban/Timeline_of_anarchist_history. Zazaban (talk) 23:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I jest! Man, that timeline is a work without an end in sight. Would be a great addition though. Skomorokh 23:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'll probably be nearly done in about six months, if I'm doing it all by myself. With a couple other people in on it, we could be done in time for christmas. Depends on how much stuff we want to add. My primary interest in having all the early, pre-1880, especially pre-1860, evolutionary points in there, because there isn't much around here on the early history and origins of anarchism. Zazaban (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Cool, what source(s) are you using? My long-term project is still the Portal anniversaries, so I probably won't chip in until that's out of the way. Skomorokh 23:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'll probably be nearly done in about six months, if I'm doing it all by myself. With a couple other people in on it, we could be done in time for christmas. Depends on how much stuff we want to add. My primary interest in having all the early, pre-1880, especially pre-1860, evolutionary points in there, because there isn't much around here on the early history and origins of anarchism. Zazaban (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Btw, if you're still knocking around anarchism.net, do you know if Per Bylund has done anything to make himself more notable of late? If not, perhaps that's an article we could knock of the list. Skomorokh 23:15, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I haven't been there for awhile, but I'll check back. I was one of the people arguing he was notable all along, by the way. Zazaban (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Aye, I would have preferred if the article had not been deleted, but I can't think up a sneaky reason to undelete it right now. Skomorokh 23:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I saved that article out of empathy for my fellow task force rogues, despite not knowing about the figure. Saving articles from deletion was one of this task force's earliest priorities, and I was sorry to see us fail on that occasion. I will continue to host it on my sandbox space for the near future, but once again, I must stress that I know nothing of the subject. If it is ever improved, it will only be because it remains visible enough for someone to fix it when the opportunity finally presents itself. I won't fight it, but removing it will be unfortunate admission of defeat.--Cast (talk) 23:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm going on vacation for three weeks as of tomorrow, and I'll go fishing for sources when I come back. Zazaban (talk) 23:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Great, have a good one! Skomorokh 23:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I remember looking and failing to find anything substantive at the AfD. No worries if you want to keep it around; if it helps at all I've just restored the deleted history to Per Bylund. Skomorokh 23:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'm going on vacation for three weeks as of tomorrow, and I'll go fishing for sources when I come back. Zazaban (talk) 23:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I saved that article out of empathy for my fellow task force rogues, despite not knowing about the figure. Saving articles from deletion was one of this task force's earliest priorities, and I was sorry to see us fail on that occasion. I will continue to host it on my sandbox space for the near future, but once again, I must stress that I know nothing of the subject. If it is ever improved, it will only be because it remains visible enough for someone to fix it when the opportunity finally presents itself. I won't fight it, but removing it will be unfortunate admission of defeat.--Cast (talk) 23:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Aye, I would have preferred if the article had not been deleted, but I can't think up a sneaky reason to undelete it right now. Skomorokh 23:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I haven't been there for awhile, but I'll check back. I was one of the people arguing he was notable all along, by the way. Zazaban (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- I jest! Man, that timeline is a work without an end in sight. Would be a great addition though. Skomorokh 23:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Uh, freemasonry? Esperanto is a language. There's a half-translated article in the 'work in progress' section over at the workstation. Anyway, I'm currently working at User:Zazaban/Timeline_of_anarchist_history. Zazaban (talk) 23:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Isn't that something like freemasonry? Sorry dude, know absolutely nothing about Esperanto, haven't seen it referred to in an anarchist context either. I'll try to get started on some of the works-in-progress this weekend. Skomorokh 23:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- There's a ton of work-in-progress articles we should probably do something about before we start too many more. A lot of them are nearly finished. By the way, would anybody care to help with Anarchism and Esperanto? I stopped when I realized my esperanto sucked. Zazaban (talk) 22:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Haha good stuff (my mental image of Cast is now set in stone)! Let me know if I can help with the Anarchist Library project. On the topic of potential articles, do you all remember User:Potemkin01/Manifesto? Begun as a paltry stub with a few links attached in userspace, gradually picked away at, list of anarchists-like, over a few months, and now a topic for which there was no comprehensive coverage available online is now a fine encyclopaedia article in English, German, and today, Spanish. Know hope! Ok, I'm off to the portal... Skomorokh 19:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay gents, Harold H. Thompson (anarchist) is up (based on one source, haven't got the appetite to do much more with it right now), will have a look at some of the others later. Skomorokh 23:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
This article is in an awful state of affairs, and I've made it a project to improve it. I've already started, but I'm going to be away for three weeks. The main issue right now is expansion, as the article is very scant on a lot of details. Nothing at all on individualist anarchism after Proudhon, for example, and very little on the history after world war two. There is more information on the 18th century than on the 20th, which is really, really odd. Eventually, it should be big enough to split some stuff off into period based articles, like 'Anarchism in the 19th century', and 'Origins of anarchism'. Sources are also an issue. Zazaban (talk) 01:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Image in need of rescue
File:CNT-armoured-car-factory.gif, uploaded by Murderbike, has been nominated for deletion due to a lack of source information. If none is found by September 9, it will be deleted. Due to his current hiatus, Murderbike isn't pursuing this issue, and may not even be aware of it. If anyone here knows anything about this image, please contribute that information to the page to save this historic image. If it can be established that it is uncopyrighted, it may be eligible for hosting on Wikicommons. --Cast (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- It's also at Libcom.org (who are not the most copyright-conscientious of chaps); that's all I got. Skomorokh 17:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Libcom appears to be the source of the image. Either that or both Wikipedia and Libom have a common source. (Or maybe they took it from WP.) — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Besides the source, if we can't explain who is the author, and by extension, if we don't know what the copyright status is (yes, I know: Anarcho-syndicalist; Revolution; CNT; etc) it will be deleted even if we find out where Murderbike got the image. We need to find out who took the picture and whether they released it to the public without legal reservations. Anarchists have had issues with Spanish civil war photos in the past when they couldn't explain to Wikicommon's editors who made the photos. We need the technical fine print. We need a historian. --Cast (talk) 22:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Have you tried emailing Murderbike? Aside from him, User:Jmabel, who's worked on the CNT article, might know something. At a stretch, User:Libertatia might also be worth asking, though his interests are on the other side of the Atlantic. Skomorokh 23:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Besides the source, if we can't explain who is the author, and by extension, if we don't know what the copyright status is (yes, I know: Anarcho-syndicalist; Revolution; CNT; etc) it will be deleted even if we find out where Murderbike got the image. We need to find out who took the picture and whether they released it to the public without legal reservations. Anarchists have had issues with Spanish civil war photos in the past when they couldn't explain to Wikicommon's editors who made the photos. We need the technical fine print. We need a historian. --Cast (talk) 22:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Libcom appears to be the source of the image. Either that or both Wikipedia and Libom have a common source. (Or maybe they took it from WP.) — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 19:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- I haven't been able to find anything about it. Can we use
{{PD-EU-no author disclosure}}
? — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- I haven't been able to find anything about it. Can we use
- From that template: "Reasonable evidence must be presented that the author's name (e.g., the original photographer, portrait painter) was not published with a claim of copyright in conjunction with the image within 70 years of its original publication." Skomorokh 23:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- I thought it might be worth a try anyway. <shrug> — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 23:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Rescue fail. Skomorokh 00:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
- Please, a moment of silence in remembrence, everyone. --Cast (talk) 01:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
What do you all think of this article? It paints a better picture of the current state of anarchism than anywhere else on this site, but I'm not sure if it should be its own article, or if it should be put in an already existing article. Anyway, It's about done, so if nobody objects, I shall move it to the main space in a couple of days. Zazaban (talk) 13:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Great idea for an article I think, but is it not largely redundant with Anarchist schools of thought? I'd definitely support a historical/movement-focused/issues-based contemporary anarchism article, even if the title is a bit of a moving target. Skomorokh 16:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Anarchist schools of thought focus mainly on the historic focus of anarchism, whearas this article is attempting to paint a picture of what the anarchist movement looks like at this second, not just an all around summary of the philosophic groups. For example, the schools of thought article has a whole section on The Boston Anarchists. If this goes through, the 'contemporary developments' section on schools of thought could probably be summarized.Zazaban (talk) 17:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- I'd say the article is about ready now, would you agree? Zazaban (talk) 18:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Unless, perhaps, a section on the Greek riots could be added. I checked anarchism in greece, but it's the most horrifically bad article I have ever seen. Zazaban (talk) 18:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- The inclusion of a section on rebellions, minor or major (and who could judge the difference?), would be a much larger problem than you might anticipate. Consider first, the sheer number of events which anarchists participate in world wide. Should we include every protest, or only the riots? And why stop at riots, when there are so many ongoing anarchist social/logistical infrastructure projects, like Infoshops, the Really Really Free Market, or Food Not Bombs? If you want to create a list, which this article could then summarize and link to, that would be infinitely preferable. The list can be upgraded simply as events unfold, and this article wouldn't need the same level of constant updating. Also, I recommend looking into the pamphlet, "Second Wave Anarchy" by Aragorn!, which contains a number of essays about contemporary anarchist developments. If you don't have immediate access to it, I'll look into supplying citations from it in the future (I volunteer with LBC)--Cast (talk) 23:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- You're right; do you thing the article is ready to go on mainspace? Zazaban (talk) 08:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- I suppose it is. I'm not to keen on articles with a wide scope, because they tend to look a bit sloppy. That is to say, their various sections tend to look oddly juxtaposed. It gives me less of a desire to actively contribute to such articles, because I tend to be paralyzed with indecision regarding how to improve them. For similar reasons, I've noticed that such articles tend to be less likely to achieve high ranking as GA or FA quality articles. I encourage you to move it to the mainspace if you wish, but don't expect it to move up the quality scale any time soon. --Cast (talk) 16:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- You're right; do you thing the article is ready to go on mainspace? Zazaban (talk) 08:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- The inclusion of a section on rebellions, minor or major (and who could judge the difference?), would be a much larger problem than you might anticipate. Consider first, the sheer number of events which anarchists participate in world wide. Should we include every protest, or only the riots? And why stop at riots, when there are so many ongoing anarchist social/logistical infrastructure projects, like Infoshops, the Really Really Free Market, or Food Not Bombs? If you want to create a list, which this article could then summarize and link to, that would be infinitely preferable. The list can be upgraded simply as events unfold, and this article wouldn't need the same level of constant updating. Also, I recommend looking into the pamphlet, "Second Wave Anarchy" by Aragorn!, which contains a number of essays about contemporary anarchist developments. If you don't have immediate access to it, I'll look into supplying citations from it in the future (I volunteer with LBC)--Cast (talk) 23:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Anarchist schools of thought focus mainly on the historic focus of anarchism, whearas this article is attempting to paint a picture of what the anarchist movement looks like at this second, not just an all around summary of the philosophic groups. For example, the schools of thought article has a whole section on The Boston Anarchists. If this goes through, the 'contemporary developments' section on schools of thought could probably be summarized.Zazaban (talk) 17:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Edit war at anarchism.
Could somebody please come and help me? A user is reverting a large number of edits by multiple established users for reasons he's not doing a very good job of articulating. He seems to be insisting that they consist of original research and were not talked about on the talk page, although neither accusations are in fact true. English does not appear to be their first language, so it is possible something is getting lost in translation. Zazaban (talk) 23:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Government page needs help
The government article is Statist, POV, unsourced nonsense, and is in need of some balance -- it sounds like it was written by a rich American high school kid as part of their social studies class. I understand that it's not an "anarchism" page exactly, but it's close enough to our topic of interest here that I feel this is an appropriate place to ask for help. It was full of inane, unsourced comments like "The state is necessary to protect us from our neighbors", and "government has been around since the beginning of humanity". I've removed some of this, but a lot still remains. The page probably in need of a complete rewrite. Even if it isn't taken on as a project of the Anarchist Task Force, then perhaps some of you could just individually help. Thanks Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
- In four years on Wikipedia I can safely say that is far and away the worst article on a core topic I have ever seen. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, jr. Solidarity, Skomorokh, barbarian 23:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
User at Talk:anarchism says the article should state that socialist anarchism is an oxymoron.
See here. He doesn't seem to be very familiar with the subject, in fact he's basing this off of a dictionary entry, but is very insistent. He argues that all forms of socialism are not anarchist, that their status is very controversial, and this should be strongly emphasized in the article. He's decided that I'm some kind of fringe ideologue, so I'd appreciate if somebody else could get involved. Zazaban (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
- I gave him the boilerplate. I'm fluent in ancap and placation so will follow up if the agitation continues. Skomorokh, barbarian 02:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Some resources
I put together a list of my anarchism-related books: User:Malik Shabazz/Anarchist Sources.
I'm happy to help other editors who need access to them. Contact me and we can work out details. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
- I am seething with envy! Thanks so much for establishing this resource, I had been thinking of doing something similar but centralized, à la WP:REX. Skomorokh, barbarian 18:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
An editor has proposed a merger of these two articles about anarchist journals published circa 1917 and 1934 respectively. I'm not sure how distinct the topics are, though we only have one of them entered at list of anarchist periodicals. Anyone strong on American anarchism, Goldman/Berkman? Malik? Skomorokh, barbarian 18:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Pageview stats
After a recent request, I added WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism/Popular pages.
The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
- Why is nihilism covered this task force? I've removed it for now, unless somebody can think of a reason why it should be there. Suspect it has to do with the common equation of anarchism and chaos. Zazaban (talk) 01:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
- As a philosophy, there is indeed no connection. However, on a historical note, political radicals in Russia looked to nihilism during the late 19th century as a political philosophy. A new conception of why hierarchy should be challenged arose with the notion that supposedly "sacred" institutions of power and authority were without any meaning. Just as the realization that the medieval divine monarchy was not ordained by god gave ethical weight to calls for republican revolution, the recognition that the church, judicial system, and enlightened monarchs of the modern era were devoid of value mean they could be challenged in favor of social revolution. However, that's where the nihilists stopped, because nihilism does not presuppose a positivist revolution, the way anarchists of the day did. As such, there was some interesting overlap, partnership, and criticism, between anarchists and nihilists of that time. So that article could be expanded to include a summation of this relationship, and the article would become anarchist related. --Cast (talk) 13:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
- The Russian nihilist movement is at a different article, but I suppose if something on that were to be added to nihilism, it could be put back. Also, should the nihilist movement be listed as a school of thought in the anarchism template? Zazaban (talk) 23:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
- I would say no. That would be crossing a tenuous line. Nilhilism and anarchism are different animals which occasionally attracted like minded figures. But it would be a real stretch to fit it into the template.
- Then the article should probably not state in the opening sentence that it was an anarchist movement. Zazaban (talk) 09:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
- I would say no. That would be crossing a tenuous line. Nilhilism and anarchism are different animals which occasionally attracted like minded figures. But it would be a real stretch to fit it into the template.
- The Russian nihilist movement is at a different article, but I suppose if something on that were to be added to nihilism, it could be put back. Also, should the nihilist movement be listed as a school of thought in the anarchism template? Zazaban (talk) 23:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
- As a philosophy, there is indeed no connection. However, on a historical note, political radicals in Russia looked to nihilism during the late 19th century as a political philosophy. A new conception of why hierarchy should be challenged arose with the notion that supposedly "sacred" institutions of power and authority were without any meaning. Just as the realization that the medieval divine monarchy was not ordained by god gave ethical weight to calls for republican revolution, the recognition that the church, judicial system, and enlightened monarchs of the modern era were devoid of value mean they could be challenged in favor of social revolution. However, that's where the nihilists stopped, because nihilism does not presuppose a positivist revolution, the way anarchists of the day did. As such, there was some interesting overlap, partnership, and criticism, between anarchists and nihilists of that time. So that article could be expanded to include a summation of this relationship, and the article would become anarchist related. --Cast (talk) 13:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Black template
I just found User:Allixpeeke/anarchism, and I quite like this alternate template. Most anarchism sidebars in other languages are black, and I find them to be quite classy. Is there any plan of implementing this black guy? Zazaban (talk) 22:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
- Pardon for the late reply. Actually, this was implemented for a short period. I don't know why it was returned to the previous image, but I know I was glad. I prefer the black-on-white template. I think it's easier on the eyes. --Cast (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm in favour of the black background, and the white text could be dulled to a cream to make it less harsh, but the problem is that it requires advanced hackery to change all those ugly-looking bluelinks. Skomorokh 01:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Andrej Grubacic
Could someone have a look at Andrej Grubacic and see if help can be given to establish his notability? I think we might need references to establish him "one of the more prominent theorists of "new anarchism"" and "one of the leading anti-authoritarian voices of the global justice movement". Many thanks for any help (Msrasnw (talk) 10:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC))
- This article is now in Afd if anyone has time can someone come and have a look Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrej Grubacic. (Msrasnw (talk) 03:06, 21 December 2009 (UTC))
Huge POV essay being added repeatedly at anarchist communism
Over at anarchist communism, there are a couple of people tweaking the contents to suit their POV, and then adding a large essay using terms such as "our spendid anarcho-communist society". I removed it, but they reverted me. I may need a couple other people watching the page. Zazaban (talk) 06:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've got anarchist communism on my watchlist -- I'll keep a closer eye on it for a while. Thanks for the heads up. Jrtayloriv (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
- This fellow at least seems to have the interests of the encyclopaedia at heart; perhaps a question of inexperience rather than malice? Skomorokh 00:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- Adding a large essay attempting to drive home a point, and then repeatedly reverting without explanation. Even if it is inexperience, I get the impression he signed up with the sole intent of adding it, which doesn't bode well for co-operation. I wouldn't call it malice, however, and I could be completely wrong. The previous edit was much more extreme than the one you're linking to, by the way. Zazaban (talk) 06:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
- See, the problem I have is that he isn't just adding information, he's adding text that seems to be trying to argue in favor of his position. Zazaban (talk) 06:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Anarchism up for GA review
It seems someone has nominated the anarchism article for GA status. It might take more work than than is feasible to get it up to scratch, but the review is here. Skomorokh 23:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
- Comrades, fellow non-wage slaves of Wikimedia, when I picked this article to review yesterday, I did mention on the GAN talk page that the nominator had not put anything on the article talk page to say they had nominated this article. The response I got there was that the article on face-value looked as if it had a chance of getting to GA.
- I have therefore started working on creating the review report. However the above post has made me wonder if I should continue. Are there members here prepared to work on fixing issues that I identify if I put the article on hold.
- What I noticed on a skim is that there are several unreferenced paragraphs mainly in one section. If there's no one here prepared to dig out the refs, I might as well stop now as the article won't get to GA.
- If the concern is that I might identify a lot of work that needs doing and that it might take too long to fix in the short term, but people still feel it would be a useful exercise to identify what needs fixing so that it can be tackled over the next 6 months to a year, then I am still prepared to continue.
- Views?--Peter cohen (talk) 01:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note drop. The Task Force will try to provide what back up we can, though I hope you understand that we're in an ebbing period, and even at the best of times, this group always acted with the equivalent coordination of a herd of cats. --Cast (talk) 01:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
- A very productive herd of cats, mind you. Zazaban (talk) 02:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
- Wildcats, I assume. Thanks for the replies.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note drop. The Task Force will try to provide what back up we can, though I hope you understand that we're in an ebbing period, and even at the best of times, this group always acted with the equivalent coordination of a herd of cats. --Cast (talk) 01:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
It's now on hold. See the article talk page.
I've passed it. Thank you to the other contributors to this thread for responding to my points. I noted one bit of referencing that needs to be addressed, but I didn't think it was worth holding things up for. Well doen everybody who's contributed significantly in the past to the article. Apart from any political affinity I have with the subject, I do think it is good when Wikipedia's coverage of topics that are both substantial and serious are improved. I put a lot more priority on this sort of content than on video games etc.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- Huzzah! Thank you Peter for a very diligent and patient review, and welcome aboard! This is a great day for the ATF; cocktails and molotov's at Murderbike's grave at midnight, everyone. Skomorokh 15:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- I thought it was time I added myself. Doing a proper GA assessment is very time consuming when the article is sizeable. My user page now lists this review as one of my major article contributions. My other reasons for joining are that I am the main contributor to Donald Rooum, have added to the List of anarchist periodicals and have done some other edits sucha s indicating that Albert Meltzer and Vernon Richards may not have been the best of mates.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- Welcome to the cool kids club. Pull up stool and sip on some organic root beer. You've earned it.--Cast (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- I thought it was time I added myself. Doing a proper GA assessment is very time consuming when the article is sizeable. My user page now lists this review as one of my major article contributions. My other reasons for joining are that I am the main contributor to Donald Rooum, have added to the List of anarchist periodicals and have done some other edits sucha s indicating that Albert Meltzer and Vernon Richards may not have been the best of mates.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks go to everyone who put forward earnest and positive effort into the article over the past few days, but appreciation is also extended to everyone who, in sincerity and good faith, worked to present anarchism to the world through this article since it's 2002 genesis. I especially want to thank Skomorokh for his efforts over the past week, which would not have ended in such a happy conclusion without his efforts. Now, onward comrades! The next flag to be taken is just beyond the far hill!--Cast (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, a great big thank you to the editors who worked to improve the article over the past two weeks! — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
- I added the GA review to my watchlist so that I can show it to my grandchildren. If I ever have grandchildren. Or children. :D Zazaban (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Very abrasive POV-pusher at Anarchism
See Talk:Anarchism#Anarchist_communism_is_an_oxymoron and [1]. The gist of it is that they believe that social anarchism is not anarchist, and that their say on the matter supersedes reliable sources and wikipedia policy. They doesn't seem to have much more than a rudimentary understanding of what their arguing about either. I think I will need some backup here, since they are essentially immune to all reason. Oh, and he was here a few months ago attempting to push the same POV in the same aggressive manner. Zazaban (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
- I said my part, but I just want to reiterate that there is no real controversy here. This editor's concerns can be mitigated by a simple sentence rewrite. Once that is done, if the editor continues to complain, we know there is something more of an ideological bent to this. You may contend that there is already an obvious bias at play. I won't disagree, but your best move in this situation is to give the editor just enough rope to trip on. If you try to reconcile this situation, and the other editor doesn't reciprocate, you'll have indisputable evidence of bias on your hands. If the other editor accepts your changes, then there is no controversy. Either way, the problem ends. --Cast (talk) 18:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Ojore Nuru Lutalo
Bad news, everyone. Ojore Nuru Lutalo, a comrade anarchist on his way home from the LA Bookfair, was recently arrested for alleged terrorist threats made over a cell phone on a train. His carrying anarchist literature at the time isn't helping. Does that last detail remind anyone of Sacco and Vanzetti? I've created a workspace for it in my sandbox. Since this is fresh, now is the time to jump on it. --Cast (talk) 22:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
- What the fuck? Looking for sources now... Skomorokh 23:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
- Definitely not a good situation to be in. The story has already made Pravda. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I was concerned that, like the Katie Sierra controversy, we wouldn't be able to create an article on him if the event is more notable than he is. However, it seems he has been in the news in the past for prisoner activism. I've shelled out the money for a subscription to access news archives for these older sources. I'll be sure to try digging deeper for anything on his original arrest. --Cast (talk) 01:07, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
It looks like the news cycle on this story has halted for now. It may pick up again when Lutalo gets his day in court, so I really want to get all of the current sources down as soon as possible, so we can focus on new sources of information when they become available down the road. Any help would still be appreciated. --Cast (talk) 03:01, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps a final update? It looks like all charges against Lutalo are going to be dropped. Witnesses who claimed to have heard him make terrorist threats changed their stories on follow-up interviews, and several now acknowledge not hearing any clear threats at all. Boy, I bet all those reactionaries calling for Lutalo to be sent to Guantanamo in the website comments sections are looking mighty foolish. I bet they're so sheepish, they wont' jump to conclusions like that ever again. Ever. --Cast (talk) 00:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Bot archiving?
I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, which is why I haven't tried to archive 2009 yet. How does everyone feel about using MiszaBot I to auto-archive this talk page? If we use it, we should just consider how big we want the archives to be. There are a lot of variables to program the bot to operate by. --Cast (talk) 01:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
- I would not be in favour of auto-archiving. It is needed for pages that quickly accumulate lots of discussion or lack editors to manage archiving manually; neither would seem the case here. I'll archive the old discussions if no-one else wants to. Skomorokh 03:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Simple English invitation
I just want to toss out an invitation for everyone to consider how to best improve the simple:Anarchism article. Creating a Very Good article for those learning English, or the young, would be a nice side project for the ATF, and perhaps relatively easy, since we could just convert our GA article into a version with smaller sentences and greater attention to explaining big words. --Cast (talk) 23:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Somebody has put the notability-tag on the article about this author, but didn't tell me or on the talk page what the exact problem is. Because I mostly work in the wikipedia of german language, I don't know what to do now and need help. Gabriel Kuhn has written several books in english and german language. Thanks in advance --Sargoth (talk) 02:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- At a glance, seemed notable enough to me. Moreso than a lot of the stupid comic book articles people allow editors to keep. I removed the tag unless someone can provide a good reason for it on the talk page. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 04:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks Jrtayloriv. The books in german language are not mentioned in this article, i didn't consider them useful für readers of english language. The same user has added two tags by using some script on PM Press, maybe you could care about that, too. Regards, --Sargoth (talk) 08:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Importance rankings
I was surprised looking at the assessment matrix on the project page to see that we have a high importance featured article and not a high-importance good one. The surprise being because I promoted Anarchism to GA and can't see how any other article could be more important than it to the task force. I've checked and it is mid-importance and the high-importance FA is Emma Goldman. While Red Emma is certainly one of the top 10 anarchist writers, I still can't see why she is more important than anarchism itself. DO we have any importance rating criteria that explain this anomaly?--Peter cohen (talk) 12:59, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
- Well, Makhno said that anarchism is an act, not a political philosophy. If you're not doing it, it's not anarchism. After he being released from prison during the amnesty, he travelled the Soviet Union for two months, trying to find out what other anarchists were doing for the revolution and was disgusted to find people who called themselves anarchists standing on streetcorners handing out literature while better people were fighting and dying. It makes perfect sense that those who practice anarchism are more important than a lot of stuffy academic theory. SmashTheState (talk) 18:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
- This is not a controversial issue. If you disagree with a rating, change it. If others disagree with you, that can be discussed on the related talk page. I've just changed it, as I feel that Anarchism is of high importance to the field of philosophy. Note that there has long been some ambiguity as to how we should rate articles. Articles of high importance within anarchism may be of low importance within the greater field of philosophy. When in doubt, go with your gut. --Cast (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Reminder on National Anarchism
It was discussed here once in the past. It's pretty much a puff piece written by partisans of racial separatism using their own material as refs. So good to check up what editors are up to there from time to time. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think it's even notable enough to have an article. Are any of those sources reliable? Zazaban (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- The problem of course is that a lot of anarchism/libertarianism articles are based on sources that would be easily challenged if they were not about these niche ideological viewpoints. A news search of National Anarchism found only one "WP:RS" - Southern Poverty Law Center - which remains suspect because of its habit of exaggerating threats for fundraising purposes. But others can stick the info/ref in, if not there already. I think WP:UNDUE in length and detail of article may be easiest issue to edit the article on. But I personally don't feel like taking it on, especially since I've been personally attacked by one of them and my edits might be seen as WP:COI. Plus I just have higher wiki priorities right now. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- It reads like garden-variety pseudo-intellectual WP hatemongering. While the article as it stands is probably worthless (and wrong), were the Serbian Black Hand not anarchist nationalists? Perhaps the article could be rewritten so it isn't just a pamphlet for BNP Randroids. SmashTheState (talk) 23:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm no expert on the topic, but my understanding is that the Serbian Black Hand were nationalist (and no to be confused with the Spanish La Mano Negra, who may not have been anarchist either). Any relationship with anarchists was superimposed by the media of the day, simply associating an assassination of yet another political leader with anarchists out of habit. --Cast (talk) 02:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- The Black Hand article does say they were criticized as being nihilists, and there was traditionally some overlap between the anarchists and the nihilists. Both had huge beards (even the women), long, stereotypically Jewish noses, liked to wear long black trenchcoats and big floppy slouch hats and ran around holding big round bombs that said BOMB on them in large, friendly letters while destroying democracy. I know I do! SmashTheState (talk) 03:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm no expert on the topic, but my understanding is that the Serbian Black Hand were nationalist (and no to be confused with the Spanish La Mano Negra, who may not have been anarchist either). Any relationship with anarchists was superimposed by the media of the day, simply associating an assassination of yet another political leader with anarchists out of habit. --Cast (talk) 02:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
- It reads like garden-variety pseudo-intellectual WP hatemongering. While the article as it stands is probably worthless (and wrong), were the Serbian Black Hand not anarchist nationalists? Perhaps the article could be rewritten so it isn't just a pamphlet for BNP Randroids. SmashTheState (talk) 23:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
- The problem of course is that a lot of anarchism/libertarianism articles are based on sources that would be easily challenged if they were not about these niche ideological viewpoints. A news search of National Anarchism found only one "WP:RS" - Southern Poverty Law Center - which remains suspect because of its habit of exaggerating threats for fundraising purposes. But others can stick the info/ref in, if not there already. I think WP:UNDUE in length and detail of article may be easiest issue to edit the article on. But I personally don't feel like taking it on, especially since I've been personally attacked by one of them and my edits might be seen as WP:COI. Plus I just have higher wiki priorities right now. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- I put up a notability disputed tag. Zazaban (talk) 04:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Keith Preston is a guy who promotes it while claiming to merely mention its existence. Poorly sourced bio which probably should be removed. Jared Taylor is more notable but many bigoted non-WP:RS reference that need removal; should be shorter article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- A nazi anarcho-capitalist? What the hell? *Ahem* Anyway, no, he doesn't seem notable. Though if I had the call I'd keep it just because it's so utterly bizarre. Almost WP:ODD level of freaky. Zazaban (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
- Keith Preston is a guy who promotes it while claiming to merely mention its existence. Poorly sourced bio which probably should be removed. Jared Taylor is more notable but many bigoted non-WP:RS reference that need removal; should be shorter article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Unreferenced living people articles bot
User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.
The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 4/Unreferenced BLPs<<<
If you do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.
Thank you. Okip 02:50, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
ATF AFDs
Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism was nominated for deletion for a second time four days ago, and it would seem few on the Task Force have noticed. There seems to be an unfortunate side effect to my revamp of the ATF page some months ago. We can no longer allow others to quickly know when an article is up for deletion and request aid. This is really unfortunate, given one of the basic reasons the ATF's was created was to help defend anarchism AFDs and develop them safely. Any ideas on how we can resolve this? How do other WikiProjects handle announcements for AFDs? --Cast (talk) 02:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism aid requested
The Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism article needs a massive overhaul. Ideally, it should be devoted to an exploration of the relationship anarcho-capitalism has had with the rest of the anarchist family tree since its inception. Howeover, it was instead written as an exploration of their differences, which redundant as each individual article is capable of explaining this on its own, and a reader need only read both to compare each. Instead, commentary generated on the relationship each has had, the influence anarcho-capitalism has had on anarchist thought, and visa versa, should be in this article. I'm not really good at articles dealing with the history of anarchist theory, preferring historical events, fiction, and biographies. If anyone knows of good sources on essays, books, and commentary written on the relationship anarcho-capitalism has had with other branches of anarchist thought, now would be the time to contribute your knowledge. We're now several years down the road from all of the contentious edit warring of the mid 'oughties. The article can likely now be properly written and crafted. --Cast (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
National anarchism again
Somebody is at the talk page for Contemporary anarchism arguing that NA should have its own entry. I have replied (after spending about ten minutes trying to word it in a way that didn't sound hostile or mocking) and some more thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. This is a fairly hot-button issue, and I feel attention should be brought to it so that a consensus can be reached. What happens here will probably set a precedent for a future similar request on the main Anarchism page, which I've felt for awhile is inevitable. (Has that happened already? I forget.) I'm also getting the impression that the user isn't neutral on the issue, though I will reserve judgement. Zazaban (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
- Nevermind reserving judgement, the same user has identified himself as the founder of the Bay Area National Anarchists at Talk:National anarchism and is definitely not a neutral voice. He seems to have gotten involved in an edit war over there too. I would now call this a conflict of interest. Zazaban (talk) 19:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Copyright fun
this image has copyright issues. maybe someone here has the time and patience to deal with it? Murderbike (talk) 06:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Help requested with Wikipedia naming convention policy discussion
The only voices being heard from so far are the same white, privileged, European-descended, English-speaking males responsible for the systemic bias on Wikipedia to begin with, for whom the bias has been normalized. It would be nice if we could get additional voices involved here. SmashTheState (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
- Oh I see. So you have decided anyone who disagrees with you is an upper class white male. What evidence do you base that decision on? Are you familiar with out policy on canvassing? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:31, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
- 99% of the world's population is not going to call the place Kerepakupai merú, especially the English-speaking world, which happens to call it Angel Falls. It would make more sense to move China to Zhongguo- many, many more people call China Zhongguo than call Angel Falls Kerepakupai merú!- and nobody would dispute that would be absurd. English speakers call something one thing, Chinese speakers call the same thing something else, Swahili speakers will call it a third thing, and so forth and so forth. There's nothing racist about it. Zazaban (talk) 19:44, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
- I recognize that this is an issue you are passionate about, and believe me, I fully understand and empathize with the sentiment behind the suggestion. However, you can't expect Wikipedia to alter its priority of making information easily available, in favor of pursuing social justice. The proper venue for that would be in the realm of the real. I, for one, look forward to the era where the land of "America" is no longer recognized by an Italian name. Unfortunately, the ATF cannot mount this campaign. It's a bit beyond our scope. --Cast (talk) 21:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
It would be helpful if there could be some more voices over at Talk:Anarchism, regarding a proposed major change. I would strongly disagree with the anon's claims, and I don't take to his tone, but he doesn't seem to be a troll and took the first step by posting a section in the talk. Zazaban (talk) 02:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Nevermind, it seems to have been a banned user. Zazaban (talk) 02:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Right, not clear on what's going on, goodbye. Zazaban (talk) 03:02, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, back in the loop again, hello. Zazaban (talk) 03:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- All good? Skomorokh 14:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, everything is fine and dandy. I just was a bit flustered for a moment. Very confusing chain of events. Zazaban (talk) 17:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- All good? Skomorokh 14:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, back in the loop again, hello. Zazaban (talk) 03:08, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
- Right, not clear on what's going on, goodbye. Zazaban (talk) 03:02, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Pulse check
Who's kicking? A las barricadas! Skomorokh 14:14, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- 'ello 'ello Zazaban (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- Still here. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 20:14, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- Wha...? Whozat? Slow down their, buddy. Yea' interruptin mah nap. Now what's all this there about tha gabbo? --Cast (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- (deceased) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- Huzzah, record strength! Anyone got any anarcho-projects in the oven? I am full of energy and optimism [because I have not been editing Wikipedia] so am willing to pitch in [for about two days until engulfed by despondence and apathy]. Skomorokh 13:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I have been meaning to create a template for external links to The Anarchist Library. Ideally, it would incorporate a feature to link a to a work or an author. A link for a work space is on my user page. I haven't followed through on it because I have been working on the bio-page for Maria Nikiforova. That page can easily achieve GA status if I pull all of my sources together. Non-anarchist related, but of interest for eco-warrior comics is my work space page for Burnout, also linked on my user page. However, if none of this is of interest, you could always add mpa few more names to the list of anarchists. (Ha!) --Cast (talk) 14:01, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- Busy with meatspace organizing these days, but if you're looking for something to do, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union article could use some work. It's in rough shape, what with most of the article being taken up with proving its notability as a result of being repeatedly sent to AFD, and every reactionary on Wikipedia adding "claims" and "alleges" to every sentence. And there are a bunch of factual errors in it too. The problem is, I'm the official spokesperson for the organization, so rewriting it is a COI for me (and since the article has been in the news as a result of having been vandalized by someone using a computer in city hall or the police station, I can't afford even the appearance of COI). -- SmashTheState (talk) 14:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- I resuscitated that particular article from deletion I think; it took a lot of beating in the process, and there was not much in the way of neutral+quality sourcing to work with. Skomorokh 18:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- Cast, I should be able to help with the TAL ex link template; I've whipped up an initial version at your subpage. I can do another that is author-based rather than text-based if required. I haven't access to sources on Maria Nikiforova but if you need any help with the drudge work or the GA review let me know. Same story for Burnout, but some googling may be of use there. I'll finish off that list of anarchists as soon as you finish the portal anniversaries ;). Skomorokh 18:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- Busy with meatspace organizing these days, but if you're looking for something to do, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union article could use some work. It's in rough shape, what with most of the article being taken up with proving its notability as a result of being repeatedly sent to AFD, and every reactionary on Wikipedia adding "claims" and "alleges" to every sentence. And there are a bunch of factual errors in it too. The problem is, I'm the official spokesperson for the organization, so rewriting it is a COI for me (and since the article has been in the news as a result of having been vandalized by someone using a computer in city hall or the police station, I can't afford even the appearance of COI). -- SmashTheState (talk) 14:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
- It would probably be a good idea to finally finish a couple of the half-finished articles hanging around in the Workstation. Some of them look like they could be rather good. I would get to it if somebody else were willing to assist. Zazaban (talk) 21:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- There is some potential there alright.
- The timeline might be fun to fill out, if we can figure out a way to avoid the monotony of bullet after bullet. Is there a good example of a timeline around that could be mimiced?
- If you get around to translating Anarchism and Esperanto I'd be happy to help with research and referencing.
- Anarchism and chaos is a heavyweight topic, will need proper research before being ready for the mainspace.
- Not sure what to do with Ojore Nuru Lutalo given that the charges were dropped in the end.
- The index of anarchism articles would be a nightmare to fill in manually (trust me), best handled by a bot as Cast says.
- Anarchism in Argentina is still weak on contemporary activism, and will need Carabinieri's say-so before any major changes.
- The others haven't much potential, but there's plenty there in the above works-in-progress. Skomorokh 18:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- TImeline is probably a good place to start. At the very least one could to pop whenever they think of something and add that, for the time being. More effort would be nice, of course, but just to illustrate that it's more time-consuming than it is difficult. Sadly, I don't think there's much else to do but bullet by bullet, but I suspect that we here are probably innovative enough to be the first to come up with an alternative. As for the Esperanto article; I haven't been much of an esperantist for a few years now, so I'll be a bit rusty, expect me to take awhile. Zazaban (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- There is some potential there alright.
- I want to make a few suggestions. I've been planning on converting the article on Lutalo into an event article. That should clear that hurtle. That it is small makes no difference. In time, it may be merged into a "list of anarchists confused for terrorists" article, but that is a concern for the future. The timeline of anarchism can be altered from a "bullet by bullet" list, into a list of articles of historical events. That is, instead of including a sentence to describe an event, a chronological list of wikilinks to articles should be created, with no exposition as to what the linked articles are about. The solitary links should simply link to a historical event, and leave it at that. There can be red links to documented events which have yet to have an article created for them, but no descriptive sentences. Those things just clutter up space. Images can be provided, such as an image of Osugi Sakae, with a caption "Osugi Sakai, murdered in the Amakasu Incident"; an image of Jean Grave with the caption, "Jean Grave, co-author of the Manifesto of the Sixteen." Nothing more need be said. Take a look at the Anarchism sidebar. It has an alphabetical listing. Simply convert this into a chronological listing, and toss in pictures, and you have what I'm describing. Now to make it a much more expansive project, I believe it should be modeled after the Timeline of United States history. Specifically, it should be broken up into several periods, and tied into a series of "history of anarchism" articles. The history of anarchism articles would not be regionally based, like the current "Anarchism in (country/region)". It would be a more broad, era-by-era work. It should also tie into a topical series on anarchist history: the "cultural history of anarchism" the "military history of anarchism". Some current articles, such as "Anarchism and the arts" might be best presented in that format. A title such as "anarchism and the arts" suggests a philosophical perspective on arts and aesthetics. The current incarnation of "Anarchism and the arts" reads more like a mix of anarchist history of art, and broad link farm. As for Anarchism in Argentina, I contacted Carabinieri months ago, when he first provided the link to the workstation. I made it clear that we could help, and I'm sorry to see others assume we have to jump through hoops to give it to him. If you have any changes to make to improve the article, I urge you to Be Bold. --Cast (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, do be bold. I do see good sense in making the history thematic and chronological rather than nationalistic, but I'm otherwise engaged, currently on advancing the article on one of Bakunin's associates from the 1849 Dresden uprising up the rating system.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
- Still plugging away at the Lutalo article. It's not a long article, so if I power through it, I may be able to get it ready to go live within a couple of weeks. Any help I can get would be appreciated. --Cast (talk) 02:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- I want to make a few suggestions. I've been planning on converting the article on Lutalo into an event article. That should clear that hurtle. That it is small makes no difference. In time, it may be merged into a "list of anarchists confused for terrorists" article, but that is a concern for the future. The timeline of anarchism can be altered from a "bullet by bullet" list, into a list of articles of historical events. That is, instead of including a sentence to describe an event, a chronological list of wikilinks to articles should be created, with no exposition as to what the linked articles are about. The solitary links should simply link to a historical event, and leave it at that. There can be red links to documented events which have yet to have an article created for them, but no descriptive sentences. Those things just clutter up space. Images can be provided, such as an image of Osugi Sakae, with a caption "Osugi Sakai, murdered in the Amakasu Incident"; an image of Jean Grave with the caption, "Jean Grave, co-author of the Manifesto of the Sixteen." Nothing more need be said. Take a look at the Anarchism sidebar. It has an alphabetical listing. Simply convert this into a chronological listing, and toss in pictures, and you have what I'm describing. Now to make it a much more expansive project, I believe it should be modeled after the Timeline of United States history. Specifically, it should be broken up into several periods, and tied into a series of "history of anarchism" articles. The history of anarchism articles would not be regionally based, like the current "Anarchism in (country/region)". It would be a more broad, era-by-era work. It should also tie into a topical series on anarchist history: the "cultural history of anarchism" the "military history of anarchism". Some current articles, such as "Anarchism and the arts" might be best presented in that format. A title such as "anarchism and the arts" suggests a philosophical perspective on arts and aesthetics. The current incarnation of "Anarchism and the arts" reads more like a mix of anarchist history of art, and broad link farm. As for Anarchism in Argentina, I contacted Carabinieri months ago, when he first provided the link to the workstation. I made it clear that we could help, and I'm sorry to see others assume we have to jump through hoops to give it to him. If you have any changes to make to improve the article, I urge you to Be Bold. --Cast (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
ATF outreach
So, for about 6 months or so, I've been thinking about the lack of activity in the ATF. Not the lack of activity amongst our editors. We all seem to be busy in one way or another, and when asked, several appeared to counted ready for action. The problem is that we lack activity as as task force. When this group was founded, I thought that the optimum number of members would not be a numerical condition, but a qualitative one; that no matter how many were busy with an individual or group project, there would always be a fair number free and ready to respond to a request for aid. Whether that required a dozen or a hundred, what mattered was not the number of members, but their activity level. Well, in a few months the ATF will be reaching its third anniversary, and I'd like to see is reach that qualitative activity level. So I want to suggest an out reach program. A few weeks ago, the Anarchism Portal was featured on a website summarizing anarchism, and the visitor count spiked. It spiked once when it was initially published, and again few days later when this same summary was posted to Anarchist News.org. What I find interesting is that after it was published to Anarchist News, its visitor count remained high for several weeks. Clearly anarchists \are not visiting our wikipedia pages, but would want to. No, I'm not referring to the articles. I'm sure they read those. The problem, is they don't read the Portal and the follow the various talk page links to the task force.
We need to reach out to other anarchists who are not yet editors. Most wikiprojects don't go through this process of outreach, content to draw from the pool of common editors. However, we have uncommon editors. Sad to say, anarchism is not highly visible theory in the everyday lives of the average reader. We must go beyond waiting for the abnormal editor interested in anarchist theory to come to us. We must go to the barricades. We must go to the anarchists! So... yeah. Lets write an invitation and post it in various anarchist forums and news feeds. I've been meaning to talk to "Worker" for months now, after my anarchist podcast idea fell through. I haven't been volunteering with Little Black Cart either. I need to re-inject myself into the greater anarchist community in California's Bay Area. If others want to work on a letter or advertisement, I'll provide a space here.
Input would be greatly appreciated. --Cast (talk) 01:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea to finally finish a couple of the half-finished articles hanging around in the Workstation. Some of them look like they could be rather good. I would get to it if somebody else were willing to assist. Zazaban (talk) 21:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- That has no bearing on this topic. Cooperatively or individually completing a project and reaching out to the wider anarchist community for new members are not mutually exclusive. --Cast (talk) 22:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I believe I mistook this for another heading. Zazaban (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- That has no bearing on this topic. Cooperatively or individually completing a project and reaching out to the wider anarchist community for new members are not mutually exclusive. --Cast (talk) 22:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
- This plan is encouraging, though these are uncharted waters I feel. It's difficult to know where to begin. I have a few ideas, but I am really unfamiliar with anarchist online hubs. What kind of culture(s) would we be pitching to? Skomorokh 19:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- All of them. We've established that the culture of the ATF is one of inclusion, and the goal of making this a regular online stop for anarchists doesn't allow for us to skimp. I'm thinking of tailoring several messages for different groups, highlighting that our work is of interest across multiple schools of thought. And beyond theory, our interest is also in anarchist culture and history. This is useful for attracting those who, while anarchist, are not interested in theory. If they are interested in culture, they may find a useful intersection in their passions by editing articles related to anarchist fiction, music and visual art. If an interest is in biographies and events, they may find shared interest with other editors in anarchist history. The only standard to stress is the plural nature of the group. Those with an axe to grind can visit the ATF, only to find their interest to tussle with others to be quickly repudiated. Discouraged, they may leave or troll. It would be best that internet warriors understand this is no longer a battlefield. Besides creating broad proclamations and manifestos, what may be even more useful would be to reach out to individual, high profile anarchist bloggers. Explaining our established goals and group culture, we can ask these figures to plug the ATF an a blog entry. Regular readers will then be directed here by a source they trust. One example would be Roderick Long. Vloggers on youtube may also be useful contacts. --Cast (talk) 22:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- These are very stimulating thoughts, Cast, I think you're on the right track. I've stuck some FAQ-ish material to get us started at your sandbox. Skomorokh 14:06, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting diss here from this CrimethInc. analysis of what's changed in the last decade. Skomorokh 18:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
proposal over at 'radical left' article
There is a proposal I've started over at Radical left wherein I've definitively stated that "Radical Left" is what anarchists, left-communists, militant communists, militant socialists etc etc define themselves as in self-description, and not "far left". As you can see if you go to the link, I go into the reasons, but there's a grand total of 3 people currently involved in the discussion, and I need input from this WikiProject and other similar ones to provide me with the backup I need to push the proposal through. Please join in and offer your viewpoints. Thanks. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 01:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Anarchist articles nominated for deletion
Two Wikipedia articles important to many anarchists — Workplace democracy and Workers' self-management — have been nominated for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Workplace democracy and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Workers' self-management. Richard Myers (talk) 16:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- There is no change whatsoever fly. I doubt the nominations are in good faith. Reminds me of the time somebody nominated Christianity to be deleted. Zazaban (talk) 18:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- This has hit Infoshop; Anarchist info on Wikipedia threatened. I agree with Z that there is no chance that the article will be deleted. Skomorokh 13:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- This is an example of "a snowball's chance in hell" if I've even seen one. Zazaban (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The article on Bitcoin was deleted. I am new around these parts, but it seems like there may be enough new credible, noteworthy news on the subject of Bitcoin to disinter the article. Bitcoins deserve a mention somewhere in the realm of the set of Anarchism articles due to the Bitcoin's capacity to replace government fiat currency. Since the article's deletion, there have been numerous mentions in foreign language media which may or may not merit a Wikipedia article. I apologize for not being more specific regarding possible citations. Mpkomara (talk) 20:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Egads
By Bakunin's beard,1 how did this happen without anyone noticing? Skomorokh 11:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- By Bakunin's black cloak, the Anarchist Task Force is never notified when one of our articles is brought up for deletion discussion. I don't think these editors realize we exist. --Cast (talk) 23:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Happy anniversary!
Celebrating 3 years of Anarchist Task Force editing. --Cast (talk) 23:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
hey folks, for some odd reason i decided to poke my head in here, and noticed that this article about a mediocre movie about an extraordinary man that i did some time ago, and tried to elevate to "good article" status is still languishing in failed status. i fixed some of the things that were complained about by the GA reviewer, but just don't have the time to put more work into it. anyone up to the task? it shouldn't take too much work, and if anything it'll give you an excuse to watch (or rewatch) the movie, and shit go ahead and read the book Killing a Mouse on Sunday to see how it compares to the original novel, and even better, read Sabate: An Extraordinary Guerrilla to see how it compares to the life of the real guy. keep up the good fight, er, edits. Murderbike (talk) 02:14, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've been looking over the article and the sources cited. It looks like a lot of archived articles contemporary to the production would be useful, but need to be purchased. Well, I've spent money on sources for Anarky. I don't see why I wouldn't for this. Give me a bit of time, and I'll see what I can bring to this effort. --Cast (talk) 07:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Luigi Galleani
The entry for Luigi Galleani has grown to include lots of material that doesn't make sense in his bio, mostly under the heading "Revolutionary activities". I'd like to break that material out into its own entry and expand it. I was wondering if anyone agreed or disagreed, and I'm looking for a name for the new entry, perhaps "Galleanist activities in the United States." Comments? Objections? Suggestions? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'll be bringing my commentary to the Galleani talk page. Thanks for bringing this up here.--Cast (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Zamfir Arbore
A remarkable effort has been made in recent months to create and expand an article on a Romanian anarchist, Zamfir Arbore, by a real Dragon of an editor. I just want to bring this to the ATF's attention. Any possible contribution we could make at this point might be underwhelming, but could help in this inexorable rush to FA. I also suggest lavishing praise on the primary editor, Dahn. --Cast (talk) 04:02, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Possible articles for some Russian Empire anarchist groups
Ran across a neat ref which appears to have data on a few groups we don't have articles for including: Chernoye Znamya (Black Flag) (whoops, just needed a redirect, fixed) and Beznachalie (Absence of Authority). Ref here (formatted with http://reftag.appspot.com):
- Gérard Chaliand; Arnaud Blin (1 August 2007). The history of terrorism: from antiquity to al Qaeda. University of California Press. pp. 162–. ISBN 9780520247093. Retrieved 7 May 2011.. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for this, but as you may judge from my late response, I'm not in a position to run with this with myself. Still, it's good to have it on record so we can do something with it down the road. --Cast (talk) 04:04, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
... has been nominated for deletion. If you're interested, you may comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Abolition of Work. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:48, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
More eyes are encouraged at Anarchism. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
WikiProject Political culture
There is a new WikiProject whose aim is to provide Wikipedia resources and a common discussion for political culture articles. This includes Anarchism, Corporatism, Oligarchy, Liberalism, Socialism and Fascism. Greg Bard (talk) 18:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
WikiProject Philosophy discussion
I just learned of this discussion that was taking place on the main WP:Philosophy talk page a few months back: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 11#Created Wikipedia:WikiProject Socialism... the Marxism taskforce should be merged... With the founding of WikiProject Socialism, there was a proposal to merge the Marxism Task Force into it. That led into a wider discussion of the possible fates of several other projects, such as Fascism, Libertarianism, and our own ATF. It would seem that none of the ATF's members were involved, and it ultimately went nowhere. Looking on it now, how do any of you feel about it? This discussion has briefly come up amongst ourselves in the past, when we've considered the difficulty in rating our non-philosophy based articles according to the Project-wide grading scheme. Skomorokh has suggested being an "autonomous task force" of sorts, although that concept was only mentioned in passing and not elaborated upon. What do our members think of the proposals presented in WP:Philosphy's discussion? --Cast (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- The idea of an autonomous task force interests me. I would support it. I am vehemently against cramming all of the different political task forces together, as they are very niche and work best on their own. Zazaban (talk) 03:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- How exactly would that work? My interpretation is that the Task Force's association would depend upon a given article subject. A biography article would cause the ATF to become a workgroup under WikiProject Biography. An article on anarchist culture would cause the ATF to become a task force under WikiProject Sociology. But this seems really complicated. We'd also be running headlong into the same project we currently have under WP: Philosophy. That we run into a conflict of grading the importance of our articles by the standards of anarchist history, or by the standards of the wider structure of history. --Cast (talk) 04:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'm curious as to why WP:Politics isn't the antural home for these task forces.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- If you look at the articles featured on Portal:Politics, you'll see they are primarily made up of political concepts, such as "Initiative", "soft power" and "rule of law", or political parties. This is just a superficial example of the direction it's associated project goes in. WP: Politics concerns itself with biographies of political professionals (Obama and Putin) or with concepts in political process. Economics and social theory are only given attention when they factor into the public policy of the state. An article like "Anarchism and sex/love" has no political value, save for its bare association with the old line "the personal is political." Certain aspects of anarchist theory, contrary to Bookchin's assertions, were and remain "life stylist"; primarily concerned with the quality of the life of the individual and society, rather than the scientific process by which civic policy is arrived at and enacted. Although all anarchists have quite a bit to say about politics, it may be argued that our primary arena is the sociological one.--Cast (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting thoughts there. I suppose I think of Marx as a political writer but he is, together with Weber and Durkheim, one of the fathers of the old traditions of sociology. Kropotkin would be a sociologist in the same sense as Marx... I'm happy with the approaches suggested so far. I don't really understand the difference between free-standing task-forces and projects. --Peter cohen (talk) 13:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- If you look at the articles featured on Portal:Politics, you'll see they are primarily made up of political concepts, such as "Initiative", "soft power" and "rule of law", or political parties. This is just a superficial example of the direction it's associated project goes in. WP: Politics concerns itself with biographies of political professionals (Obama and Putin) or with concepts in political process. Economics and social theory are only given attention when they factor into the public policy of the state. An article like "Anarchism and sex/love" has no political value, save for its bare association with the old line "the personal is political." Certain aspects of anarchist theory, contrary to Bookchin's assertions, were and remain "life stylist"; primarily concerned with the quality of the life of the individual and society, rather than the scientific process by which civic policy is arrived at and enacted. Although all anarchists have quite a bit to say about politics, it may be argued that our primary arena is the sociological one.--Cast (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- I'm curious as to why WP:Politics isn't the antural home for these task forces.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
- How exactly would that work? My interpretation is that the Task Force's association would depend upon a given article subject. A biography article would cause the ATF to become a workgroup under WikiProject Biography. An article on anarchist culture would cause the ATF to become a task force under WikiProject Sociology. But this seems really complicated. We'd also be running headlong into the same project we currently have under WP: Philosophy. That we run into a conflict of grading the importance of our articles by the standards of anarchist history, or by the standards of the wider structure of history. --Cast (talk) 04:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
The basic questions here are what we need from the WikiProject ecosphere, and what it needs of us.
As far as I can see, WP:PHIL has been of limited use to us; it does not have topic specific guidance like WP:ROGUES or WP:ANCITE, nor an article namespace ontology of articles we can easily adopt (unlike our flagship lists; outline of anarchism, lists of anarchism topics; list of anarchist books etc.). As one of PHILs more active members, I can say that the even the sporadically active ATF has it beaten in terms of editorial commitment. By almost any metric other than scope, we are a more advanced project.
All we gain from association with PHIL as far as I can tell are article assessments (thanks to PHIL volunteers like User:Pollinosisss), and bot contributions (example). These benefits would likely be present no matter which project we affiliated ourselves with. A major problem with the association, as noted above, is the broken importance assessment set up we have; our assessment scheme gives neither importance for philosophy or for anarchism, but an incomplete and unclear mixture of the two.
What the WikiProject ecosphere requires from us is, more or less, limited to topic scope. Our assessed articles ought to fall under the topic of our parent project. When someone wants to find out how many articles on philosophy publications there are, they use PHIL assessment subcategories to figure out. It does not help to have stridently anti-theoretical anarchist newsletters in the mix. The trend, pushed by WP:COUNCIL, has been to absorb smaller projects into larger ones; although this makes sense for the tidiness of organisational tree-charts, like the discussion that provoked this one, it completely misses the point that more than anything else, topic-based collaboration should be about fostering collaboration rather than sorting topics as best as possible. They could merge us into a social and political task force if they wanted to; I and perhaps most of the rest of us would be disinclined to participate.
Murderbike set us up under Philosophy by analogy with the Marxists; Cast might prefer Sociology. My own preference, if there were to be one parent project that we could accurately say our articles belonged to would be Politics. The essentially interdisciplinary nature of anarchism, and the little use we have for parent projects, was what provoked my initial suggestion to be an autonomous task force – we don't bother anyone else, no-one interferes with us. Divorcing ourselves from PHIL (and thereby moving to an independent assessment scheme) would lose us little, but would create an anomaly that could cause trouble for the broader ecosystem. Of course, causing a little disruption can have its own appeal... Skomorokh 03:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Well, that settles it as far as I'm concerned. Autonomy is definitely the way to go. Sure it may cause a little disruption, but a little disruption is good for any worthwhile project such as wikipedia, especially one so based on democratic principles. For the record, I've never cared for the system of big, oversized and mostly empty wikiprojects. I'm a member of several, and this task force is more active than any of them by orders of magnitude. Hell, we're anarchists, if we take ourselves seriously at all we should at least give it a go. Zazaban (talk) 03:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm a member of the Bund Task Force, which is nominally "under" WikiProject Judaism and WikiProject Organized Labour, but in our short lifetime we've never had any interaction with either of our "parents". I agree that autonomy is best. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I am in favor of a disruption? (;-_-) ...decisions, decisions... Perhaps a word from one of our inspirational anarcho-elders will give us direction: "Seeing the supreme beauty of life in the expansion of life, I see the supreme beauty of life today only in this rebellion and destruction. Today, when the reality of conquest is developed to its utmost, harmony is not beauty. Beauty exists only in discord. Harmony is a lie. Truth exists only in discord. Now the expansion of life can only be gained through rebellion. Only through rebellion is there creation of new life, creation of a new society." Osugi Sakae (1885-1923) Well, who am I to argue with the Japanese? Grab a brick, friends! To the barricades!--Cast (talk) 05:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- If we do decide to do this, I would suggest that we simply leave a message on the relevant talk pages declaring autonomy, briefly outline our reasons, and then move ourselves to Wikipedia:Anarchist Task Force. Take it from there. We would probably want to make our own assessment scale as well. I don't see why we should have to ask permission to separate from a project that we've been functioning independently of for the most part to begin with. If hell is raised, we'll explain our reasoning crisply and honestly. Call me rash, but I think that it's the best way to do it. Quick, easy and assertive. Zazaban (talk) 04:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Wouldn't our autonomy basically mean becoming a WikiProject? How can we justify remaining a Task Force if we are no longer associated with a specific umbrella project? I think we're "screwing with the natural order", "dividing by zero", and ultimately, have no idea "what has science done". So exactly what does an "autonomous task force" look like? Are we not quite a Apple Wikiproject, but not quite an iPhone work group? Are we the Ipad Task Force of the Wikipedia ecosphere? Are we overly specialized to the point of pointlessness—doomed to embarrass Steve Jobs and look like assholes for naming ourselves after a feminine hygiene product? I just want to know what we're getting into here, people. I don't want to be a feminine hygiene product. I just want to edit articles on armchair anarchists and wax philosophic on talk pages. I didn't sign up for all this drama! o_O; --Cast (talk) 05:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, how about this. We set up redirects under each project which would be related to the ATF, which has its own page not associated under a specific project. They count us as a task force insofar as some of our articles are related to them, and no farther, as I describe in my earlier comment above. Our anarchist bio articles cast us as a temporary WP:BIO task force. Our cultural theory articles cast us as a WP:Sociology task force, etc. We have our own larger structure, but we work in concert with other projects when they are related to our content? But again, how is this different from any other WikiProject? Other suggestions appreciated.--Cast (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- I suppose that would make us like a WikiProject, but calling ourselves an autonomous task force has philosophical resonance to me. Like moving ourselves outside of the WikiHierarchy in some way. Also, I think this is a fairly good proposal above. Zazaban (talk) 07:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, how about this. We set up redirects under each project which would be related to the ATF, which has its own page not associated under a specific project. They count us as a task force insofar as some of our articles are related to them, and no farther, as I describe in my earlier comment above. Our anarchist bio articles cast us as a temporary WP:BIO task force. Our cultural theory articles cast us as a WP:Sociology task force, etc. We have our own larger structure, but we work in concert with other projects when they are related to our content? But again, how is this different from any other WikiProject? Other suggestions appreciated.--Cast (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Here's another proposal. How about we start a WikiProject Anarchism, independent of the WikiProject: Anarchist Task Force? The ATF continues to function as an arm of PHIL regarding anarchist articles that are most assertively related to philosophy. That is, the WikiProject includes articles on anarchist culture, biographies, history, and philosophy, while only the philosophy articles remain related to the ATF? The Blac Block article functions only under the WikiProject. The Emma Goldman article belongs under both. This resolves the issue of the assessment scheme, as WP:Anarchism can now rate articles according to its own priorities and refocus itself according to what it considers its most important articles; the ATF can continue to benefit from what few bones PHIL tosses it; and the ATF can function as a useful point of conjunction between WP:PHIL and WP:Anarchism. A cross between a redirect and a nexus point. In fact, under that logic, it may also become a point of meeting between WP:Politics, WP:Sociology, WP:Labour, and others. This may be a new way forward for the wider Task Force system, if we can find some way to make this multi-disciplined task force work on a practical level to bring these alienated WikiProjects into greater connectivity on shared articles. Rather than being an autonomous task force, perhaps becoming a networked Task Force holds greater possibilities. --Cast (talk) 22:26, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
New similar proposal
Greetings folks, There had been discussion some discussion a while ago now about moving the Anarchism task force in the same way that the Marxism TF was. Well that was a while ago and the Marxism stuff was merged into the Socialism TF since then. There hasn't been any action other than that since then. At the time, I had proposed and then hinted strongly that WP:PHIL name the members of the Anarchism Task Force to the Philosophy Hall of Fame (Start of Sophia) but that hasn't gone anywhere unfortunately. My proposal now is to merge the Anarchism TF into the new Political culture WikiProject. I see from the discussion above that there is strong support to go it alone. I think both the Anarchism TF and the Political culture project would mutually benefit from the larger pool of editors in the discussion. Furthermore, I think the Political culture project would be a good venue for such discussions because it will attract a diverse set of editors, all united in their interest in political culture. The truth is that without the Anarchism folks and the Socialism folks it won't be much of a project. However with both, we have a potential powerhouse. There is also talk about merging the whole thing into WP:POLITICS, but I think that discussion is premature. So my question is, should I move forward with some form of merge? A) A total merge including the discussion space, B) Merge everything, but leave the Anarchism discussion area independent, or C) Leave my task force alone! If we go with C, I may still tag articles with a WP:POLC banner without deleting the Anarchism banner, and leave it up to evolution from there. Then again, perhaps D) merge with Politics isn't so premature. Any thoughts?Greg Bard (talk) 02:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Anarchists Defendants in the United States
Hey everyone, I'd like to let you know about a article I'm working on. It's called Anarchist Defendants in the United States (draft), and the idea is it would eventually be a page summarizing historical and contemporary mid- to high-profile cases brought against anarchists in court. This would be an effort to document support and solidarity for anarchists facing state repression, and also function as a document which, at a glance, one could easily discern a smattering of the diversity of anarchist activity in over the least century and a half. This page would also hopefully encourage other ATF members to keep various case-specific pages up-to-date and speculation-free. The page (itself a summary of other pages) could be summarized in a paragraph and placed at the end of the "anarchism" page, which would potentially add to that page's eligibility for "featured" article status. Additionally, it would appear under the "issues" portion of the Anarchism sidebar template so that wikipedia readers could associate the clarity of ideas captured by anarchist related pages on wikipedia with people targeted with criminal charges for their philosophy and political behavior.
I'm not sure how wikipedia userpages work (I'm new!), but I'm fairly sure others can edit the user subpage I created (see above link). If this is the case, please feel welcome to add anything while I work on it. (Ahwoooga (talk) 10:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC))
- Just letting everyone know that I did a lot of work to this draft (and changed the scope to just the US) last night, and it's ready for additions. Ahwoooga (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Nomination of New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Handschuh-talk to me 08:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Left Bank Books
Hey folks, I just noticed there's not article for what I'm pretty sure is the longest running anarchist bookstore in the US, Left Bank Books in Seattle. Maybe someone thinks this is worth of their editing time? Murderbike (talk) 22:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- FWIW, both of the books on the George Jackson Brigade have a little bit of history on the collective. Murderbike (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- I've been gone from editing for a few weeks, and I'm just trying to catch up with what has been changing on my watchlist. Give me a few minutes to dig up some sources. --Cast (talk) 17:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- There you go to start. Most of what I've found for now is from tour guides, so not much value there beyond send ups of how "novel" and "quirky" the place is. Maybe I can find more later. --Cast (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- There are your news articles, though it's also not much. I imagine there is more in anarchist circles, but I'm not finding much.--Cast (talk) 20:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I've started working on a list of all the books that Left Bank published in the 70s/80s/90s (stuff by John Zerzan, Raoul Vaneigem, Steven Jesse Bernstein, etc), a publishing project that is restarting as we speak. Murderbike (talk) 23:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Haymarket affair Good Article reassessment
Haymarket affair, which is listed as part of this WikiProject, has been nominated for a community reassessment to determine if it meets the good article criteria and so can be listed as a good article. Please add comments to the article reassessment page. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 19:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Social media outreach
So after a few months since I suggested outreach is necessary, I think I would like to return to that project. Aside from some initial plans to make small fliers and bring them with me to the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair for the task force, I'm thinking about the potential uses of social media. What about a community page on Facebook, or a twitter account? Even Anonymous has a twitter. I don't, but if it would help the ATF, I could make one. Who would be interested in a twitter feed announcing events of importance to the ATF? Just putting this out there. --Cast (talk) 00:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
- Well people, something's gotta' give. So I hope you people have Facebook pages, because that's where this is going to start. Please visit the Anarchist Task Force Facebook page, and like. Share this with any "friends" (lol Facebook "friends") you have, and lets get this going. --Cast (talk) 03:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Free HighBeam accounts
The internet research database HighBeam Research has 1000 free accounts available. HighBeam has full versions of tens of millions of newspaper articles and journals and should be a big help in adding reliable sources--especially older and paywalled ones--into the encyclopedia. Sign-ups require a 1-year old account with 1000 edits on any Wikipedia. Here's the link to the project page: Wikipedia:HighBeam (account sign-ups are linked in the box on the right). Feel free to sign up to help improve your work on this project's articles. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 15:47, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Anarchism and Occupy Wall Street
Just started the page. --SupernovaExplosion Talk 04:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you for your interest on this topic. I've taken the liberty to move the article with a title change. We need to be sure this reflects on the wider topic of anarchism in the whole "Occupy movement". I'll try to contribute more later.--Cast (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- Anarchism and the Occupy movement is nominated for merger. Please input your view. --SupernovaExplosion Talk 02:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
- I have concerns about the accuracy and veracity of some of the claims made in this article. I've started a discussion on the article's talk page and would very much welcome some outside input. Thanks, Gobōnobo + c 02:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Left Libertarianism largely removed from Libertarianism
A fairly sophisticated but obviously POV editor came along and did it and I don't have energy to replace the material or debate him that much. So just a heads up. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- This editor keeps making dozens of mini edits which discourage one from keeping up, but I did want to note that his mini-section Libertarianism#Anti-property_libertarian_principles, which is mostly his own original research, probably will get deleted. In case someone wants something more in tune with whatever those principles might be. I'm just going to wait til he shoots his wad and gets it out of his system and clean up the rest of it, in light of the original article, myself. Maybe... CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
- Now here this guy has removed a reference from Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press 2002. p. 183. explaining "Removed unreliable sources. Books published by anarchist publishers and not cited by other literature are not reliable sources." He did the same thing with a Colin Ward book! While one can argue about some publisher and some authors and some books and some quotes, this is absurd. Will bring it up in talk. And I guess reliable sources. Though prefer you guys did. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- Please be aware that this issue is being discussed at WP:RSN#Anarchist publishers can't publish WP:RS?. Please contribute to the discussion there. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 06:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- THis is still going on and I in interest of NPOV I try to counter it. (Plus inevitably after all the left libertarian stuff is purged and the purgers disappear someone comes back and complains about article and whole cycle starts again.) But I'm not an expert on this topic and really don't have energy to deal with lack of good sourcing (and books.google does have some good sources). So once again a heads up if anybody cares. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
- Is this still a current issue that needs to be resolved? If so, does anyone have concrete and discrete [sic] recommendations on how balance can be restored? It would be one thing if both 'anarchism' and 'libertarianism' claimed the right to police the traditional definitions of their terms from the 20th century onward in the American dialect--how narrow-minded, anyway!--but as a new participant, there is certainly an unfair status quo if 'libertarianism' is prevented from describing the left libertarian points of view from a NPOV. FederalDemocracy (talk) 01:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Cultural anarchism AfD
Cultural anarchism is at AfD. It previously wasn't listed as part of the task force, so I just tagged it. czar · · 18:19, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Assassination market article - anyone want to help?
I've become interested in the assassination market article and made a couple of edits recently as a result of an in-depth Forbes article on the topic.
Interest in editing the article seems to have picked up recently, leaving it quite messy. Anyone want to help out? Jonathan Deamer (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Dormant?
The portal looks like its not had real activity in months if not over a year. Are people still about? I am willing to contribute from time to time on the portal (I am a noob though - there is a learning curve) and transfer some of the stuff I am working on over, but only if the portal gets traffic. What say people? --Sentryward (talk) 19:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- @Sentryward: The portal gets ~100 daily hits. I can help you editing it if you want. benzband (talk) 23:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
- I've been told that lots of WP's daily hit counts are just bots and so low stats are mostly noise. FYI, I suppose czar ♔ 23:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
- I see, thanks for info. benzband (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
- I've been told that lots of WP's daily hit counts are just bots and so low stats are mostly noise. FYI, I suppose czar ♔ 23:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Popular pages tool update
As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).
Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.
If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 04:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Redirection of Libertarian anarchist/ism
A couple relatively newbie individuals keep reverting them from Anarchism to Anarcho-capitalism. They've reverted me and another editor. Feel free to explain to them. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:38, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
- Redirecting to Anarchism (as was the outcome of the RfD discussion last December) is the obvious solution, since the term "libertarian" refers, outside of the United States but also historically inside the United States, to Anarchism rather than anarcho-capitalism or free-market philosophy. Redirecting to anarcho-capitalism gives undue weight to that particular group, is US-centric, and validates the hijacking of the term which caused this confusion in the first place. Another possibility might be redirecting to Libertarianism#Anarchism but that already points to Anarchism as its "main article" so to get to the point we should just go directly to Anarchism.
- However I'm not against converting libertarian anarchism into a disambiguation page (and redirect libertarian anarchist there of course), with an explanation for those confused and links to the relevant articles. That would also safeguard against editors changing the redirect to their article of choice, since it would no longer be a redirect page.
- Additionally, as long as the libertarian anarchism page redirects to Anarchism, use of the term "libertarian anarchism" in the Anarchism article should not be wikilinked as it currently is in the last sentence of Anarchism#Etymology and terminology. benzband (talk) 17:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
- Note: I have undone the latest edits by Steeletrap and ConcordeMandalorian, and invited them to comment here since edit summaries are not optimal for discussion. benzband (talk) 17:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with the redirect only because I know anticapitalists and a variety of other libertarian anarchists use the term as well. If they are real anarchists they'll never have a state to stop free market private property behavior from happening. ;-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
- The edit war over this is still occurring. I have to admit, I really don't care how this plays out. I had previously reverted attempts to change the redirect because it was being added with a source that failed verification, but since that finally resolved I've stayed out of it. My thoughts: 1) those of us who understand libertarianism as a synonym for anarchism (libertarian socialism) won't search for this term at all; 2) those who understand libertarianism as an extension of the classical liberal tradition (i.e. American libertarianism) will understand libertarian anarchism as it is intended by these fellow American libertarians; and 3) those who are mostly ignorant of libertarian/anarchist philosophy and terminology will most likely start from one of the top-level articles (Libertarianism or Anarchism) unless they specifically heard or read the term libertarian anarchism within the context of American libertarianism. Perhaps in an effort to reach "an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution" (WP:CON#Reaching_consensus_through_discussion), we ought to make the redirect a WP:DPAGE, as suggested by Benzband. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
- Another vote for dabbing czar ♔ 21:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
- The edit war over this is still occurring. I have to admit, I really don't care how this plays out. I had previously reverted attempts to change the redirect because it was being added with a source that failed verification, but since that finally resolved I've stayed out of it. My thoughts: 1) those of us who understand libertarianism as a synonym for anarchism (libertarian socialism) won't search for this term at all; 2) those who understand libertarianism as an extension of the classical liberal tradition (i.e. American libertarianism) will understand libertarian anarchism as it is intended by these fellow American libertarians; and 3) those who are mostly ignorant of libertarian/anarchist philosophy and terminology will most likely start from one of the top-level articles (Libertarianism or Anarchism) unless they specifically heard or read the term libertarian anarchism within the context of American libertarianism. Perhaps in an effort to reach "an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution" (WP:CON#Reaching_consensus_through_discussion), we ought to make the redirect a WP:DPAGE, as suggested by Benzband. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with the redirect only because I know anticapitalists and a variety of other libertarian anarchists use the term as well. If they are real anarchists they'll never have a state to stop free market private property behavior from happening. ;-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Iceland Commonwealth: HELP
tHAT article is crap. Its potentially awesome, lets try and make it a GA if not FA. ive just written about it a week ago and got a bunch of stuff but I need help in structuring it. any volunteers?Lihaas (talk) 13:32, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
- Pardon, sorry the late response. I was on a hiatus. I'd like to contribute but this is beyond my realm of familiarity. I'll look into it and add a bit here and there as I go. Hopefully that'll be of some use. --Cast (talk) 03:55, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
Anarcho-capitalism
Not for the first time, I'm sure ... A couple of editors, myself included, have been trying to expand mention of the fact that many, if not most anarchists, would query whether anarcho-capitalism falls within the anarchist tradition proper – not to say that it definitely does not, but to highlight the surely uncontroversial fact that such a debate exists. Some detail and sources were added to the body with a summary sentence in the lead too, which currently takes it for granted that it is a form of anarchism, without any qualification. However, this is being repeatedly and unilaterally blind-reverted en masse by one editor simply asserting that it is an unjustified inclusion. Any other views would be helpful. Here seems an obvious place to ask first, in the hope of avoiding a full RFC. N-HH talk/edits 13:59, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
- Further to the above, please see this RfC. N-HH talk/edits 07:57, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
- Not every statement added to an article needs to be sourced, but any information that could potentially be challenged by a reader -- and especially something of a controversial nature-- must be sourced. So long as you can provide sources, you're added statements should be fine. However, a neutral point of view is also important. The problem is that as many sources as you can find that state anarcho-capitalism isn't a form of anarchism, there will be others that state that it is, and Wikipedia is not the battleground where this matter can be settled. Wikipedia simply reflects that there is a battle taking place, and someday if there is a final victor, Wikipedia can reflect that there was a battle and who won. Therefore, I encourage that for now you qualify that there is a conflict and cite sources that. --Cast (talk) 23:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
RfC at Cambodian genocide denial
I have started an rfc about whether the depiction of Chomsky's views and statements in relation to the Cambodian genocide is neutral. Please participate.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:16, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
To the editors while there is nothing to edit
Circle-A in Wikipedia globe
To the right is a combination of the Circle-A and Wikipedia globe that we could use for the project (based on a Alternative libertaire cover). Thoughts? czar 17:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Popular pages report
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Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Advice for inclusion of anarchist organization
Hello! I'm a new user and created the entry for Black Rose Anarchist Federation. Unfortunately it was flagged for deletion due to issues of notability but one suggestion was to include details about the organization in Anarchism related pages. Is there a suggestion or recommendation for this? Thank you. Cali1155 (talk) 15:20, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
- Check out the last section of Anarchism in the United States, where it's already mentioned. Is there a better source (perhaps book/magazine) on its founding than the one from anarkismo.net? Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism (Schmidt) has some basic description on NEFAC. czar 16:48, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Documentary "The Accidental Anarchist"
Hello. I'd like your opinion on something.
I saw Carne Ross's documentary The Accidental Anarchist recently. In the second half of the documentary, he refers to the philosopher Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish groups in the Syrian Civil War, the YPG and YPJ, as "anarchist". I was thinking about adding something to the relevant articles about this, although it seems as if Ross has a rather unusual definition of anarchism. I don't think that anyone else has called the YPG or YPJ anarchist.
What would your advice be? Epa101 (talk) 08:58, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Epa101, it's not always covered as "anarchism" per se but as Democratic Confederalism. "Rojava" searches will get better results than the party/army acronyms, and there are plenty of sources: Revolution in Rojava, writings of Dilar Dirik, David Graeber. It's no secret that Öcalan was largely inspired by Bookchin but the press prefers to cover the "women fighting ISIS" angle more than the "egalitarian society" elements. The press may not specifically use the word "anarchist" in the case of the latter and risk having to explain themselves, so search for Kurds/PKK & democracy. Wikipedia reflects the source coverage, hence why Rojava covers the Öcalan/Bookchin connection more than the phrase "anarchism". There are plenty of connected articles that could use some expansion. czar 11:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice. I'll do a bit more research, and hope to make some contributions to these articles. Epa101 (talk) 13:40, 2 July 2017 (UTC)