Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism

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[edit] confused

I made a stub for Brad Spangler, agorist blogger, who is on the list of articles needing to be created. It got deleted almost immediately. Should I take him off the list of articles needing to be created?--Veganbikepunk (talk) 21:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The user who deleted your stub left this message: "A7 (bio): Real person; doesn't indicate importance/significance: It is an article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate the Wikipedia..." To satisfy editors like this, just add a few references to your stub, showing that Spangler is published and/or otherwise of note. - N1h1l (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for thinkers

Sometime ago I created out of boredom or mischief {{Anarcho-inadjectivists}} to link the different articles on anarchists without adjectives. I wasn't sure if it was something that should be replicated for the other anarchisms so I left it be to see what the community thought of it. Now the efforts of Cast have revealed {{Anarchist Thinkers}}, which strikes me as a terrible idea - an anarchist canon is anathema to me, with no possible non-arbitrary criteria for in/exclusion. So I'm wondering if we should delete that template and instead create footer templates (no more than 20 or so entries each) for the members of the different anarchist factions; mutualists, agorists, primitivists etc. It would head off the inevitable arguments about who is important or anarchist enough to rank among "The Anarchist Thinkers"[sic] . Thoughts? Skomorokh incite 05:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this idea would be for the best. I had also considered creating seperate nav. templates for anarchists of various anarcho-adjectives, but I quickly disregarded this as it would quickly require too many templates to seem reasonable. Further, the only justifiable criteria I can think of would be that the individuals must be self-identified. With some anarchists, this simply becomes unreasonable, because they might be important to a branch of anarchy without ever having self-identified. For example, under this line of thought, Fredy Perlman could not be included in a green-anarchist/primitivist box; Leo Tolstoy would not fit under a christian anarchist box, etc. I propose an alternative. Let us create a single navigational box for different schools of though, and let this include a few notable names to each branch. A single navigational box would be easier to handle and discussions over inclusion could be easily centralized.
Besides, I just don't like that box I found. "The Anarchist Thinkers"? What a pretentious name.--Cast (talk) 05:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
On another note, where would multi-branched anarchists go? Emma Goldman would seemingly belong to Anarcho-communists, but would we duplicate her to Anarcho-syndicalists and Anarcha-feminists? She never declared herself an anarchist without adjectives, to my knowledge, which would have simplified things.--Cast (talk) 06:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think if this is going to happen, that maybe not limiting the template to "thinkers" would be cool, like being able to link to works, as well. Murderbike (talk) 06:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I agree that would be good, as would linking to organizations, and possibly non-anarchists or aligned thinkers who influenced a branch without being part of it. This goes back to what I said about Tolstoy not being a Christian anarchist. This way, he could get a mention. Likewise, Sterner would have influenced individualists, and would go in a subsection there. And anarchists-without-adjectives already has one organization included in its template. Toss in a published material that advocates it, and a non-anarchist who influenced it (there are none, but you get my drift), and you'd have a basic outline for everything the other templates would include. The sticking point would simply remain anarchist who don't fit easily into any one branch. Do they get duplicated or not? It would seem easy enough if they were. And what about the alternative contemporary variants of thought, like post-leftists, cryptos, and insurrectionists? Not many of them. Maybe they can be consolidated into a single template?--Cast (talk) 06:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
My only concern is how Wikipedia handles this for other schools of political thought. Is this kinf of template commonly used to identify the politics of biographical entries? If somebody wants to apply this to more anarchists, it should go on the entry about me, as I've publicly identified as an anarchist without adjectives for many years. Chuck0 (talk) 18:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Chuck here, I haven't seen any precedent for this for biographies; I think we should think very carefully before going ahead with any of these proposals. Skomorokh incite 22:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Just did a quick search and couldn't find many. Categories tend to be the main system used, but an example of a navigational box used to refer to individuals, organizations, and printed work regarding a branch of thought would be Template:Social Christianity. Something to consider. And I've added the article regarding you to the template.--Cast (talk) 19:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Next month's Portal update

I've made some proposals for next month's selected content on the Portal talkpage, comments and ideas appreciated. Skomorokh confer 00:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As well, Carabinieri and I have been filling in the dates for the calendar or anniversaries. We've now got all of January and more than half of February filled in. We could start actually running the calendar as soon as possible, as long as other folks want to pitch in on the filling in of the dates. Maybe folks could take on a month to fill in or something? Murderbike (talk) 06:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Sure. I had some success using Daily Bleed to fill in the first few days of January. I'll make a point of working on March.--Cast (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
February is now done, we're good until I think March 5. Murderbike (talk) 06:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal revamping

In a discussion above, I proposed a revamping of the Anarchism portal. It seemed to me like most agreed with many of my ideas. I have now more or less finished my proposal, which you can find on this page in my user space.

The main objection to my proposal was the inclusion of a photo of Bakunin would seem to be favoring one tendency in the broader anarchist movement. The reason I want to keep it is because I feel that having a symbol on the right and a photo of a person on the left looks better. I felt Bakunin's face is most associated with anarchism and it's of higher quality than the Kropotkin photo and of more suitable dimensions than the picture of Proudhon. If anyone wants to propose a different image, I would welcome this, of course.

Most of the anniversary dates through the middle of February are filled in, so we'd be safe on not having a red link section there for a while. I've created a "Things To Do" section. I would have used the template on the project page, but it was a bit too large. I hope you're all ok with mine.

I've had to shorten the summary of the selected article, in order to keep the portal balanced.

Unless there are still objections to my proposal, I would suggest changing the portal to the way I proposed it now.--Carabinieri (talk) 21:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent work overall; I have but two concerns.
Firstly, I still feel it is inappropriate to have an image of any individual in the header of an portal devoted to anarchism, which is fundamentally anti-authoritarian and sectarian. Bakunin is not representative of a modern anarchism that includes post-left anarchy, crypto-anarchism, postanarchism,green anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, anarcha-feminism, agorism, anarcho-primitivism and so on. At the expense of being bland, we should avoid POV; uncontroversial images might include Image:Sabcat2.svg or Image:BlackFlagSymbol.svg.
Secondly, the definition given in the header is significantly out of step with that of the Anarchism article. The latter definition only achieved consensus after years of edit-warring and struggles to find reliable sources. I would not support any version of the portal that did not conform to the referenced article. Congratulations again on all your hard work thus far. Skomorokh confer 21:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I second each point made by Skormorokh. The objection to the use of a portrait was made very clear the first time, though I admit no one, myself included, pushed the point firmly. Perhaps you're under the impression that we will not object once it is in place. Allow me to make this clear: If any image of an anarchist is put up, I will firmly object. How about we not include two images? I feel that the current image is sufficient.
On another note, how about an auto-calender for quotes? I'd suggested this in the portal talk page, and perhaps should have noted it in the discussion above. As I noted elsewhere, a couple of automatically updated quotes a month on a tiny window could be nice; bonus if they some how connect to some event which is noted in the anniversary section. This being an in effort to make content automated, facilitating a minimum of maintenance--Cast (talk) 23:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Ditto on Skomorokh's concerns. The quote thing sounds pretty cool as well, though definitely seems harder to make it correspond to the calendar. Otherwise, let's take it live. Murderbike (talk) 00:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll address Skormorokh's second point first. I agree with him. I mentioned this point when I first proposed these changes to the portal (see the archives), but then I forgot to take care of this problem. However, I am also not completely happy with the lead section of the anarchism article. It only describes the anarchist ideology, not the anarchist movement. Despite this concern, I have now changed the header in my draft to a slightly shortened version of the header used by the article.
As to Skormorokh's second concern: The fact that the anarchist movement sees itself as "fundamentally anti-authoritarian and sectarian" is really not relevant. This is a project, which is supposed to describe anarchism, not a kooky attempt to put anarchist values into practice. The contemporary tendencies of anarchism Skormorokh lists are just not particularly relevant in a wider context. Unlike Bakunin's ideas used to, they have little support and virtually no social significance. No picture is representative of all of anarchism (the circle-A isn't either). It would be silly to try to find one that is.--Carabinieri (talk) 18:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A worthy project for the bored

Update the descriptions at Talk:Anarchism/Archives to give newer editors an idea of the civil and distinguished history of that venerable talkpage. Who controls the past, controls the future...any takers?Skomorokh confer 04:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That talk page makes baby anarchists cry. ( T_T) --Cast (talk) 04:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Argentina

I'm currently writing an article about Argentina's anarchist movement. All my sources break off in the 1960's at the very latest. Do any of you have any neutral sources about the contemporary Argentinian anarchist movement?--Carabinieri (talk) 23:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

There's at least a little bit of material to glean in Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina by Marina Sitrin, which you can browse through in Google Books. I haven't found much else though. Murderbike (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I just realized that Germany's copyright laws may prevent you from viewing this, if so, let me know and I'll try to transcribe the material that there is. Murderbike (talk) 06:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • In fact, I can't read that book on google and my local library doesn't have it. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by transcribe, but it would be great if you could somehow help me with this.--Carabinieri (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
There's not alot, so I could read it and type up the material and put it in your sandbox or something. If ya want. Murderbike (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
That would be great.--Carabinieri (talk) 15:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Cool, I'll try to do it tonight. Murderbike (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anarchism in Europe

Does anyone know why this template is just showing up as the standard Europe template instead of the "Anarchism in" one? Murderbike (talk) 02:06, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I have noticed that and I was wondering the same thing. I don't know. --Grrrlriot (talk) 02:35, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I had noticed this a few days ago, but checking on it now, it seems to be back to normal.--Cast (talk) 08:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep, weird. Murderbike (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The new anarchism template

There's an interesting discussion at the Organized Labout portal here. Murderbike (talk) 18:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Valid criticisms and concerns are raised, and you can view my response there, and that I mention what steps I'd like to take to prevent further objections to the use of anarchist templates. (i.e. We can try to create new templates, or reduce current ones and begin relying more on our extensive category listing.) I've long alluded to an overpopulation problem with the vertical template. I've considered the possibility that we could make a second footer. The current template, Anarchism2, could be used for articles that have more a great deal to do with anarchy, but due to layout constraints a vertical template is inappropriate. Haymarket affair, the article for which I created it, comes to mind. A second, small footer or vertical template, with a minimum of links could be used for articles only indirectly related to anarchy. The Template:Buddhism2 template comes to mind. The vertical Buddhism also has a solution to this, by allowing the template to be augmented by a "terse" system, which cuts everything but the headers if checked. One template can quickly serve as two. I tried to make that work for the Anarchist template, but I got sidetracked and abandoned it.--Cast (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
And does anyone else feel there should be an AK Press footer to match the CrimethInc. footer?--Cast (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I never really thought about that, but I guess one could work with like Authors, Books, Music/Spoken Word? The AK Press article itself could really use a good bit of expansion. Murderbike (talk) 19:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes. 70.15.1.135 (talk) 19:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
CrimethInc. publish more or less their own stuff, and there is a strong overlap in content/ideology in their output. I'm not so sure the same could be said for AK. Harper Collins (rightfully) doesn't have a template for its books, and it seems AK resembles them moreso than CrimethInc. скоморохъ 14:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article Status

Just wondering if anyone agrees that it would be nice to see an article about a non-capitalist form of anarchist thought (Anarcho-syndicalism for example, or even the main Anarchism article) reach featured article status, i.e. should this be a priority, or perhaps some people could get together that feel it should be? I do intend to register and return to work on this, but thought I would pose this question for now. 70.15.1.135 (talk) 19:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I definitely think it would be ideal, but I think it would be ideal of ALL our articles were FA status. It seems a lot of people around here are busy working on things, but it would certainly be a good project down the road. If you're interested, you could help me get Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo up to FA. Especially if your spanish is better than mine. Murderbike (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It takes an awful lot to get to FA; I'd be very wary of attempting without a peer review and good article status first. The topics of our current GA's will make it difficult to write comprehensive articles on them (with the exception of the non-core Anarky and Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti). I think we should concentrate on getting core articles with FA potential up to GA status first - CNT, Anarchist schools of thought, Anarchism in Cuba and Haymarket affair (GA) are all strong candidates. What GA review gives are concrete ways of advancing the article, whereas FA is a lot more rigourously critical of the article broadly. I have added a section to the main Taskforce page for articles currently nominated for promotion so that we can all help contribute. скоморохъ 14:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needing Sources/References

I want to create the Anarchism and feminism and the Anarchism in Vietnam articles, but I need sources/references. If someone could list some for me to use, I would be happy to make the articles. :) Thanks! --Grrrlriot (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution by Hue-Tam Ho Tai seems to have quite a bit on anarchism there, and is accessible through Google Books. Also try to find Nguyen An Ninh, there's a little in this. Murderbike (talk) 04:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah, for the feminism stuff, if you don't already have Quiet Rumours:An Anarcha-feminist anthology, you should really get it. Murderbike (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Murderbike! :) I need to do a google search on Nguyen An Ninh. Are there any more websites (to use as sources) about Anarchism in Vietnam or Anarchism and feminism? --Grrrlriot (talk) 04:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, personally, I've been trying really hard to stick with a strict definition of "reliable source", so have been staying a way from most anything that isn't a book, newspaper, or academic journal. If you're looking for your own learning possibilities, than there's plenty more, but if you're just looking to use the info for an article, that was all I could find for Vietnam through quick Google Book search. That doesn't mean there isn't more out there though. There's tons of stuff having to do with anarchism and feminism though. Did you check out the References section of Anarcha-feminism? Murderbike (talk) 04:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I know information about anarchism in Vietnam is hard to find. I should check out the references section of Anarcha-feminism. The anarchism and feminism article would be discussing how anarchism and feminism are related, so it would be a little different than the Anarcha-feminism article. --Grrrlriot (talk) 04:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal revamp redux

So, it seems like the only thing in the way of implementing Carabinieri's new Portal design is disagreement over the images in the header. Can we get some consensus here? Murderbike (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the portal is de facto operating as Carabinieri broadly intended. Is there anything left undone? скоморохъ 05:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, at the least, the anniversaries window hasn't migrated to the actual portal. Murderbike (talk) 07:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Speaking of which, I really screwed the pooch with regards to the anniversaries. I spread myself thin with recent article work and meatspace activity. I'll try to recommit to fixing up the Anniversaries, the Anarky article, getting citation for the Anarchik Star (still not giving up on that thing,) and polishing off the List of Topics.--Cast (talk) 08:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Meh, could be worse, we've still got a couple weeks worth of anniversaries left. Murderbike (talk) 08:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CrimethInc. GA drive

Yo, I'm trying to improve the CrimethInc. article to GA status but there are ongoing issues over how criticism and external links should be treated. I have been trying to resolve the issue constructively but I don't want to dominate the article and impose my will on others. Is there any chance one or two of you could take a look at the article, and the talkpage, and see if there's any changes you could recommend? P.S. Any additional reliable sources you are aware of would be most helpful. Thanks to Murderbike for help so far. скоморохъ 20:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If anyone uninvolved in the current CrimethInc. dispute has a few minutes to spare, some outside input would be much appreciated. Thanks, скоморохъ 17:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability challenges to left-libertarians

Bob A seems intent on eradicating pages dedicated to left-libertarian scholars. I'm not certain whether that is of any concern to this task force or not, but there seems to be obvious politically motivated targeting going on. It seems to me a bad thing to get started. Finding independent sources to prove that, for example, a Crimething or infoshop article is notable, or that pages for any number of lesser anarchist figures are notable, might not be so easy if folks found they could easily edit-war this way. For those whose concern is to get more contemporary anarchist material into the articles, this attempt to expunge contemporary anarchist material might raise some concerns. Libertatia (talk) 01:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It is concerning, but at the same time it's hard to object to an editor challenging an article's meeting our policies - after all, non-notable topics don't deserve articles, and if these left-lib's are notable, they won't be deleted, right? Bob does seem to be gunning for a particular tranche of subjects, which is unfortunate, but in his defence, his tagging of Roderick T. Long forced me to improve the article by adding references I would not have otherwise added. As for infoshop-related articles, Ramslow Infoshop was "successfully" nominated for deletion here recently. I think the best way to get more contemporary anarchist material is to add well-researched articles, as we have been doing thus far, and give compelling reasons to keep existing articles in Afd's. скоморохъ 01:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
You really don't seem to understand that most anarchist topics achieve their real-world notability in places other than Google Scholar. These notability discussions are among the least-informed that take place on Wikipedia. Wikipedia already stands all normal scholarly practice on its head by elevating tertiary sources over primary ones. What Bob A is proving is that someone with an axe to grind can wipe out whole swathes of anarchist material, unless, by some chance, some scholar has deigned to notice it in print. In the end you're likely to get safe, "verifiable" nonsense. It appears that the Anarchism WikiProject has no interest in maintaining the inclusive approach we worked so long to develop, and will just trust in a badly broken process. Hope it doesn't all come back to bite you. Libertatia (talk) 01:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
What on earth is your problem? The Taskforce is bound by Wikipedia policies just like anyone else. If you have objections to WP:NOTE or WP:RS, that's very understandable, and I sympathize. But what is it you are proposing the Taskforce do? We can't stop anyone from nominating articles for deletion, nor can we stop deletionists from ridding the encyclopedia from anarchist articles that fail the Google Scholar test. Safe, bland, verifiable nonsense is all you're ever going to find in a Wikipedia that follows its existing policies to the letter. The Taskforce was created with the explicit intention of collaborating in a non-partisan manner on anarchism related articles - if you don't think we have achieved this, I recommend you take a look at the recent history of anarchist schools of thought, Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, issues in anarchism, Anarchism in Cuba, definitional concerns in anarchist theory, list of basic anarchism topics and the new anarchism articles archive. I share your stated values, but I don't see what constructive change you are suggesting. Regards, скоморохъ 02:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you have achieved this, and I think you have rolled over somewhat selectively to the "rules." WP:IAR is always there to push broken, inflexible, rule-bound editing towards accuracy, attention to special cases, etc. My "problem" is a lot of energy ultimately wasted on this site to create a consensus on inclusion as one of the values of the group of articles the task force now in some sense represents. If "nonsense" is a goal of the task force then I will repeat my lack of faith in the task force, express my opinion that it may in fact be an obstruction in the way of some degree of acccuracy...and encourage folks who actually care about this stuff to take Chuck up on his offer below. Libertatia (talk) 04:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
"Nonsense" is not one of our goals, but it is one of the many obstructions we must compromise with when we choose to play with another person's ball. Their game, their rules. Sucks to not live in an egalitarian libertarian utopia, where like minded individuals such as us are in the majority, right? Don't worry, we're all familiar with the feeling. But I'd like to think we've done pretty well for just our first few months. We only went live on the 13th of December, but looking over the status of the task force so far, I'm glad to see we're more active than a number of WikiProjects. I've noticed that some of our members are less active, or perhaps less inclusive to other variations of anarchy as I would hope (not naming names–it could just be me,) and I've certainly seen non-members poke and jab at anarchy related articles. Bob A is only the latest to grind his axe against our articles – our articles, because while we may not all be left-libertarians, we are in this team together. I'm glad to see we've managed to at least preserve a number of articles that were nominated for deletion, and while there were some I did not participate in, this was only because I had nothing to contribute. I don't know a great deal about left-libertarian thought, and so I haven't been of much help in preserving several of the recent articles nominated for deletion. I do think it will be a shame to see the Per Bylund and Roderick T. Long pages deleted, should it come to that, and if I knew a damn thing about them I'd put in my thoughts on them, but I can't. It'll fall to people who do know about them, and if those members fail and the articles are deleted, there is always time – always more time – to add them back on later when material is available. Hell, it's been over a year since the List of Anarchists was deleted, but I won't give up on it. I'm still plucking names on that thing, and when it is done it will go live and it will not be disputed, because this time I'll personally see to it that all of the axe grinders can't moan about the absence of verifiable sources, or groan over questions of notability. So it can be for the left-libertarian articles. Anarchy isn't the easiest project we could be working on, but it just takes a bit of patience – both on the internet and off. But at least on wikipedia, we have the advantage of knowing it's just an informative and educational hobby. We're not playing for high stakes here. Don't get bent out of shape.--Cast (talk) 09:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
My personal perception is that Wikipedia has, as an institution, become increasingly slavish in its adherence to the worst sorts of published sources, reducing the role of editors to little more than copyists. It has been possible, at times, to push back a bit against that movement and to force compromises on inclusion. But that has always required concerted effort, and coalition across ideological divides. When it was the endless flood of an-cap puppets that were POV-pushing, there was no task force, and not only were many of the more destructive edits fended off, but we carved out a working consensus that improved many of the contested articles (within the limits that that is possible here.) Now we have an admitted POV-pusher (from the "left" this time) and a task force. We have had the beginnings of discussions about how "notability" within the topic covered by the task force ought to be handled. The attempt to delete Long's page is so wrong-headed it's amazing. I can walk over to the philosophy department (here in Ohio) and mumble something about "Roderick" and "collective property" or "the zaxlebax problem" and the libertarians will know what I'm going on about. But to defend the notability of a household name like Long's to a body of people who think they're getting the pertinent data from Google Scholar requires educating them on how academics network, how blog chatter relates to published work, etc. There aren't enough hours in the day, particularly if you have an edit-warrior who launches multiple attacks (and that is what they are) at once. The consensus we built and what solidarity there was here seem to have failed, at least some of us. Without the push-backs there is no possibility of operating in a non-partisan manner. I'll shut up now. Libertatia (talk) 17:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Libertatia, it seems you should push back if that's what you're looking for at wikipedia. Not everyone is looking for that kind of project though. Personally, I just like to be able to distribute info for free, even if it means being a "copyist". If I want to start the revolution, it certainly won't be here, but I definitely won't complain if someone pushes things to be better. Maybe you're that person? Murderbike (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I've been that person, on various occasions. I think I'm realizing I'm done here. I can archive most of a volume of an important radical periodical in the time it takes to hash out a single, simple point here. Seems like that is of much more use. It's not, in any case, a question of "starting a revolution" on Wikipedia. It's a matter of making the rules here actually work. Unless Wikipedia as a project has finally really embraced the "truth doesn't matter" philosophy, then the rather ill-constructed key principles simply can't work without a certain amount of boldness and WP:IAR in the mix. Libertatia (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Folks are welcome to add "non-notable" articles to the Infoshop OpenWiki, which is interested in covering obscure anarchist and libertarian topics. I can understand the removal of an entry on the Ramlow Infoshop in the context of Wikipedia. That infoshop closed many years ago and wasn't well known outside of the Ohio area. I think that notability of an entry should be decided by people familiar with a topic, in this case anarchists, librarians and alternative media activists. The other issue is that for many years Wikipedia encouraged the inclusion of entries on obscure topics, but recently it has become more exclusive. That's too bad, because we're only talking about a few electrons devoted to an entry on a dead infoshop. ;-) Chuck0 (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Note Bob A explains his motivations here. Short version: he is a former left-libertarian who contests that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism and thinks articles on those subjects are overrepresented on Wikipedia. скоморохъ —Preceding comment was added at 02:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gandhi

Does anyone know what Gandhi's relationship to Anarchy was? Can we get some citations on whether or not he was an anarchist? We've got one from George Woodcock on the Anarchism in India page where he claims Gandhi repeatedly referred to himself as an anarchist. However, he gives no citation and I can't find such a thing myself, but then I'm not a Gandhi buff. Never read much of his work. But I do remember some quote along the lines of "I am an anarchist, but of a different sort..." Something like that. The reason I ask is that Gandhi was categorized as an anarchist on his article, but there was no citation within that page, and I'm unhappy with the Woodcock citation. The Gandhi article also includes a couple of references that might be construed as anarchic. He refers to a "non-violent democracy" equaling "anarchy", which sounds positivist enough. If we can get some notes on his relationship to anarchy, anarchists, and thoughts on anarchism, then we can compose a short section to tack onto his article, and then add him to our list of Anarchist related pages. (He is actually already on the list of Anarchism pages, but it's not supported by the article and can be taken down if we don't get proper citation for it.) Related pages on his short project are: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Swaraj, and Anarchism in India. Anyone interested in helping may also want to check my comments on the subject in the Gandhi talk page. Good luck.--Cast (talk) 09:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there's likely disagreement on sources with regard to this, so we should default to the comprehensive biographies, where the most balanced and thorough considerations of the question should be found. скоморохъ 23:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Importance rating ambiguity revisited

I checked the archived discussion on how to rate importance of anarchy related articles and saw we haven't reached a consensus on the matter. We simply need to reach one - we can't have some of the members rate "Anarchism in Spain" as high importance while other members rate things equal in importance to that as "low" because we don't know what criteria to rest our ratings upon.

Currently, I am rating anarchy related articles based on their importance to the general study of philosophy. It just seems natural, since we aren't actually rating them for the Anarchist Task Force but for WikiProject:Philosophy. I know it is probably irritating that Noam Chomsky, the most popular anarchist in recent memory, is rated "mid" but it makes sense in the context of "general philosophy." I don't know if we would be able to implement a sub-rating system (i.e. low-importance in philosophy, high-importance in anarchy) like the one proposed in the last discussion, but I think it is something we should seriously consider.

Whatever we do, we need to do it as a uniform body. Hazillow (talk) 09:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've pretty much stopped rating importance, partly because it's hard, and partly because I just don't care that much about it. It would take some cooperation from the Philosophy folks to figure out how to rate them for the task force, and someone to do the code in the template, and we've had terrible luck getting folks over there to answer questions. Murderbike (talk) 09:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed solution: have cake, eat cake

Yo, so I had been rating articles for importance to anarchism, whereas most others have been rating for philosophy. To fix this problem, I have developed a new version of {{philosophy}} which can be seen here. It has the usual "anarchism=yes" and "importance=" options, but with an added "anarchism-importance=" option. So if a topic is of high importance to anarchism, but low to philosophy, use the code {{philosophy|anarchism=yes|importance=low|anarchism-importance=high}}. The template will then put the article in the categories Cat:High-importance Anarchism articles and Cat:Low-importance Philosophy articles. Hopefully this resolves any ambiguity and this version will be introduced in the next few weeks. All comments welcome, Skomorokh 21:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Urgent: March Portal update

Yo, so it seems we forgot to plan ahead for the March update of Portal:Anarchism. I've gone ahead and selected the "Anarchist bomber" image for selected image, as it was complimented last time round with no objections. I'm not sure about selected article: I was going to select Anarky but there are no free images and the lede focuses mostly on comics issues rather than anarchist (similarly Alan Moore and The Illuminatus! Trilogy). Then I was going to select Jim Bell but it too has no free images of the subject, and it's an obvious conflict of interest since I wrote it. Now I'm thinking Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, given that we want to reserve Haymarket affair for May. The CNT is of sufficient quality (though unfinished) and has a free image.

Please comment at Portal_talk:Anarchism#March_2008_update, not here. Thanks, скоморохъ 13:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there anyone here that wants to help with the tedious work of migrating the anniversaries out of Carbinieri's userspace? Each day has to be moved, and each link to it in its month has to be changed. I'm working on March right now, and trying to fill in the empty days. Murderbike (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any Spanish speakers?

Yo, I'm working on developing the Lev Chernyi article, and I'd like to use content from the decent sized article (4.8k) on the Spanish Wikipedia here. My Castllian is not good enough to translate it accurately, but if any one of you could, I'd much appreciate it. скоморохъ 23:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Another article needing Spanish translators is the stub Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, bereft of content from this A Las Barricadas article. скоморохъ 23:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anarchism in Poland

A user just removed about 2/3 of this article based on it being unsourced. I'm leaving for two months, so if anyone wants to rescue this article, have at it! Murderbike (talk) 18:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] *&^^%!!!

Somebody hold me back. Skomorokh 20:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

For a moment I thought you had been struck with vandali-virus.
Nothing to see here, move along! Lord Metroid (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
ಠ_ಠ--Cast (talk) 20:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Emma Goldman

In honor of the fact that Emma Goldman will be featured on the main page on April 19, plus the fact that April 19 is my 45th birthday, I have posted two newsreels of Emma Goldman. They may be found at one of my websites.

To view the first newsreel, which is in MOV format, download Emma Goldman.zip, z01, z02, and z03. Unzip the files by opening the ZIP file.

The second newsreel is in FLV format (the format used at YouTube and similar sites). To play an FLV file, you will need a special player such as Media Player Classic, VLC Media Player, or an FLV player. Download Emma Goldman.flv.zip, z01, z02, and z03. Unzip the files by opening the ZIP file.

Cheers! — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm getting a format error when I try to open the .zip files. The Mac OSX Finder simply says "not permitted", and Stuffit says "Format error". Any ideas? Maybe try another zip format? Thanks for posting these; I look forward to watching them! – Scartol • Tok 23:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Yo Malik, thanks for the sentiment, but it looks like the copyright police have come calling? Pity, Skomorokh 00:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The so-called "World's First Anarchist Manifesto"

Anyone here can find a link to an english translation of the Anarchist Manifesto by Anselme Bellegarrigue? The article here on wikipedia has only the link for the French version. If anyone can find the link or translate the manifesto to english, I think it would be great.Maziotis (talk) 12:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

First of all, sorry for the paucity of info on the article, it was all I could find when I wrote it. There do not seem to be any full online copies available, but Amazon has a "search inside" function enabled on their page for the 2002 version here. Wikiquote has a page on the author which contains some quotes from the translation here; you can ask the person who added the content for more information here, although they do not seem very active. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, I'll leave you with a quote:

Every individual who, in the current state of affairs, drops a paper into the ballot box to choose a legislative authority or a executive authority is — perhaps not wittingly but at least out of ignorance, maybe not directly, but at least indirectly — a bad citizen. I repeat what I have been saying and take back not a single syllable of it.

—Anselme Bellegarrigue, Anarchist Manifesto, quoted in AK Press' [http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/worldsfirstanarchistmanifesto

Skomorokh 12:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I've got a copy of this pamphlet, and have received permission from Barry Pateman of the Kate Sharpley Library to add the translated text to Wikisource. The KSL gives permission to use their texts for non-profit purposes. I've just got to get around to it. That said, this article is slightly misinformed. The phamphlet is 42 pages long. The original manifesto is not. Several pages are devoted to an introductory essay explaining the social context when the manifesto was written. I'll correct that when I get around to transposing the essay from paper to the digital sphere. Please be patient.--Cast (talk) 15:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I did pull that article out of my ass, so errata are to be expected! You might want to be careful with the copyright police on Wikisource; a similar attempt at transcribing Days of War, Nights of Love ran into some difficulty. If its anything like the Image policy, you might need the copyright holders to email the Foundation with an explicit license/disclaimer. Skomorokh 16:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, the copyright disclaimer on the KSL library is not very clear, so that would be best. It'll get done. No worries. --Cast (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nestor Makhno

This article needs attention. An "atrocity" section is being included without any reference or by using non-RS. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've got an eye on it. Skomorokh 18:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Roll call!

Hey all, it's almost June. A few weeks have passed since there was any logistical work done to the Anarchist Task Force page to keep up with the movement on Wikipedia. It seems that everyone took a break for a bit there coincidentally – I know I did. It's good to step away from a project now and again to regroup. Many projects go through an initial period of heavy activity as those interested in its original purpose begin to carry it out; however, they eventually tend to peter-out due to volunteer fatigue. I'm sure we've all experienced this off of the internet as well. Well, I'm back and getting ready to get settled into the swing of things again, and I'd like to know who else is ready to pick up the ball with me. Maybe there are some projects we could cooperate on to foster a sense of teamwork.

Perhaps in the future we ought to consider electing "Collaboration of the month" subjects. Just a thought for now – but then, so was the Task Force itself once.--Cast (talk) 22:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

My edit frequency goes in and out with the interest I have for editing wikipedia. Enthusiasm comes and goes and now I am not very enthusiastic about editing. So now I am not very active. Lord Metroid (talk) 22:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Totally understandable. We all do that; I just stepped away from the task force throughout May for that reason. Just trying to find out who I can get to work with me for now that I'm back. I'm probably going to work on the anniversaries for the portal. June is fast approaching, and most of its days are not yet created.--Cast (talk) 22:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Yo, I am back from our communal hiatus and ready for collaboration. This might be an opportune time to take a look at the scope of the task force and the core areas that we might want to focus on. Aside from the great work the task force has done with categorisation, standardisation and the contribution of new articles, I think the following projects merit our sustained focus:

  • The portal: The automation of the selected images and dyk sections mean a lot of the work is already done, but the anniversaries need to be completed, the news section updates are erratic and we are starved of quality selected articles.
  • List of anarchists: SwitChar's Anarchlist is descriptive and well-referenced, but there are hundreds of potential entries that need to be vetted and referenced.
  • Recognized content: Improving anarchism-related articles to Good and Featured article standard is a difficult task (especially given the stringent verification guidelines), but I think this needs to be a long-term priority (especially given that the portal really needs around 20 quality articles to be complete).
  • Basic topics: Along with the portal and the main article, list of basic anarchism topics should be one of our flagship articles, and it is in great shape (kudos to Cast). Slight expansion, denser referencing and a professional-standard substantial lede and this could be in reach of the featured list criteria.
  • The elephant in the room: Anarchism and its subarticles have been largely stagnant for the past year, despite intermittent efforts (notably by Aelffin) to kickstart improvement. This has raised discussions on how we should interpret Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources when it comes to anarchism (as the mainstream media is often less accurate than for example Indymedia, Infoshop News etc.); I think if might be worthwhile to have a consensus within the taskforce on this, to refer to in content disputes, promotion nominations and deletion debates. As to improvements to the Anarchism article, perhaps we could take Aelffin's sources and create an article on Anarchist movement or Anarchist movement in the 21st century to detail the Battle in Seattle/anti-globalization/Green Scare era of contemporary anarchism? just some thoughts. ɥʞoɹoɯoʞS 22:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Utah Phillips

...is dead, his bio is a mess, as someone just pasted his obit into the article. Maybe he could get a little clean up and a place on the portal? Sorry i don't have the wherwithal to do it myself. Murderbike (talk) 17:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I was just thinking about what project I should try next. I'll give that one a look over.--Cast (talk) 17:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I've made some edits for the time being. I've integrated the obituary into the text and provided citation information. However, the page is still a bit of a mess and will require a fair number of revisions to bring it up to good status. We might not want to feature the article on the portal in this state, but I'll update the news section.--Cast (talk) 21:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)