Talk:David Graeber/Archive 1

Student Evaluation Claim
An anonymous user has added this sentence: While opinion writers for the Yale Daily News, among others, have protested and created controversy over the issue, students review Graeber's classes as poorly focused and opinionated, albeit easy, as statistical evidence compiled from student evaluations shows. This needs to be sourced b/c I have not been able to find anything to support the claim. Google finds nothing relevant when searching for the phrases "poorly focused", "opinionated" or "student evaluation". Can someone find a source? If not, the statement should probably be removed. - Nihila 15:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Speculation on why Graeber's contract wasn't renewed
It seems to me that the latter third of this sentence in the article, and possibly the whole sentence, is too speculative to belong in an encyclopedia entry: Some Yale authorities may have been uneasy about Graeber's activism, including his role in protests against the World Economic Forum in 2002 and membership in the radical labor union Industrial Workers of the World; recent controversy over radical professors like Ward Churchill may have increased this anxiety. (my emphasis added) My preference is to delete the clause beginning with "recent controversy". Thoughts? - Walkiped 03:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I would call it as it is, and point out thatthe original entry was clearly not written from a neutral or objective point of view, is clearly an advocacy piece, and should be flagged accordingly.

All one has to do is add, "his supporters claim" at the beginning, with some mention of who these people were. This would be better than just flagging the neutrality of the piece, since in fact it is a significant aspect of this anthropologists' career that he had a large number of supporters who viewed the dismissal as politically motivated. To mention this reality is not to create an advocacy piece. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Right honorable dr. zombie (talk • contribs) 17:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

this article is just a puff for Graeber
This entire entry sounds like a puff piece for Graeber. His position at LSE is made to sound like more than it is, and the Malinowski lecture is not the Nobel prize. I would suggest that this article be toned down overall.

I got into the database of student evaluations for the last time he taught at Yale. This was Anthro 110. Most students said the course was a gut -- one-third said the workload was "much less" than for a similar course. It had no exams or papers required! The median overall rating for the course was just "good." The real star teachers at Yale usually get a median of "excellent." So there is no objective evidence of him being a great teacer, either.

Unless Wikipedia exists to tout the unfounded claims of people who write articles about themselves, this needs to be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Niemand2000 (talk • contribs) 03:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yale maintains a private online database of course evaluations made available to students at the beginning of each semester. There are, in fact, numerous student reviews of some of Graeber's larger lecture courses on this database. I would suggest finding a Yale student willing to divulge the contents of that database if you want to get to the bottom of the "student reviews..." claim.


 * Everybody, sign your statements with ~ (four tildes), so your statements are properly signed and dated! ... said: Rursus ( m bork³ ) 21:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality banner removal
Is there any reason to keep the neutrality banner on this page? I don't see any conversation related to it on the talk page. If there is an outstanding POV issue, lets correct it - otherwise, lets remove the banner. - N1h1l 16:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and just to be careful I have gone over the article, removed material that was clearly partial to Graeber, and given voice to the opposition view. I have removed the NPOV tag. Waltersobchak 23:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Good work. - N1h1l 21:59, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this is that in a knee-jerk desire to achieve "balance" the text has been wildly slanted in favor of "detractors". First of all, Yale gave no official reason whatever for my dismissal. So any claims by "detractors" - who are, significantly, all anonymous, while my defenders are willing to produce names and evidence - are utterly speculative. The claim that I appeared unprepared in class is outrageous and perhaps even actionable if I were a legalistic minded person. At no point did anyone accuse me of being unprepared in class. Certainly no one in the Yale administration made any such claim. I am in fact scrupulously well-prepared, never come to class without detailed lecture notes (that in grad seminars I often make available to students) and some of my theory courses are known as far away as India and Taiwan for being well-organized and comprehensive. The statement I appeared unprepared appears to be simply one individual's slur - apparently, the same individual who earlier tried to insert obviously false information, such as that "statistics" showed that in my classes I was "opinionated" (etc) - despite the fact that the statistics Yale does keep do not measure anything of the sort. The fact that this claim appears on this web page because some malicious individual posted something anonymously and then editors felt it was required for "balance" is an embarrassment to the entire wikipedia project. It has also been extremely damaging - since at least one published source has now cited my purported "unpreparedness" as the reason Yale is supposed to have fired me, despite the fact that Yale never accused me of anything of the sort. They could have only got this from the anonymous smear-artist on wikipedia, since no one else has ever reproduced such a claim.

Meanwhile, crucial and verifiable information: for instance, that I was one of the two most popular professors in the sociocultural department in terms of enrollment, that it was the students who initiated the protests, not me, or even that the main reason suggested by those students for my dismissal was my defense of a graduate student involved in organizing for GESO who the senior faculty attempted to expel from the program, simply do not appear.

I do not feel it would really be appropriate for me to edit my own entry but if someone doesn't intervene to remove this false and actually potentially libelous statement, I'm going to have to do it myself. If you really can't handle controversy, why not just say I was dismissed for reasons that Yale refused to specify and leave it at that? David Graeber
 * I agree with David's assessment. A Google search fails to return any reliable source for the "late and unprepared" statement. Unless this claim can be cited, It should be removed. - N1h1l 19:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This is precisely the reason that uncited information must be removed immediately before it can cause further damage. I don't care if it's an article about a person or about a Pokemon. --Liface 03:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't Wikipedia needs to get into why Yale fired Graeber. But surely the way he weighs in here should make anyone rethink the entire controversy. Clearly he is a hothead and likes to make up evidence ("as far away as China and India" Give me a break.) I also find it entertaining that a self-professor anarchist is so worried about controlling what is said... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Niemand2000 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I only just noticed this - years later.
 * Actually, the laughable element is this "Niemand" fellow's disbelief. Yale has plenty of students from India and China and if a course

is good, word will get around - particularly if they go back and get jobs in universities back home. If you don't believe me, why not check the original petition the students circulated on my behalf: of the two authors of the petition, Durba and Devika, one was from Delhi and the other if I remember originally from Bengal. One of their parents (again, if I remember exactly) has been circulating a photocopy of my lecture notes for "Anthropology and Classical Social Theory" in India. I also received a request at one point to come and lecture in Taiwan from an anthropology professor there who had said he'd heard there about this same course. None of this is particularly unusual - that is, if you teach a good course at Yale. Niemand just knows nothing about international academia. DG


 * I am a full professor at an institution much more prestigious than Graeber's. I get invited to give lectures in many countries. Sometimes my host mention hearing something about a course I teach at my university. It does not mean anything -- it is polite chit-chat at best. Graeber is simply delusional to think that these wildly inflated claims about his own importance mean anything. The simple fact is that the Yale evaluations (which I have been allowed to see) show that the students who liked his course thought it was incredibly easy. And most simply didn't like it. The real reason he was fired was that his scholarship is a joke (check out the review of his book in a recent American Historical Review. And check out the bitter, ad-hominem reply in a later issue; arguments on the merits are just not his style). Yes, he got a few students to sign a petition. Anyone can have groupies, especially if they are not interested in teaching well.

Again: I find it mildly entertaining that someone who claims to be an anarchist is a narcissistic control freak. Niemand2000 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC).


 * Wow! This is almost entertaining.
 * As for narcissistic control freak - um, well, you see, people who have been slandered often have a tendency to want

to point out that things said about them aren't true. It's kind of a trap, because if someone says "your scholarship sucks" and you point out, "actually I have received the following praise and honors" - then you look like an egotist. If you don't reply it's like your admitting that it's true. I would encourage you not to play along with people trying to set such traps.
 * As for the "I am a full professor" post - amazing! There is only one person in the world who could possibly have written

that. She is too cowardly to write her name, of course, but anyone who's ever been at Yale could tell who she must be.
 * If you combine (a) the self-importance (real scholars don't say "I am at an institution much more prestigious

than you", they'd be embarrassed), (b) the extraordinary malice ("scholarship is a joke"? there's only one academic I know who'd use a phrase like that), (c) the fact that they obviously were faculty at Yale (Yale does not let outsiders look at student evaluation forms), (d) the sloppiness, thinking people wouldn't notice that, or being so driven by rage that they didn't even care, and finally, (e) the habit of attacking others by accusing them of doing exactly what they are in fact doing at the time (at Yale, this prof was famous for, when she wanted to intimidate people, instantly accusing them of "intimidation" - now she's that she's making a bitter ad hominem against me she accuses me of making bitter ad hominems), there is no possibility it could be anyone else.
 * It's a person so crazy and sad that I actually am often tempted to feel sorry for her - but then I think of all the students

whose lives she's managed to destroy.
 * As for the substance, I'll just say three things.
 * 1) the first time the Yale senior faculty tried to get rid of me they had to follow process, so they had my work

evaluated by a number of outside scholars of their own choosing. Since they all came back positive, and my student evaluations were positive, the dean told them they couldn't just get rid of me. So they asked, and received, special permission, just in this one case, to review me again the next year with no outside scholarly evaluation and no formal input from students. That should tell you everything.
 * 2) the petition wasn't my idea, it was the students, and I honestly don't think it was even a good idea to go

along with it. Academics, as you can see above, like to pretend that students have no minds of their own and if they protest on a prof's behalf he must have put them up to it. Anyway, be this as it may, just about all socio-cultural students signed it (there are also a large number archeologists and biological anthropology students formally in the same department - but they of course knew nothing of the affair, and were not involved.) I think maybe four or five socio-culturals didn't. That's out of maybe 50 or 60. I find this especially touching because the students were deeply divided into a pro-union and anti-union faction; I had been accused of favoring the union; nonetheless, just about all the students from _both_ factions combined forces to protest my dismissal. It was actually about the only thing both sides could agree on.
 * 3) just to show the veracity of my attacker - the book she mentions is Lost People, an ethnography of Madagascar.

The two most prominent anthropologists of Madagascar are Maurice Bloch and Michael Lambek. Both wrote blurbs calling it "brilliant" on the back of the book. There have been four published academic reviews, three glowing, one a hatchet job by a historian who clearly doesn't read Malagasy and has a history of launching vicious preemptive assaults on any young scholar who does. This is the review to which she refers. Ironically, that review employed ad hominems (it said my book is boring and that I must be a boring person); my response did not (though I certainly criticized the reviewer's knowledge of the subject.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.203.40 (talk) 22:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to correct the wild assumptions: I am male and not a Yale anthropologist. I am someone who cares about teaching and scholarship, and thus have no interest in seeing someone like Graeber hijack the enterprise of scholarship to gratify his own needs.
 * Specifically: the teaching evaluations in question can be downloaded and thus sent anywhere there is email. I have seen them, and they are almost uniformly terrible. The positive ones say the course required virtually no work. Is a world-class university supposed to admire this as good teaching? On the AHR review: Graeber's response consists mostly of a long attack on another book written by the reviewer. If this is not ad-hominem then it is hard to know what qualifies as such.
 * Graeber postures as someone driven out of Yale for political reasons ("direct actions" and other such pretentious nonsense). The fact is, he is just a poseur.
 * Graeber postures as someone driven out of Yale for political reasons ("direct actions" and other such pretentious nonsense). The fact is, he is just a poseur.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Niemand2000 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Un huh. Let me see, first post, you were a very important senior professor at a university "much more prestigious" than mine, and Yale had "allowed" you to look at student evaluations. Now you're saying you just read them online. Get your story straight!
 * This is pointless. As I say, if you are really a full professor at a major university, then I can only imagine one in the world crazy enough to write what you did. Or who would actually spend their time cyberstalking another scholar (what did it take you, twelve hours to reply to that? Do you check my wikipedia discussion page every day?? Why not try doing research or writing books or something like that?)
 * Of course it's true, I was assuming you were a prof. You could also just be some random wingnut.
 * Easily resolved: if you're really a full professor at a major university, tell us who you are. Name, title, university. If not: why not? What are you afraid of?
 * PS: actually, you don't know what an ad hominem attack is. It's an attack on someone's personal character extraneous to the matter under debate. As for example the reviewer in question made when he said I was a boring person. If someone tells you "I know more about 19th century Malagasy demographics than you and your numbers are wrong" and you reply "actually, you don't know more about 19th century Malagasy demographics than I do; I was using census documents from the royal archives and in your published work you don't seem to be aware such census documents even exist" - that's not an ad hominem attack. Someone's knowledge of Malagasy demographic sources actually is of relevance to their opinion on the subject of Malagasy demographics.
 * Myself, I don't go around writing reviews trashing other scholars' books - any more than I go on other scholar's wikipedia discussion pages and start raining anonymous insults at them. I only agree to review books I like, because... well, why would I want to damage the career of another scholar? Reviews are important for tenure. That guy on the other hand is notorious for viciously attacking junior scholars - ones who, unlike me, are untenured and could genuinely suffer - for the crime of actually knowing how to read Malagasy. If I make him think twice before doing it again, it will be well worth having earned the rancor of people like you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.203.40 (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Everybody, sign your statements with ~ (four tildes), so your statements are properly signed and dated! ... said: Rursus ( m bork³ ) 21:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Too little anthropology
Yale, this, booklist that... the article needs some info about what those books, theses etc. contains, more than the titles tells us. I surfed into this guy to see how he relies on Critical realism for his analyses, to see what that method can give, especially if there's a linguistic element in it. ... said: Rursus ( m bork³ ) 21:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Early life
I just took out the bit about his father and mother – if anybody can find a source that's not just a mirror of the content of this article, I'd be happy to see it put back in. -- Accedie talk to me 04:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Aaaaand somebody did. Thanks, IP! Collaboration in action :) -- Accedie talk to me 21:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

BusinessWeek resource David Graeber, the Anti-Leader of Occupy Wall Street
Meet the anthropologist, activist, and anarchist who helped transform a hapless rally into a global protest movement October 26, 2011, 11:35 PM EDT by Drake Bennett 97.87.29.188 (talk) 22:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Interviews
This section had become rather bloated, and I found dozens more, and in many cases better, through searching. They should be integrated as references or collected offsite and from there linked.
 * Audio interview by Indymedia on air radio with David Graeber on anarchism and anthropology, April 1, 2005
 * “Take it From the Top” A Village Voice interview with David Graeber, June 6, 2005
 * “Teach Me if You Can” An interview with David Graeber on the Toward Freedom website, November 21, 2005
 * "A conversation with anarchist David Graeber about anthropology" A Charlie Rose interview with David Graeber, April 4, 2006
 * “Anthropologist and More” – An interview on politics and ethnography, May 8, 2006.
 * “ReadySteadyBook.com” An interview with David Graeber on the well-known British literary blog, January 16, 2007
 * Behind the News – Doug Henwood interviews Graeber on Yale, imperialism, and anthropology, December 27, 2007
 * “ArtRadio” – Althea Viafora Viaforakress.com interviews Graeber on fetishism, gifts, and objects, May 5, 2008
 * “OxMag Interview” on anarchy, capitalism, technology, and consensus process, July 1, 2008
 * “Korea Indymedia: Struggle News #9.5” on being an anarchist anthropologist, July 22, 2009
 * “History is made up of those events that couldn’t have been predicted before they happened” Interview of David Graeber by Yiannis Aktimon from Void Network for the Bfest issue of anti-authoritarian newspaper Babylonia, May 18, 2010
 * David Graeber interviewed on CBC's Connect with Mark Kelley on black block tactics prior to Toronto G20 Summit, June 23, 2010
 * Interview with Lewis Bassett and Richard Houguez of The Haircut Before The Party while having a haircut at Auto Italia South East during their collaboration with LuckyPDF in November 2010.

Skomorokh  20:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

New Picture
I feel that this picture of Graeber might be both a stylistic improvement and, assuming that this was taken recently (I couldn't find any instances of it on the web), a more relevant one. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.231.170.64 (talk) 08:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't self identify as an anarchist so that part should probably be removed
"I'm an anthropologist, sometimes I occupy things & such. I see anarchism as something you do not an identity so don't call me the anarchist anthropologist"

https://twitter.com/davidgraeber — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.43.8.98 (talk) 11:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * With respect for BLPs, that's something we take into account (and can maybe even note, ideally said through a secondary source), but we ultimately use what the reliable sources say on the topic of his political affiliations, not his self-identification. czar ♔  12:06, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

no that means I don't identify as an "anarchist anthropologist." Because I don't do something called "anarchist anthropology." You can call me an anarchist if you like. DG — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.241.86 (talk) 00:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

a strange article
this sounds very biased.

We read a lot of dirt thrown at Yale about what is an issue about renewing a contract, is this useful for readers of an encyclopaedia? If Graeber's scholarship was held in such high regard, why do his academic publications list almost nothing produced whilst at Yale? Either the biblio is incomplete or he has no output during that time, therefore we can assume that the contract issue may have been to do with poor performance.

My suggestion, remove details about this debacle as it does neither Yale nor Graeber any service and is not much use for information anyways. 79.65.131.170 (talk) 18:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Something covered by multiple reliable, independent sources (including The New York Times) is generally considered noteworthy of inclusion in a related article. The weight of such a topic within the article has some wiggle room, but the case for its inclusion is obvious. As for theorizing the incident you mention, that's not our business. Our job is to only to present the reliable sources. czar ⨹   02:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

In that case, where are these other sources? Going to the one article that is actually cited we find Graeber is told to produce more if he wants a contract.194.80.178.1 (talk) 14:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Graeber has also weighed in on this himself- or someone purporting to be Graeber, at least- suggesting the section should be toned down. 194.80.178.1 (talk) 14:53, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Gezi Park sources
 He supported Gezi Park protests which was also supported by George Soros affiliated Open Society Foundations. The Counterpunch source doesn't support that claim about Graeber—there are better sources available—and keep in mind its partisan background when discussing its reliability and the type of claims it best substantiates (where is the reputation for fact-checking or quality?) And the Haberturk Soros commentary has even less to do with Graeber—belongs perhaps on the article about the OSF but not here. czar 17:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

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Troll Factories incorrect attribution
The collection (Troll Factories) is edited by Andrew Karp but the piece itself (Troll Lives Matter? Russian Infiltration of the Black Lives Matter Movement) is by Micah White, first published in the Guardian as "I started Occupy Wall Street. Russia tried to co-opt me" in November 2017. On a purely factual basis I'm correcting this.

The White ('Karp') article itself also barely meets standards for a source for the point being made in this article's text - it's an opinion piece in the original, and the implication that Graeber is associated with either Assange or Russian attempts to co-opt OWS isn't there in the original. The paragraph probably should be removed entirely (especially as it regards a living person) but I'm loath to start an edit war over it and there ought to be consensus on this. Hexapodium (talk) 17:26, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I did not know it was originally published in The Guardian since I came across it in the book form. Micah M. White is credited with being the founder of OWS, is it problem to include her opinion of OWS if it is made clear the quote is from White? Zaki Naggar (talk) 17:19, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The issue is the quote draws a false picture of Graeber's affiliations; the White piece is criticising and highlighting RT's aggressive co-opting of OWS while the quotes as used in your original edit are suggestive that Graeber and OWS are partners of RT. Either way, the White piece is not a reliable source, especially for a biography of a living person, when used in this context. An extra factual note: Micah White is a man and uses he/him. Hexapodium (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 September 2020
Add death: September 2, 2020; Venice, Italy

Confirmation of death from his partner: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1301504647769792512 ForTheAtlantic (talk) 13:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Twitter is not a reliable source for a BLP, especially for death confirmation. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:407B:D27C:2507:CB02 (talk) 14:00, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Stephane Larue is unfortunately sourcing his information from Twitter, so it's no better a source per WP:BDP. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:407B:D27C:2507:CB02 (talk) 14:11, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done  Seagull123  Φ  15:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't need those three crap sources for the DoD, here's The Guardian. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:407B:D27C:2507:CB02 (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Perfect—I was waiting for an article from English-language media. Thank you! Stephanie Lahey (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Death
Graeber died yesterday in Venice. Await WP:RS. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:407B:D27C:2507:CB02 (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Is anything known about the cause of death? MonsieurD (talk) 11:35, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 September 2020
ADD >>> David Graeber was a member of the Institute for Experimental Arts in Greece. 212.54.201.172 (talk) 12:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The article is no longer locked, if you have a reliable source for this information you can add it. – Thjarkur (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

American socialism template
As far as I can see, Graeber is not mentioned in American socialism. So it seems we have two options: edit that template (for which we'd need unambiguous sourcing that he was a socialist, which I'm sure is forthcoming) or remove it. Thoughts? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 23:32, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd remove it. These templates are annoying at the best of times because they use prime real estate at the top of the article for what's essentially a bloated "See also" list. And they only really make sense on broad topical articles that are actually part of a "series", which this isn't. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:54, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Quasi-boldly removed; easy enough to drop back in if others feel differently. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 18:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Influence and reception
This section was recently renamed from Criticism per WP:CSECTION, which was a good move. Still, whatever the title, we should avoid having a section in a biography that's primarily devoted to the subject's critics. It should balance criticism with an assessment of the influence of his work as a whole, and critiques of specific works should be integrated into the sections of the article where those works are discussed. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 14:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree with the points you raise. Previously, the Criticism section seemed to only hold self-published criticisms by a neoliberal economic thinker who clearly disliked Graeber. His 'work' is still quoted in the main article, when such a contribution would not usually meet the standards for reliable sources. I've been trying to rework the section (in its new form) to include stuff from peer-reviewed academic sources, but admittedly those have all been book reviews so far. Would appreciate contributions which can give a more over-arching assessment. I think there's also room to look at popular reception, and I anticipate that forthcoming retrospectives will fill in that gap.Boredintheevening (talk) 16:38, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Also, Anastasia Piliavsky's criticism is pretty off the mark, and should not be considered a fair one. Graeber's response to her essay makes this quite clear: "not only are almost none of the actual arguments I make in the book addressed in this review but almost all of the positions the reviewer does attribute to me are anticipated and explicitly rejected in the text". He then goes on to point why the obviously unfair criticism seems to be politically motivated. 187.18.36.76 4 September 23:13 GMT-3
 * Thank you for addressing this. Boredintheevening (talk) 08:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * They didn't. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:4169:6331:35E8:3951 (talk) 09:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I have now, just wanted to see if anyone agreed first... 187.18.36.76 7 September 16:44 GMT-3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.18.36.76 (talk) 19:44, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Bibliography of David Graeber
Sorry for multiple threads. David_Graeber seems both comprehensive and unwieldy. I'd suggest splitting to Bibliography of David Graber (I think that's the right naming convention?) or trimming to selected works. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 23:36, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * if people decide to do this, his course of life would be useful and is available on his contact page. Johnfreez (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ALso see WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:4169:6331:35E8:3951 (talk) 08:39, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Splitting it off is a good idea but we should probably hold off until the entries here are cleaned up a bit more, to avoid duplicate work. WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY doesn't apply since Graeber's work is in itself a notable topic (dozens of reviews, a forthcoming "collected works" volume, etc.) It should probably be called David Graeber bibliography with a redirect from Bibliography of David Graeber – we usually use the latter for topical bibliographies. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:57, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Notability is irrelevant to WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY, as it is part of NOT. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:BD4A:8410:7CC7:867A (talk) 11:16, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You might want to take a look at Category:Bibliographies. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:30, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Categories are irrelevant to WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY, as it is part of NOT. 2A02:C7F:BE34:3C00:BD4A:8410:7CC7:867A (talk) 12:36, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed split
User:AleatoryPonderings/David Graeber bibliography is a draft of my proposed split of the bibliography into its own page. I would suggest renaming David Graeber to selected publications and including a list of only those books with articles, and then adding Main to point to David Graeber bibliography, to which I will move my userspace draft if others think it reasonable and worthwhile. Anyone is free to edit the draft in my userspace if they like. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2020 (UTC)