Talk:List of peace activists

Kees Koning
The notable Christian peace activist Kees Koning should be mentioned in the list. 77.169.5.33 (talk) 17:29, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay in replying. As always for this list, any candidate for inclusion should have an existing article. So please write an article on him first; he can then be added here if he meets the criteria for inclusion. Note that there is already an article for him on wp:nl, but a straight translation would not be suficient, as it lacks sources, so you would have to find and add them too (this appears to be a general problem with the Nederlands wiki). --NSH001 (talk) 09:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Henry Ford
The Henry Ford edit presents a perfect illustration of why the list needs consistent, articulated standards. Henry Ford did not "oppose" WWII, for example, so much as he opposed U.S. involvement in WWII, because he was virulently anti-semitic and therefore a Nazi sympathizer. This should not count as being a "peace activist" any more than a U.S. Communist's opposing U.S. involvement in WWII during the Hitler-Stalin pact. I would suggest that the proper criterion for inclusion here should be something like a principled opposition to war as such, or at least to certain forms of war (i.e., nuclear war, or unjust wars in the Catholic sense of that term), on religious, moral or general philosophical grounds (that war always produces more harm that benefit, for example), coupled with significant, noteworthy personal action in support of those beliefs. Opposition to certain wars, or a particular war, on political grounds (favoring victory for one side over the other) should not qualify. PDGPA (talk) 03:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Henry Ford was added (by me) and then correctly quickly removed. Nothing broken here. But yes, I would personally trim the list to only those who really fit the existing and long-stable descriptor and worked or demonstrated for peace in a major way. Being a pacifist is not enough, although many are listed on that alone. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Aaron Bushnell
I see that Aaron Bushnell has been added to this list. Does any source refer to him as a peace activist? Zanahary (talk) 04:38, 3 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Activist is not a protected or well defined term, there are several people on this page (Bertie Lewis, Selma Meyer and Jeff Sharlet) who were soldiers or otherwise even a the point of their death. I have found two articles referring to him as an "activist" and self-immolation is of course a form of protest with Norman Morrison also being included on this list.
 * The articles aren't from listed wikipedia sources however finding sources listing him with the specific phrase of "peace activist" is an extremely high bar for an addition to this page. Since I've linked two articles referring to him as such I'm going to revert the edit on the page. Galdrack (talk) 15:27, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Galdrack
 * The sources you brought do not call him a peace activist
 * You are not an extended confirmed editor (you have only 160 edits). Therefore you do not have the right to make any edit on anything related to the Israeli Arab conflict, including the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli activities of Bushnell
 * Therefore I am going to revert your revert soon. Vegan416 (talk) 15:51, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Both of them refer to him being an activist with his action (self-immolation) being accepted on the page already, it's a violent act though targeted at oneself kinda hard to tell if it's peaceful that way but there was already a precedent.
 * Thought this was outside the reach of that topic for editing but wasn't sure which is why I posted here before reverting the edit. TBH this seems like a reach to remove this content from the page since this talk piece has no comments and has only been placed for 5 days.
 * @WagePeace added it to the article I think it'd be good to get their rationale before removing this. Galdrack (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Galdrack
 * I see that WagePeace is not extended confirmed user either. That in itself is reason enough to remove his addition of Bushnell.
 * The problem with Bushnell is that there is no proof that his activism was aimed at peace. Rather it seem it was aimed in favor of Palestine and against Israel. I don't see how a person who said that no Israeli civilian is innocent, and therefore refused to condemn the Nova festival massacre, can be called a peace activist.
 * Despite all of that as a sign of good will I am willing to wait 3 more days to see if anyone can come with compelling argument against removing him from the list. Vegan416 (talk) 16:22, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I’ve already removed it myself, since a discussion at that list’s Talk failed to produce a source. Zanahary (talk) 17:22, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Galdrack
 * See Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict section 4b Vegan416 (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link Galdrack (talk) 16:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Galdrack: You asked above for my rationale for adding Bushnell to this list:
 * Prior to his self-immolation, Bushnell described it as an "act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people." [Time]
 * In the statement that he live-streamed just prior to setting himself on fire, Bushnell stated, "I will no longer be complicit in genocide." [Time]
 * The Israeli newspaper, HaAretz, described Bushnell's act] as "in Protest of American Support of Gaza War." [HaAretz]
 * Thus Bushnell's act of self-immolation was a call for an end to the war and genocide and an end to US support of the war. Thus it was a call for peace.
 * WagePeace (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @WagePeace
 * First of all, since you are not extended confirmed editor you didn't (and still don't) have the right to add him.
 * In his reddit account under the username acebush1, Bushnell wrote the following here: "To bring this into stark relief, there is the example of the music festival which the liberal states and media have made such a point of clutching their pearls over. "A music festival! How could it get more innocent than a music festival!?" That music festival was happening just three miles from Gaza, within site of the border wall. Imagine a similar event happening in the early days of the colonization of North America. Can you or I really say that Indigenous people are wrong for retaliating against colonizers who are rubbing their domination in their face?" And he also said : "You’re missing the point of my first comment which was that those people’s fun at the music festival was specifically built on Palestinian suffering. There are no innocent civilians in se[t]ller colonialism. Being a settler is inherently violent."   And here he said: "Israel is a white supremacist, ethnonationalist, settler-colonial apartheid state. It was created by the UK 75 years ago and is propped up by US support. It has no right to exist".  These sources show clearly that Bushnell was not interested in peace between Israel and the Palestinians but rather in the annihilation of Israel, and he doesn't mind at all if it is achieved by violence against civilians. That directly contradicts the definition of the people in this list of peace activists who (according to the preface of the article) are supposed to be advocating "non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods". So he clearly doesn't belong in this list.
 * Vegan416 (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Point 2 reads as a case of "WP:NPOV" and "WP:OR", Bushnell isn't endorsing genocide/violence and most definitely is not advocating for either in those statements. We could argue over the validity of what he says of course but it's not advocating for death and destruction either way, not to mention this is entirely subjective and something (again) not applied to other people on this list.
 * It's worth noting while you're pointing out both myself and @WagePeace do not have extended user rights our accounts are all roughly as old however of the 1,715 edits on your account 1,700 of them were made within the last few months with what appears to be "WP:PGAME" when editing mostly pages on numbers.
 * I don't think any of the 4 of us are qualified frankly to gate this page, especially when both myself and @WagePeace have already provided sources referring to Bushnell as an activist who died advocating for peace in a manner that's already been accepted on this same page. Galdrack (talk) 14:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Galdrack According to ScottishFinnishRadish you are not even allowed to comment here, so it would be unfair for me to respond to you here. But if you want we can continue this discussion on my private talk page where this limitation doesn't apply. Vegan416 (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It applies at your talk page as well. WP:ECR applies everywhere. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * OK. Can he discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with me via the wikipedia e-mail mechanism? Vegan416 (talk) 18:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's fine. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You can’t do original research to determine someone to be a peace activist. We need reliable sources saying they were. Without those sources, his name can’t stand (and that goes for everyone else on this list too—the article has a serious problem with not sourcing inclusions per WP:LISTPEOPLE). Zanahary (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I cited three references (above) that state his self-immolation was in protest of the genocide and US support of the war. It looks like other people here are doing original research by reading what he wrote on Reddit and inferring from that an alternative view of the motivation of his act.
 * WagePeace (talk) 20:34, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * But unlike you I don't write anything in the article itself based on my reading of him... Vegan416 (talk) 20:42, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That he enacted a protest against a war does not mean the source describes him as a peace activist. I agree that the reddit thing is irrelevant and also constitutes OR, but since it’s an argument in favor of the exclusion of contested unsupported content, it doesn’t matter. Zanahary (talk) 21:04, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Galdrack, @Vegan416: I apologize if I did something I don't have the right to do. I would think that if I'm not allowed to do something, then Wikipedia would not allow me to do it.
 * I respectfully disagree with you guys about Bushnell. He was protesting violence against the Palestinians. He was calling for an end to that violence and an end to US support of that violence. I understand that you see it differently, and since you control the article, I guess Bushnell will remain excluded from it.
 * WagePeace (talk) 20:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't control the article. This is community project. There are however rules like that you need to have at least 500 (real) edits to be able to write on the Israeli-Arab conflict. And you need to get some consensus on changes and claims that are controversial. You also need reliable sources that call him peace activist. Vegan416 (talk) 20:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Read WP:OR and WP:VERIFIABILITY if you want to know more about why Wikipedia follows sources and not original logical/semantic derivations by editors. Zanahary (talk) 20:33, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * TBH I think the scope of this page is Ill-defined as a "Peace activist" is not a protected term by any means and finding a source to validate such a title is a very silly request as you're essentially asking for endorsement for a very subjective concept from organisations that often disagree with the activist in question. As an example MLK was more frequently referred to as a violent activist by news orgs during the civil rights movement and was only considered a hero after his assassination, an extremely common thread for peace activists. Galdrack (talk) 14:30, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That’s a problem with the article, and we shouldn’t extend it to Bushnell just because the rest of the article is loaded with unsourced probable original research. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 15:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That’s a problem with the article, and we shouldn’t extend it to Bushnell just because the rest of the article is loaded with unsourced probable original research. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 15:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Let's be mindful of WP:ECR here. Further comments on this topic by editors who are not extended-confirmed will be removed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Establishing criteria for sourcing and inclusion
This article, besides suffering from a serious lack of sources, also seems to have an inappropriately broad set of criteria for inclusion. I personally think that anyone not labeled prominently something like “peace activist” “peace advocate” etc. ought not be included. This includes people who are called anti-war activists (as that doesn’t imply peace advocacy), especially when it’s against a specific war (like the Vietnam war, for instance), since that does not imply a general activism for peace. @NSH001 @Llll5032 any thoughts? ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 15:40, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This probably has to do with Stew Albert, who I removed the cite tag from because of his obvious and well-known anti-Vietnam War activities. How many wars does someone have to live long enough to organize opposition to? Anti-war activists are, in effect, peace activists, especially if well known for the activity and not advocating violence towards either side. In most instances the two terms overlap (see the navbox Anti-war) and List of anti-war activists has redirected here since 2014. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * (ec) Zanahary, nobody can be entered on this list unless they have their own wiki page. Therefore I have long taken the view that as long as the entry's own article contains sources supporting their inclusion on this list, a specific cite on this list is not necessary. That's why I always check that any new entry has the necessary citations in his/her own article. Adding citations for every entry would add clutter and probably quadruple or quintuple the size of the list's wikitext. So no, I don't think that citations are necesssary here as long as they are provided in the subject's own page. That said, there are a few cases where I have added citations myself. --NSH001 (talk) 16:51, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've just taken a look at WP:LISTPEOPLE, and it's clear to me that it's satisfied if appropriate sources are provided in the subject's page. --NSH001 (talk) 17:37, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you explain your reading? I don't understand how this policy could allow unsourced content in articles. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Simple, it is sourced. The two conditions (1) the subject must have a wiki article and (2) said wiki article must have sources that show he/she satisfies the conditions for inclusion in the list, taken together, ensure that the content is sourced. LISTPEOPLE does not say that the source has to be given in the list article. --NSH001 (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Material whose verifiability is likely to be challenged must be accompanied by inline citations. This is the WP:VERIFIABILITY policy. We can't just rely on linked articles to support content included in other articles. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 19:08, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Nope. We're not using citations to support content, we're using them to support whether or not they should be included. This is analogous to disambiguation pages, where citations are actually banned (with very few exceptions). Dab pages rely on the pages they disambiguate to justify e.g., where they should be grouped. This list really only needs citations where the subject's description goes beyond what is in the subject's article. This should be rare, as there is a long-established convention here that the descriptions should be short. --NSH001 (talk) 19:41, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation pages require no citations because their contents are determined by similarities in titles. This list's contents are determined by subjective evaluations of people to fall into the category of "peace activist". To me, these designations are easily challenged (see the Bushnell discussion above), and thus must be supported with citations. But I'm open to hearing from other editors. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 20:01, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with Zanahary that subjective evaluations or self description as "peace activist" can be contested, and therefore we need some highly reliable and non-partisan sources to support such claims. For example, Code Pink define themselves as a peace organization, and yet they justified Hamas attack on Israel on October 7: "We cannot pretend to be shocked by the resistance of the Palestinians"; "The human reaction to being oppressed is to resist and Palestinians deserve that right just as much as everyone else on the planet"; "October 7 was an act of resistance". At least 2 people on this list of "peace activists" (Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans) are signed on these sentences that support political violence of the most extreme kind. Vegan416 (talk) 07:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This isn’t specifically about Stew Albert (about whom I know nothing other than that I couldn’t find sources calling him a peace activist). My issue with the conflation of peace with anti-war is that one who opposes war does not necessarily support peace, and original analyses of one’s activism to see whether or not they ever advocated for violence (which is subjective) is not encyclopedic compared to just relying on evaluations by reliable independent sources. But I would be open to the article’s scope being expanded with a title change—maybe to List of anti-war activists, since I think it’s fair to say that any “peace activist” is implicitly anti-war. ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 16:42, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, but also, a citation is needed for Stew Albert, because a citation is needed for literally everyone on the list per WP:LISTPEOPLE. I ask you to please find a suitable source or restore the tag @Randy Kryn ꧁Zanahary꧂ (talk) 16:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)