User:Eroberer/Archive 1

help meI lost the notice about arbitration, can you tell me the procedure to respond?Eroberer (talk) 22:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am reposting the original (unsigned) notice below. If you learn how to use Page histories you would have been able to easily retrieve this yourself. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Arbitration/Requests and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—
 * Arbitration/Requests;
 * Arbitration guide.

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Campoftheamericas (talk • contribs)

3rr violation
Just a note saying you've broken the three-revert rule on Ganas, which says an editor isn't allowed to make more than three reverts in 24 hours. If you make another revert in that timescale, you're liable to be blocked. Best to discuss the edits on the talk page. Christopher Connor (talk) 21:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've given the same warning to the other editor because he too has broken the three-revert rule. If people are going to get blocked for breaking it, they usually (not always) need to be warned before that. I wouldn't recommend filing a report at WP:AN3 right now because your number of reverts is similar to theirs and you could end up blocked too. The best thing to do is to discuss on the talk page at length, and make sure your edits are in line with policies and guidelines such as WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:NPOV. If that doesn't work, you could try dispute resolution, where you can get other editors to have a look. I probably wouldn't be interested in looking at the content of the article right now. Christopher Connor (talk) 23:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Personal information at Talk:Ganas
Hi, Eroberer. I recently removed a WP:OUTING violation that may have concerned you. Per policy, I also notified User:Oversight by email about it, who redacted the edit from edit-history, too. I then received an email in response, which makes reference to the concerned user's interest in further action. I see you do not have an email address linked to your WP user account; would you like to see a copy of that email, and would you prefer I post it here (on this page – it does not contain any personal information)? Wiki Dao &#9775;  (talk)  21:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I linked an email address to my account, would you please send it there? Thanks Eroberer (talk) 23:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Notice of ANI discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Wiki Dao &#9775;  (talk)  02:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay to remove the Primary sources tag?
Hi Eroberer, I see you were the one who tagged Ganas with the Primary sources template last November. As I've said before, though -- for this sort of article, it's got some really good sources, including several from the NYT. So, it seems a bit misleading really. I'm not sure if perhaps you put it up because others at the time were pushing not-so-good sources, but would you object to removing it now?

BTW, I think you have done a pretty good job with your involvement with the article so far. It's clear you have some strong feelings about it, but you've been playing the whole "Wikipedia game" well as far as participating in the consensus-reaching process, and striving for a neutral tone, good sources, and overall balance. Thanks for contributing and, hey, why not help out with some other articles from time to time too, eh...? :)

Regards, Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  03:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes that tag was for the benefit of Campofamericas, OK to remove it but looks like it will be needed again soon.
 * My strong feelings are I don't want to see a whitewash or advertisement, which others are really pushing for under the guise of neutrality, I believe. I fear contributions to other articles will be greeted with the same ire, as I am really against self-promotion in an encyclopedia!  And Happy New Year to you too!  Eroberer (talk) 14:52, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

January 2011
Please do not add original research or novel syntheses of previously published material to our articles as you apparently did to Ganas. Please cite a reliable source for all of your information. Thank you. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Working on it.Eroberer (talk) 01:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Is Twin Oaks Communist ?
I was hoping we could talk about some recent edits you have made to the Twin Oaks Community page. I noticed specifically that you pulled out "income sharing" and replaced it with "economic communism". I would like to change it back for a few reasons. First off "communism" is usually associated with the large totalitarian states which held that description, these are (or were) generally repressive and nasty in their nature. Secondly, income sharing is more descriptive. It is what we are doing (while we are not exporting doctrine about workers revolution or shipping weapons to violent terrorist groups in Africa) we are sharing our income. There are a number of communities which do the same, including spiritually based ones.

I have to confess i am a bit fearful of entering this dialog with you. Because of the very charged dialog which has been going on around the Ganas site edits that you have been central in.

I am also happy to inform you that i currently live at Twin Oaks and am working with others to try to clean up some of the legitimate problems with the entry, including insufficient referencing and POV problems and a lack of criticism section (which there are certainly lots of and it should be re-established).

Hopefully, we can work together in the cooperative spirit of Wikipedia and improve these entries.

I would be very happy if you were to revert your own edit on economic communism, and will certainly understand it if you feel more discussion is necessary. Paxuscalta (talk) 14:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Another thought. There are lots of main stream media publications which refer to us as income sharing, and almost none of them refer to us as communist, economic or otherwise. I am happy to send you the references. Not sure if this type of thing influences your thinking. Paxuscalta (talk) 14:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Paxuscalta, thanks for writing. The main reason I replaced income sharing was because it linked to a non-existent page. I have a lot to say about the whole communism issue that centers around the FEC communities being disingenuous and kind of wimpy. I won't get into that now but I would like to later. It would be very helpful if you would send me those references and I would also like to contribute more to the article. And for now I will revert to income-sharing without the link. Eroberer (talk) 15:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Fantastic, thanks i appreciate your cooperation. Let's start with the references.  First i will do the video ones:


 * NBC TV 29 Cville 2010 http://www.nbc29.com/global/Category.asp?C=175568&clipId=5076511&autostart=true


 * NBC TV 12 Richmond 2010 http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=12764171


 * CNN 2010 http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/04/15/gsif.communal.vision.cnn?iref=all


 * Voice of America 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HffKdrLz1k


 * And then there is the Washington Post Magazine article from 1998 the transcript of which is on the Twin Oaks website http://www.twinoaks.org/members-exmembers/members/paxus/dream.html

I would love to chat about why the FEC is is disingenuous and wimpy. We might have more in common than you think. Be well, become better. Paxus who failed to log in before writing this comment 65.216.227.186 (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you realize the first video is gone? BTW, does the tofu business need to get USDA approval to sell to groceries? Eroberer (talk) 21:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I see it is gone now, our video connection is so slow, it seemed like it was loading, but it then says it is gone. We dont go thru the USDA, but rather the VA health dept comes thru and does inspections.  And we are organic certified, so they do inspections as well, and we are kosher, so a rabbi inspects as well.  But the short answer is we jump thru all the food safety hoops to market legally.  Why do you ask ? Paxuscalta (talk) 13:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Just curious, I've heard many small producers say it isn't worth it to deal with USDA, but I didn't know it wasn't necessary, I guess that's only if you sell just in VA right? Eroberer (talk) 23:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

And when am i going to get your thoughts on the FEC and wimpy disingenuous communities? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paxuscalta (talk • contribs) 13:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Look at the first line of WP:Communism - doesn't that describe any FEC community? That's the idea these communities were started with, and I know some still consider themselves and their lifestyle as revolutionary.  In fact the whole idea of the FEC was to outreach and help create more such communities and they still have many structures in place such as annual conferences for distributing information and networking, workshopping etc. all for the purpose of increasing participation in this lifestyle.  Would you agree with that? Eroberer (talk) 01:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is the first line and summary from the communism definition.


 * ''Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate.

''

Let's break it down. We are a sociopolitical movement. We strive internally for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production. We attempt to distribute resources equitably and as freely as possible. We dont have agenda to end wage labor, tho we mostly do not use it internally. We do not attempt to eliminate private property, though we do try to share things.

So while there are some parts which are similar, the parts which are different are substantial, and thus in my mind at least disqualify us from using this label firstly because it is inaccurate and secondly because the label is often misused and misunderstood. I personally consider my lifestyle revolutionary and say this often (i dont know if you have read any of my stuff). And i believe that most members of this community consider this notion slightly laughable. We do have conferences and workshops, like almost everyone does these days. You could call this "outreach" and "increasing participation in this lifestyle." i personally call it propaganda (to use a charged and dangerous term), other members call it marketing. Very few people in the communities movement consider us to be a vanguard of anything. We have a solution, it works for us, if you want help starting a community we can likely assist you. If you want to live in the mainstream, that is fine and we understand that. No self respecting Marxist would consider this a sister ideology or anything really a kin to communism. As you put it, it is too wimpy.

Now lets try socialism:


 * Socialism is an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.[1][2][3] A socialist society is a social structure organized on the basis of relatively equal power-relations, self-management, dispersed decision-making (adhocracy) and a reduction or elimination of hierarchical and bureaucratic forms of administration and governance; the extent of which varies in different types of socialism.[4][5]  This ranges from the establishment of cooperative  management structures in the economy to the abolition of all hierarchical structures in favor of free association.

Common ownership and cooperative management - good. Relatively equal power relations, self management, dispersed decision making, reduction of hierarchy. Now that really sounds like us. And while the communism short description does not talk about being hierarchical, is it perhaps useful to note that almost all actual communist systems are highly hierarchical. Dispersed and direct decision making is quite important to most secular communities (and especially the FEC ones). And while the original rhetoric was "all power to the soviets (workers collectives)" that is not in fact how any actual communist state operates. It is much of how we operate (those doing the work make the decisions). But this is an anarchist principal as well.

Well that is enuf for now. Curious about your thoughts. Do we still seem more communist than income sharing ? --Paxuscalta (talk) 05:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree Communist systems are highly hierarchical and that would be one of my main complaints, but would the FEC be willing to call itself socialist, or is that still a naughty word? What I don't like about the FEC marketing or as you say propaganda is that it suppresses those naughty words instead of claiming, explaining and maybe re-defining them.  Those words though they may be associated with unpleasant and/or inaccurate things are helpful in identifying what the FEC is talking about, or around, and once you realize the FEC is talking about socialism but refusing to say that word because its a marketing nightmare - well I think it makes people angry.  Or it makes me angry, though I'm probably in the minority.  Obviously alot of people just love advertising and are more than willing to just close their eyes and dream along.


 * If the FEC is trying to get away from the stereotypes about communes then those types of practices - redefining words, discouraging critical thinking, punishing criticism, etc. are only reinforcing the stereotypes, especially those dealing with groupthink and brainwashing, etc., which was practically invented by the communists, right? And as I recall, the FEC had that everyone must be included philosophy which leads to alot of unnecessary strife.  Eroberer (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh now it gets interesting. The problem, is that while it might (and only might) be reasonable to call Twin Oaks socialist, it would be a serious mis-representation of our FEC sister community East Wind which is best described as Democratic Anarchy. i described this in a blog post some time ago.

And what is also true is that these small communities do not really scale well when you consider labeling them with terms which are designed to describe national and global economies. We are more like a craft guild than we are like the contemporary French quasi-socialist state.

The idea that communes is discouraging criticism or critical thinking are nonsense, i am quite curious why you believe this. I do more critical thinking and certainly spend more time being critical of this system, than any i have been in and i have been around the block a couple times. As for communists developing brainwashing, it would seem you are confusing political communists with personal communards. While some in the FEC might be impressed with the accomplishments of Red China or Soviet Russia, we dont identify with them as related to us in any direct way. THey did not succeed in sharing the means of production, while we in our same and decenralized way have some success. This label game is fraught with problems, i think we are as close to being called Christians and we are to being called Socialists, tho most Oakers at least would be disturbed by that label.

I dont know what you are talking about when you imply the FEC has some required philosophy, this is news to me and i have been in FEC communities for a dozen years. And i am often surprised, so perhaps you can show me something i dont know about where i live.

Hey we have done a bunch of edits on the Twin Oaks page. Including a nice new section of Criticisms of Twin Oaks. The problem is that the reference footnotes seem to have the numbers screwed up and i was hoping you could take your wiki wizardry to the page and fix it. I dont think these are your criticisms at all. But they are the ones with published references and thus, perhaps, are the encyclopedic ones. Paxuscalta (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Move this Chat about Twin Oaks to the Twin Oaks entry ?
i am wondering if we should move this conversation to the Twin Oaks talk page, instead of your personal talk page. I am not attached, but others looking at the changes int he Twin Oaks entry might find our conversation interesting. If you agree, i would happily have you port it over. Paxuscalta (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Paxuscalta (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to port it but I will continue it there. Eroberer (talk) 21:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

please thread your replies
As i can't tell who you are responding to. You can do it by placing ":" after a statement.
 * See right here i have utilized it to reply to myself
 * and used to to reply again
 * Get the pattern? ;) The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ganas
Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize pages by deliberately introducing incorrect information, as you did at Ganas, you may be blocked from editing. ''"The 2006 shooting incident at the commune prompted questions about whether Feedback Learning might have the effect of driving some participants "insane" through invasive group examinations of their personal affair." <- This is a serious statement not even backed up (or even implied) by the  source another blantant misrepresentation of sourcing and this will get very serious. '' The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:53, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * My apologies, I cited the wrong source. I will look for the right one.  Please stop threatening and trying to intimidate me.  I don't think you are assuming good faith.  Eroberer (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No intimidation back up your writings. Its frankly looking very serious for you. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is also outrageous WP:OR not backed up with the sourcs provided The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:10, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It is backed up, "[Walter and Kenba] are a few crackpots . . . we're a bunch of normal people" from Commune Sex Shocker. I am including the community's side of the question, as I'm sure you would insist on.  Eroberer (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * GAr apologies multiple page article. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Ganas at BLP Noticeboard
Hi Eroberer. This is just to let you know that User:ResidentAnthropologist has recently begun a thread concerning the "Ganas Community" at the Biography-of-Living-Persons Noticeboard. Your involvement in any discussion there would, of course, be welcome. Regards, WikiDao    &#9775;  01:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Eroberer/GanasCon
User:Eroberer/GanasCon, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Eroberer/GanasCon and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of User:Eroberer/GanasCon during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 21:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)