Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Malik Shabazz/Userboxes/Alexander Berkman

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was:  keep. (non-admin closure) JJPMas ter 22:51, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Malik Shabazz/Userboxes/Alexander Berkman

 * – (View MfD) &#8203;

Glorifies violent ideologue and falls afoul of UBCR. Note that "Alexander Berkman" was an anarchist who attempted to assassinate a rich person as "direct action" against the rich and "The Blast" (the magazine linked in the userbox run by Berkman) glorified terrorism in its name as well as the many articles it published. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 23:44, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Berkman did not attempt to assassinate Henry Clay Frick because he was rich. There were plenty of other rich people that Berkman did not try to assassinate. He chose Frick because his corrupt incompetence caused the Johnstown flood that killed 2,200 innocent people and in particular, because Frick attacked striking workers during the Homestead strike, resulting in a gun battle that killed ten people and injured many more. This is critically important context that is missing from this nomination. As for The Blast, that was a legal publication that operated decades after the Homestead events. The United States actually has a First Amendment. If we are to eliminate any infoboxes that glorify violent ideologues, then let's start with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Hint: This is not Pacifistpedia. I am not an anarchist and am not promoting Berkman. But I object to ideologically driven nominations like this. Cullen328   Let's discuss it  00:50, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Lets not glorify violence. The whataboutism in regards to Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan is exceedingly unconvincing and kind of lame honestly. Also I have never been a fan of the yeah well he deserved it excuse for attempted murder. So it comes down to lets not promote that garbage? Sounds reasonable right? PackMecEng (talk) 00:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It may sound reasonable to you but it does not sound reasonable to me. I am not trying to justify Berkman's crime but he paid his debt to society by serving his full sentence, returned to his political work, and ended up writing a very powerful critique of the Bolshevik Revolution. If the community agrees to delete every political infobox, then OK. But I do not suppprt cherrypicking based on targeting political figures seen as unacceptably controversial by the conventional thinkers of 2021. "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter". There was almost complete unanimity in London in the late 1770s that the events at Lexington and Concord were despicable terrorist attacks. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  01:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep (I assume, since these are cookie-cutter MFD nominations, it's OK to use a cookie-cutter reply?) This is not "glorifying" violence or assassination, nor is it advocating it, so no valid policy-based reason for deletion has been given. I see Chess is on a Crusade, with lots of similar MFD nominations this evening; we should strongly discourage people rooting around, actively hunting for things to be publicly outraged about. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:04, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how glorifying someone who openly advocated the use of violence as a tool to resolve political disputes and implemented that by attempting to murder someone doesn't count as glorifying violence or assassination. The standard of not glorifying violence, violent actors, or ideologies that promote violence to resolve political disputes is one that I believe should apply to all userboxes and I've nominated many other userboxes that have also done so, such as a lenin userbox that said "Violent Revolution" or a template that advocated "arbitrary and extreme violence" in the pursuit of justice. The policy is that it's not OK to advocate for violence on Wikipedia and that extends to ideologies or people that have done such. Advocating for political violence is essentially saying "I'm OK with using physical force against those that disagree with me"; that isn't helpful to an editing environment. In this case, Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate someone. He did so to promote his political ideology. There is no dispute over this, he openly admitted his motivation and what he did. This userbox glorifies Berkman; it says the user would love to "have a blast" with Berkman. While it's possible to be lenient and not interpret "have had a blast" as engaging in an anarchist bombing campaign with Berkman it's still a dogwhistle that promotes bombing campaigns; as evidenced by the wikilink to a magazine that had the title to implicit promote the anarchist bombing campaigns that were common in that period. It's bizarre to state that this doesn't constitute glorifying violence or assassination considering that the person involved is primarily notable for attempting to assassinate someone for the purposes of his political ideology.
 * If this is the standard you're applying what's wrong with creating a userbox talking about how I think Ted Kaczynski is the bomb? Or how I'd like to shoot the shit with John Wilkes Booth some day? Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 02:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , didn't George Washington and James K. Polk and Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush and especially atomic bomber Harry S. Truman glorify violence against their political opponents? Doesn't the Medal of Honor glorify violence? Doesn't the Bible glorify violence? Isn't your opposition to the glorification of violence highly selective? Why are you focusing on petty violence by marginalized people while ignoring massive violence by powerful people? Cullen328  Let's discuss it  02:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * For one, because this person is only notable for the violent acts they've done. That's the most important thing he did, use violence to further his political aims as well as supported and advocated that political violence. Compared to Woodrow Wilson who while participated in World War 1 did quite a bit more than just that and generally advocated for peace on the world stage. A userbox stating "Woodrow Wilson was great" isn't going to be immediately interpreted and seen as "oh this user really liked how Wilson killed people". Compared to supporting someone who constantly advocated for violence and is primarily known for attempting to assassinate a person. This is the same standard that should be applied even if someone argues the other way, that their userbox glorifying Ted Kaczynski is because they really like anarcho-primitivism and not because of his bombing campaign.
 * For two, I think it's necessary to keep in mind the political realities of this project. I generally try to only nominate things when it would cause less disruption than leaving the userbox up. For certain people, ideologies, and other topics of userboxes they do glorify violence and heck should and would be deleted if we were to apply the same standards evenly. But nominating a George W. Bush userbox for deletion has practically no chance of ever working out if Bush did oversee torture. Likewise for the American Medal of Honor and many other countries' awards for distinguished service. One could probably make up some hair-splitting policy on why the medal of honor doesn't inherently promote violence but truthfully it mostly glorifies violent acts and there is also no chance in hell a medal of honor userbox gets deleted. Likewise for the Bible which has a lot of passages that would get me indeffed from this project if I posted them with no context (Leviticus 18:22, the stuff about stoning people to death) but it's going to be far more disruptive to try to say people can't be pro Bible on Wikipedia so we let that stuff be and selectively apply policies to fringe ideologies.
 * I'm surprised violent anarchism-related nominations (I try to avoid nominating ideological userboxes especially ones shared by a massive amount of editors unless a primary aspect of the ideology is advocating for violence or its a really really abhorrent ideology) was what finally got a lot of people angry in this regard; I thought these would be relatively uncontroversial given these are fringe militant organizations and that editors would be more pissed off at the Stalin or Juche UBX nominations. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 03:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Every important military figure in world history has advocated or glorified violence. This is not a pacifist encyclopedia. Your opposition is highly selective. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  03:08, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * (e/c) I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "glorify". And I wouldn't care about a userbox about Kaczynski, but I suppose it might cause some actual concern from others because he was, you know, not convicted more than 100 years ago. I think most people would consider a John Wilkes Booth userbox stupid, but not offensive. These two userboxes that I've commented on cannot be interpreted by anyone rational as promoting the idea of killing innocent rich people today.  --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:38, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per floq and cullen. YODADICAE👽  04:36, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Floq and Cullen have correctly expressed the flaws with the MFD. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 04:48, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep If the standard for deletion is "advocated violence" userboxes supporting a whole lot of people would be gone. The real reason this is up for deletion isn't because of advocating for violence but advocating for violence in support of a specific ideology; I do not think we should delete userboxes of specific ideology except in extreme circumstances. Zoozaz1 talk</b>  22:54, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, I am in agreement with Zoozaz in that we should only be deleting extreme cases of ideologies. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:57, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep as I don't view this userbox as advocating for violence, specifically because the subject is known for far more than political violence. —  csc -1 01:46, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.