Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 1

Task list
As well, we can add the task list from Portal:Anarchism to that open task template, somehow, I've gotta run, i'll probably check in tonight, but otherwise won't really be around til monday or tuesday. Murderbike (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean Template:AnarchismOpenTask? It's a little overwhelming for a three-member project. Perhaps we should start smaller? Skomorokh  incite 22:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I tried to add the items in the Open Task template onto the list, and it did get kind of out of hand. Maybe we should just pick a few articles out of it at random, as a means to focus our energies in certain directions.  And if our being a small task force is a problem -- well, that's nothing a little out reach can't fix, right?  I've started by inviting a couple of other anarchic wikipedians to this project, and we'll wait to see if they bite.  Please do invite other editors you know who might be interested.  The Talk:Anarchism page might be a good place to start.  People there always seem anxious to do some editing. ¯\(º_o)/¯ --Cast (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hah, yeah, it could be a marginally more useful outlet than warring on the Anarchism article. I was going to hold off on the party invites until you and Murderbike were happy to go live with the Taskforce. On the question of focus, I think it should be mentioned that the Taskforce should be the place to discuss what belongs in the Anarchism categories, in the template, and how to manage all the "Anarchism and" forks from the main article, as well as the portal and needy articles. Skomorokh  incite 22:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I can understand your "wait and see" logic, and maybe we shouldn't be sending out invitations just yet; however, I would like to get a feel for the water and see how much interest there is for this project. Sure, the three of us have jumped at this, but who is to say if we'll have much of an active membership.  I admit that I can't see myself being too active once we get started.  If you notice my behavior, I'm a bit flaky with internet groups.  I haven't associated on forums in years, and back then I was never known for prolific participation.  I'll chip in here as often as I can, but not forever.  And since we're discussing certain matters now, such as the userbox template, to do list, and Anarchik Star, I think now would be a useful time for input.
 * I'm not going to send out any more invitations for the time being. Since I don't know many anarchist wikipedians, I wouldn't know how to send them to anyway. --Cast (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So I put a feeler on the WPphilosophy talk page, and got one answer of approval. Apparently there's someone who set up the whole task force system, that it may be good to check in with, I don't know how to make the WPPhilosophy template with the "anarchism task force" option in it, and whatever else has to be dealt with. We'll keep an eye on that, and it seems good to hold off for that to be inviting folks. I know a couple of @ folks here that don't participate in the Anarchism cluster fuck that I'll invite once we've got it. enjoy your weekend folks! Murderbike (talk) 06:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I investigated your findings and noticed that the individual referred to as having set up the Task Force system is also in charge of maintaining the WikiProject:Philosophy template, which is locked to prevent unapproved editing. I'd wager that after we get the ok from this person, the template will be updated for us and the task force will be a recognized option in the banner.--Cast (talk) 07:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Anarchik Star
This may seem utterly silly, but I've noticed that various wiki projects have have special Barnstar awards to provide editors with. Now, this isn't an official Wikiproject, but a task force could share some love too. To that end, I quickly edited together this small Anarchik Star, for use in awarding editors who make substantial improvements to anarchist related articles, or just because you feel like it. (Anarchik shows solidarity with all comrades!)

If you're unaware, Anarchik is a cartoon parody of us ol' anarchists, created by Roberto Ambrosoli. There's a series of comics with him in which he shows solidarity with historic anarchist events, and gives the ruling classes hell. For example, here we see him taking up arms with the anarchists in the Kronstadt rebellion, and here he shakes hands with Nestor Makhno. You can find out more about the character here, assuming you can read Italian.

I attempted to add a little burning fuse to the globe, but it didn't work well. No reason we can't have a sense of humor, right? Anyway, tell me what you think, or make your own. If enough people like it, we can upload it after we've made the anarchism task force official.--Cast (talk) 21:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hahaha that's great, definitely in favour of the Anarchik theme; pity the fuse didn't work out. Is there any chance you can render it in SVG format so it scales easily? Note the travesty of the "V for Voluntarism" on the Anarchist symbolism page. P.S. I'm assuming the copyright situation is cool. Skomorokh  incite 22:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Does this look right? If not, how about I provide the necessary ingredients and allow someone with greater skill to take over?  Here is the basic anarchik image, and [here] is the star I used.
 * As for copyright, well I'm not sure about Anarchik's status. If you look closely, you can see what appears to be a small copyright circle next to his name in a few comics dating to '71.  However, comics dating beyond '72 lack that notice. It could be that Roberto has given the character over to the public domain, but without a grasp of Italian, I can't be sure. That said, Anarchik is very commonly reprinted in anarchist pamphlets, and the character just seems to be part of our shared counter-culture, but I suppose that wouldn't be good enough for the sticklers in charge of wikipedia.  I will try to find confirmation that the character is in the public domain.  I don't want this to be an issue.--Cast (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * the photobucket version is definitely of high enough quality for our needs; I'm not sure how well .png images scale down. Having gone round this particular roundabout before, I can safely say that unless you have explicit evidence of the creator releasing the rights or and ironclad argument why it cannot possibly be copyright in the U.S. (e.g. creator is dead at least 75 years), then it's going to get deleted, no question. Skomorokh  incite 23:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Hold everything! It seems, if this translation I got using google is right, that the copyright symbol is fake and intended to dissuade the use of the character by non-anarchists -- that fair use by anarchists is permitted.  Or at least, that's what I can gather. These translation bots are never dependable.  Here is the text in Italian:




 * And here is the translated text, emphises added:




 * So let me dissect this as best I can... apparently, the character would be used in ways the creator disliked, and so to discourage this he added a fake copyright symbol with the understanding that respectful artists would still be invited to use Anarchik. Or at least, that's what I think.  If nothing else, google's translator was much easier to understand than Babel Fish.


 * Is there anyone we could go to who could give us a real translation of this? Is there some kind of pseudo-Italian translation task force?--Cast (talk) 00:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As encouraging as this all is, the burden of proof is on the uploader to prove the image is free/fair use. Kudos on the effort though. Skomorokh  incite 07:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course, of course. Just give me a bit of time to learn Italian and I'll get to the bottom of this.--Cast (talk) 08:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Task force member box.
The userbox design has been chosen: White and the Black Flag

I'm partial to the color black. Since the Anarchism template already uses the circle-a, I'd like to use a different image. Perhaps the Black Star.--Cast (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I hate to be self-parodying, but do we need to decide on just one userbox? Where's the harm in letting the freethinking editors of anarchism decide?


 * If it's going to be one, though, I agree that it would be better to use a different symbol that the circle-a, and the Circle Flag looks too constrained for my tastes. Any white/black colourscheme is cool, let's not get too fancy. Skomorokh  incite 22:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My original thinking was that we could have several, because I'm also sympathetic to the idea of members choosing which image they'd prefer, or colors. Like the Slingshot color bonanza.  Yellow?  Green?  Neon orange?  Go nuts.  But then I saw that there seems to be some limit. I haven't checked if it's official, but it seems that each task force only has one box for members.  Very odd.  It's almost as if wikipedia were... not anarchist! (The horror.)--Cast (talk) 22:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I've asked the fascist thugs at WP:USERBOXES; let's see if the rulers allow us to assert our autonomous individuality. Skomorokh  incite 22:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm totally for the black background, and the circle-A, mainly because I think it's the most widely accepted symbol of all our many anarchisms. I think the star just wouldn't really stand out to be people, letting them know what they're seeing without reading. Though, I tend to alter userboxes to my own taste anyway, so I don't really care that much if the box isn't exactly how I want it, or the Philosophers will only let us have one. I might even make mine green and black to be funny about it. Murderbike (talk) 08:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Just enlarged the images. Does this change look better? And now that we can see what the links look like, I think blue against a light gray and black doesn't work, and dark gray is even worst. I'm changing my vote to white. I still like the black star, but the flag seems to be the favorite.--Cast (talk) 03:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The images definitely look better bigger. I went ahead and customized mine, but I can't figure out how to make the linked words the same color as the rest of the text. Anyone know how to do that? Murderbike (talk) 03:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * "This user is an autonomous self-regulating contributor to the ahierarchical spontaneous collective of the Anarchist Taskforce "


 * yields "This user is an autonomous self-regulating contributor to the ahierarchical spontaneous collective of the Anarchist Taskforce "


 * You can find the colour codes you need at Web colors (sic). Skomorokh  incite 03:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Since the project is now underway, and not many people seem to be voting, I'm going to close this at this point. A white background with the black flag. If anyone wants to change it in the future, they can bring it up again here, or be bold. And as Murderbike has shown, customization is always an option.--Cast (talk) 06:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
User:Gregbard responded over here about the proposal. Murderbike (talk) 00:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems we have the all-clear to go ahead at WikiProject Philosophy/Anarchism. Anything else to consider before going live? Skomorokh  incite 16:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Though I was a bit confused by Gregbard's comments, it SEEMS to be good to go. Really, the only think left that I see, is to be able to tag anarchism-related articles as being under, uh, "jurisdiction"(?), of our task force. But hopefully, he'll just add the anarchism="yes" parameter to the template, and we can be on our way. Murderbike (talk) 23:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I am going to boldly go ahead and do it myself. Skomorokh  incite 00:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Everything seems to be working wonderfully so far. I will work on adding features that the other task forces enjoy... Someone has the banner working already. If you put   on the talk page of an article, it will make the article a member of the project, a link will appear, etc. Very soon, there will be a colorful assessment chart along with the others on the task force assessment page. I will make a transcluded roster, so that members of the Anarchism task force are members of WP:PHILO ex-officio.


 * Currently, the way these charts work is that an article may appear on more than one task force chart. All of them appear under the general philosophy chart. My original organization sought to cover everything that could be under philosophy, and approximate the way academia organizes these things.


 * My initial impression was that Marxist Thought was a major tradition in thought and merited a place among the major philosophical traditions. I find that this is not so true any more. I think there is a way to reorganize it (and I think Anarchism) so that they are both under Social and Political philosophy. This just means that the numbers from Marxism and Anarchism would "feed into" the chart on Soc+Pol Philosophy, rather than be separate. The Anarchism task force page and everything else, like the chart, will look the same.


 * I may have to fiddle around with the categories that the tag creates so that the bots do the right thing. Give me a little time to get around to it. Welcome aboard. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 14:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI -- List of Jewish anarchists nominated for deletion
Sorry, should have posted this here on nomination. Skomorokh incite 16:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

New pages?
Should we have a section for posting new articles? I just "finished" John Turner (anarchist), if anyone wants to check it out and make it even better. Oh, does anyone happen to have a copy of The Guillotine at Work by Gregori Maximoff? Murderbike (talk) 01:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like an excellent idea so that we can aggregate our efforts. Furthermore a lot of articles regarding articles are divided due to the past edit wars. Lord Metroid (talk) 01:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think we will need some kind of table in order to easier get all various articles to be cleaned up and merged appropiatley. Lord Metroid (talk)
 * If people would use it, Template:AnarchismOpenTask would be great. Murderbike (talk) 01:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a copy of Maximoff. It's on my "to be read" pile, which gets higher by the day. [[Image:Face-wink.svg|20px]] Let me know if you need anything. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 01:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah! On p.543, there's a section about Turner going to Russia to help out Aaron Baron, but google books would only give me one of those infuriating snippets. Whenever you have time, could you transcribe the section? That would be really amazing. Murderbike (talk) 01:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It may not help you much with respect to Turner, but it's here. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 02:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That was fast! Maybe not too much more than I was getting, but the context is definitely nice. Thanks a ton! Murderbike (talk) 02:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Participation
I thank Skomorokh for the invitation to help out with this project. I can't say how active I will be, or even how useful I will be even if I am active. One thing I would like to do if I ever make the time is work on the Voluntaryism page. Allixpeeke (talk) 04:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Ethical anarchism nominated for deletion
I've added an Afd section for current priorities on the taskforce page and also nominated ethical anarchism for deletion. Skomorokh incite 15:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Left anarchism
This article is a hangover from the pov-warring bad old days. I'm highly tempted to simply redirect to Social anarchism but I thought I'd bring it to the taskforce's attention to see if anyone feels there's something worth salvaging. Skomorokh incite 17:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good idea if you've got the time. Murderbike (talk) 18:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * To my eyes, social anarchism and left anarchism are just retrospectively-imposed labels for classical or mainstream anarchism. I prefer "social" because it avoids the moronic left-right "spectrum" and because it's the term used by the AFAQ. Alernatively, it's what used be at Anarchism before the pluralists won out. The Left anarchism article is just a pejorative label from post-left anarchists and market anarchists, which could be merged into those article and redirected to Social without losing anything of value, imo. Check out the history of Right anarchism.


 * As to whether the article could be obliterated and replaced with something new and sourced and shiny, I'm all for it as long as it isn't redundant to social. Could be a Collaboration of the Week or somesuch. Skomorokh  incite 19:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I recently slimmed down the Social Anarchism entry. People were putting all kinds of different anarchist schools into it, which meant it was heading in the direction of mirroring the content of the main Anarchism entry. I also suspect that some POV-pushing was at work by those who wish to conflate anarchism with "left anarchism" or "social anarchism." Social anarchism can either be a pejorative or descriptive term for what most of us anarchists call anarchism. The entry on social anarchism should be kept short. It should mention the different meanings of the term and then it should contain the section on Social Anarchism journal and the social anarchism movement that reflects the ideas of the journal. Chuck0 (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a set of distinctions we could probably tuck into Definitional concerns in anarchist theory, which was designed as a place we could acknowledge all the differences of vocabulary and the like. As it is, left anarchism really only perpetuates some basic misunderstandings. We should probably do our best to avoid terms like "mainstream anarchism," which are just edit-war bait, and perhaps even "classical anarchism," which has become a dimissive label. Certainly, we need to avoid generalizations that imply that market anarchism, which includes mutualism, is reducible to anarcho-capitalism. Agorists are, after all, among those most enthusiastically embracing the term "left" at the moment. Libertatia (talk) 19:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree absolutely that we should not use terms such as classical/mainstream, that was just my pov/interpretation of what was going on in the article. The question, which you seem to answer in the negative, is whether or not there is a case to be made for a useful, npov Left anarchism article. We might also want to think about putting some work into, or deleting, definitional concerns in anarchist theory. I think the abandoned forks of the Anarchism article do the subject a disservice. We should find some way of making them (e.g. History of anarchism, issues in anarchism etc.) more visible and therefore more edited. Skomorokh  incite 20:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Emma Goldman
... is up for Featured Article, though I can't figure out where that happens. Murderbike (talk) 20:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:FAC, though there's no sign of the dancing revolutionary there. Skomorokh  incite 20:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * here it is. Murderbike (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
So, in looking at this article, I noticed that a)it's not referenced at all with inline cites, and b)it's got this weird footnotes section, which I've never seen in a Wikipedia article. So, I started adding a couple of references, and switched a couple footnotes to refs, but I don't really have enough time in the near future (Christmas, then traveling for a month) to do a thorough job of fixing this up. So I was thinking, that if anyone needs a project to work on, and has a bunch of books laying around that would be citeable, adding inline cites would be great, and figuring out if that footnotes section can just take a hike would be double awesome. Murderbike (talk) 23:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My Castillian isn't fluent enough to make sense of/convert those footnotes or add any constructive references, but I had a trawl through and tried to wikify it somewhat. Skomorokh  incite 00:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Anarchist Federation (U.S.)
Anybody ever heard of this? After tons of different searches in google books and google regular, I can't find anything confirming the info in this article except a weird anti-"reds" website. Anybody got info on this group? Murderbike (talk) 07:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The Anarchist Federation existed in the U.S. in the 1970s and early 1980s. The anthology I'm working on with Jason McQuinn, North American Anarchist Thought Since 1960, will have some information about the AF (U.S.) and possibly some articles from the organization. I'm also hunting down material from that era, some of which will be put online at the Infoshop Library. We're adding lots of stuff to the library, so it should be a useful resource for Wikipedia citations. Chuck0 (talk) 21:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, do the claims that Chomsky and Bookchin were members hold up? Murderbike (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Importance rating ambiguity
A while back, before the foundation of this taskforce, I added the CrimethInc. article to WikiProject Philosophy, rating it as low importance for philosophy as the philosophy of CrimethInc. is marginal and less than highly regarded by academic philosophers to say the least. Today, Murderbike added the anarchism=yes parameter to the article and re-rated it as Mid importance, arguing that as the foremost publisher of anarchist propoganda today, CrimethInc. was quite important to anarchism. Similarly, Max Stirner is a marginal figure in the philosophical canon - there are few if any university courses devoted to his philosophy - but significantly influential to the history of anarchist thought. A similar problem exists for the currently-Mid-rated John Zerzan.

We need to decide if we're going to rate anarchism-related articles purely on the basis of their importance to anarchism, thereby screwing up the Philosophy assessment program (Stirner of equal importance to Wittgenstein) or rate them on the basis of their importance to philosophy more broadly (thus rendering Black Bloc, market anarchism, Infoshop and the Haymarket Riot of negligible "low" importance). Ideas? Skomorokh incite 14:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What about modifying the template to include instead of [[Image:Locator Dot.svg]], a seperate anarchism importance rating? Lord Metroid (talk) 14:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I have been thinking about the importance to "anarchism" with the few importance ratings I've doled out. A separate importance rating would probably be a good idea. Is this maybe something we should take up with the folks at Philosophy to see what they think about it? Murderbike (talk) 17:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a plan, not sure how technically feasible it is to separate ratings while maintaining the hierarchy though. Skomorokh  incite 17:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * For my part, I've been rating articles according to their importance to the larger philosophy project. As such, I've given most all anarchist related articles Low ratings.  But this also touches on another subject.  Should anarchism only belong to a single wikiproject?  Anarchy is also a social phenomena and as such, also falls under the umbrella of Sociology.  There is another task force under philosophy originally created for such topics: the Socio-political Philosophy task force.  Should we also be getting a rating for the articles relevance to all three of these subjects?
 * (Philosophy rating --> Socio-Politic Philosophy rating --> Anarchism rating)
 * I think we're opening up Pandora's box here.--Cast (talk) 20:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Anarchist publications
Practically every article in Category:Anarchist publications is a periodical. Would anybody object if I create a sub-category Category:Anarchist periodicals (similar to Category:Books about anarchism, Category:Anarchist fiction, etc.) and move the periodicals to the new sub-cat? — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I presume you mean that books, fiction, periodicals, etc. would all be subcats of publications? If so, that seems to make sense. Murderbike (talk) 19:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Murderbike and I are of the same mind on the matter. I haven't the time now, but if you haven't done it by the time I return in a few hours, I'll do it myself.--Cast (talk) 20:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Me as well. gren グレン 21:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Group project?
OK, so having Emma Goldman reach FA status really excites me, and really motivates me to try to get other anarchism-related articles up to higher status. Particularly, I feel like Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and Alexander Berkman have good potential for becoming at least Good Articles. They both have tons of sources to draw from, and good solid foundations to work with (CNT was a featured article on Spanish Wikipedia, though it's translation was a bit sloppy). These two articles are probably what I'll be spending much of the near future working on, though I'd love some help, as I know my writing isn't the greatest. So, if anyone feels like collaborating on a project like this, feel free! Murderbike (talk) 00:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Kropotkin would be another high profile biography. Personally I would love to get Rudolf Rocker. Regarding Berkman, I wonder if Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist would be a good topic -- it would be nice to get a work instead of just people. --Lquilter (talk) 04:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been working quite a bit on Rocker recently and would definitely appreciate any help I can get. If anyone can contribute information from Mina Graur's An Anarchist "Rabbi", that would be great, since it appears to be a pretty good, or at least notable, biography of Rocker, but I don't have access to it.--Carabinieri (talk) 17:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's available for limited preview on Google Books, so if you search for certain things, you can generally read a few pages of it at a time. Murderbike (talk) 18:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure what you mean. As far as I can tell there is no preview available on Google Books. About ten pages of the book are available on the preview on Amazon, but that's about it as far as I can tell. I'm referring to An Anarchist "rabbi": The Life and Teachings of Rudolf Rocker by Mina Graur.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you search for anarchist rabbi, it's the first thing that comes up. Murderbike (talk) 02:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * On my screen it says "No Preview Available", but I think I know why. If I am interpreting our article on Google Books correctly, how much of a book you get to see depends on where you're accessing google books from. I'm in Germany, which has fairly strict copyright laws, so this might the reason, why it won't give me a preview.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Bummer, I wish I knew a way to subvert that (sigh). Murderbike (talk) 03:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll have a copy in-hand in a few days. Libertatia (talk) 18:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've actually been able to convince my local library to acquire the book. I'll have it in a few weeks too.--Carabinieri (talk) 03:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, being the self contridicting fool I am, I intend to chaotically rebel against your trends by organizing another list. Shouldn't require much effort.  I'll probably just use the Humanism list as an outline.--Cast (talk) 09:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll be happy to help with the Rocker article, and have requested the Graur book from the library. I will also probably return working on the Josiah Warren article, and would welcome any help. If you look back in the history a bit, I had outlined the major periods of his life, but was interrupted before I could get the thing written. His is a case where a tremendous amount of the reference material is available online, in part because of some archiving that Crispin Sartwell and I have done. Libertatia (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)