Talk:Democracy & Nature/Archive 1

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Archive 1

This article was nominated for deletion on 09 January 2006. The result of the discussion was KEEP.

Umm, guys, there's a reason this space is here...

Dissenting views

The following text has been repeatedly deleted from the main page, despite containing editorial responses from the magazine.

Murray Bookchin, although never on the editorial board but officially a simple member of the international advisory board, can be said to have had great influence in founding and promoting the journal during its first few years of publication. He severed all connections to Democracy & Nature in 1996 (see his "Advisory Board Resignation Letter" [1] and the "Editorial Board Response" [2]).

Cornelius Castoriadis was another ground-breaking libertarian socialist theorist on the international advisory board. Castoriadis's influence, however, arose solely from the significance his previously published works held for members of the editorial board, i.e. he was never involved in the publication of the journal. A dialogue between David Ames Curtis, Castoriadis's American translator, and Takis Fotopoulos published in the journal sheds light on the inter-relation between the works of Bookchin, Castoriadis and Fotopoulos: see "On the Bookchin/Biehl Resignations and the Creation of a New Liberatory Project" [3] and the response "On a distorted view of the Inclusive Democracy Project" [4].

The above text DOES NOT contain editorial responses from the journal, as it was wrongly asserted above. As a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy which succeeded Democracy & Nature (who uploaded the relevant entry in Wikipedia), I can confirm that the author of this text has nothing to do with the Editorial Board. (Member of the Editorial Board)

Letter by Takis Fotopoulos

As founder of Democracy & Nature I am greatly disappointed by the fact that Wikipedia seems to be considering adopting a historically-inaccurate assessment of the journal by a person who obviously has no idea of its historical record. Initially using the title ‘Main Theoretical Influences’ and later employing the device of devoting two separate sections to two historical members of the International Advisory Board, this person attempted to distort the historical record, leading Wikipedia to present misleading information about the journal.

It is true that both Bookchin and Castoriadis supported the journal in its first steps. However, this was only moral support and nothing else. Needless to say that similar support was provided by other members of the original Advisory Board whom I approached when I was planning the journal, particularly James Robertson, who actually first encouraged me to start an English edition of the Greek journal that I had originally planned. Although the author of the inaccurate entry recognises that Castoriadis was never involved in the publication of the journal, he went on to support the grossly inaccurate view that Bookchin “had great influence in founding and promoting the journal during its first few years of publication”. However, Bookchin, while helping us significantly with his important contributions, was never involved in the founding of the journal, as will become obvious from the extracts from my letters to him below. In fact, as my correspondence with James O’Connor shows, the initial idea was to publish a new Greek “sister” journal of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (an idea later abandoned was it was established that O’Connor misconceived the planned journal as an organ of CNS—something which contradicted the aims of Society & Nature (later Democracy & Nature) http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol2/fotopoulos_dialogue_3.htm

It should be noted that a similar misconception, this time by Bookchin, led him to withraw from our Editorial Board

http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol3/biehl_bookchin.htm http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol3/editorial_response.htm

and also led to an open conflict with the main associate of Castoriadis,

http://www.agorainternational.org/dnweb1.html http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol5/fotopoulos_distorted.htm

all of which highlighted the enormously significant differences between the social ecology project (Bookchin), the autonomy project (Castoriadis) and Inclusive Democracy and, therefore, the complete ideological independence of Democracy & Nature itself.

It is, consequently, not just grossly inaccurate but also a distortion to characterise the work of Bookchin and Castoriadis as constituting “the main theoretical influences of the journal”. Although their theoretical contributions were significant in formulating the synthesis for the Inclusive Democracy project which I began, it was the historical traditions of classical democracy, libertarian socialism and the radical trends within the new social movements (feminist, Green etc) that inspired this synthesis, as I have always stressed in my work. The fact that particular writers may have exercised a greater influence than others is of course nothing new in the history of ideas and one could easily establish, for instance, that Hegel and Kropotkin played a similar role in the formation of Bookchin’s thought and so on. However, despite the possible influence that the thought of particular writers may have had on some members of the Editorial Board (and by no means all, as was shown by the split within it in 1995!) this was hardly reflected in the pages of the journal—as it was inaccurately attempted to be shown. Thus, out of a total of 181 articles published in the journal, 10 were authored by Bookchin and 4 by Castoriadis, i.e. less than 8 percent of the total!

I hope this puts the record straight and I have no intention at all of continuing this dialogue with persons who deliberately attempt to distort the truth.

Takis Fotopoulos

Extracts from letters by Takis Fotopoulos to Murray Bookchin

…the procedure (has started) for establishing a publishing house that will undertake the publication of similar books, as well as of a journal to be published initially three times a year. A financier has been found, the legal proceedings are well under way and a 5-member editorial board has been established...As regards the journal in particular, for which I would like to ask your valuable help, a 3-member editorial committee has been established of which I am a member. We see the journal as a forum for the interchange of ideas between social ecologists, ecosocialists and other left green movements and our aim is to help in the development of a new "social project" that would constitute a synthesis of the libertarian, socialist and radical green traditions. The journal will be called "Society and Nature" and its style will be something like the New Left Review. The deadline for the first issue is June 1992.

(21 November 1991)

Finally, as we intend to create an International Advisory Board for our journal we would be grateful if you could let us include your name as well as that of J Biehl in our list. I enclose a copy of our first editorial so that you can have a better idea about the journal's orientation.

(2 December 1991)

Response

First of all, the text that you people keep deleting DID contain links to editorial responses from the journal. All those with a minimal grasp of the English language should be able to see that, a fact that explains why the D&N people couldn't figure it out (any freshman wishing to major in English Lit. would have bombed a test in which he used expressions like "I hope this puts the record straight" in numerous permutations/combinations).

Before I move on to the content of the points raised by Fotopoulos: I hope that it is clear to all readers of this page how ridiculous the whole approach of these people is: they sign their points "(Member of the Editorial Board)", as if that couldn't be done by anyone else!!! While they're at it, they point out that I have "nothing to do with the Editorial Board" as if that is at all relevant!!! When will they realize that in Wikipedia their lies and falsifications cannot remain undisputed, given that everyone has the democratic right to present their own view?

THE CRUCIAL DISTINCTION in this case is to see whether one is interested in the formality of what the names were that were printed in the front flap, or alternatively in what was actually going on.

a) If we accept that we are interested only in the formalities, then

i) The sentence "Takis Fotopoulos, as editor, was Democracy & Nature's locomotive power throughout the journal's existence." that is provided in the section "Editorial Board" should be removed. Formally, Fotopoulos was always a member of an "editorial committee" (as is also stated in his first letter to M.B. quoted above). Therefore, statements like this one are mere extrapolations, and have no place in a "neutral" presentation of the journal.

ii) The first section describing the history of the journal should be re-written from scratch: the journal got the subtitle "the international journal of inclusive democracy" only in 1999, therefore it is a complete distortion of the facts to claim that the focus of the journal was "Inclusive Democracy" from the start (even at the level of potentiality).

iii) Fotopoulos's claim that only 8 per cent of the articles published in the journal were written by Bookchin & Castoriadis (which is a huge distortion given that it isn't including texts written e.g. by Bookchinites like J. Biehl, D. Chodorkoff & H. Hawkins) could be reversed and used to prove that Inclusive Democracy has even less to do with the journal: only a small minority of all the articles published in the journal were written by Fotopoulos.

b) If we are interested in what was actually going on, then the two paragraphs I have introduced should be re-introduced. The letters Fotopoulos has provided serve only to prove that Bookchin "can be said to have had great influence in promoting the journal during its first few years of publication" instead of "can be said to have had great influence in founding and promoting the journal during its first few years of publication". OK, point taken. But the relevant paragraphs should be used. In reality (i.e. if we are not studying in the Fotopoulos school of Stalinist falsification) Bookchin's name and Castoriadis's ideas (in a crude/distorted version) were what got the journal going, and also what gave it the little fame that it did have back in the day.

As always, Fotopoulos apparently wants to have his cake and eat it. But now people are watching...

User: PaulCardan 00:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Lies and prejudice

While things seemed to be settling down (particularly after the informed intervention of the founder of Democracy & Nature who is clearly better in command of the facts than anybody else) and, with the help of administrators and other users, the page kept improving, the so-called ‘Paul Cardan’ (P.C.) - well known for his systematic attacks against the D&N page - came back with new distortions and new revisions of the D&N page. For the reasons mentioned below, it is now obvious that his motive has nothing to do with an eagerness for accurate and reliable information but that it is, in fact, to carry out a thinly disguised personal vendetta against Takis Fotopoulos and, indirectly, the project of Inclusive Democracy, whose significance he tries in any way possible to belittle and to present as a kind of by-product of Castoriadis’s and Bookchin’s projects. Furthermore, as it is abundantly clear that this guy has nothing better to do than to continue his vitriolic attacks for ever, I don't think there is any need for anybody to respond to him any further and it is now up to the administrators to protect the page from his biased revisions, as has already been requested elsewhere. I will try below to deal with his new distortions for the last time.

First, the impudent first paragraph of his ‘response’ sets the tone for the rest of it. What was disputed by a member of the Editorial Board was that, although the text added by P.C. may have contained “editorial responses from the magazine”, these ‘responses’ were taken completely out of context and were, therefore, utterly irrelevant to the matter in dispute. The disputed issue was whether Bookchin ‘had great influence in founding and promoting the journal’ and whether Castoriadis had special influence on members of the EB –which would have justified a separate section for each of them. Clearly, P.C. is relying here on the usual assumption that very few users would bother to read the quoted exchanges, or be aware of the fact that similar exchanges have taken place with other contributors (Ted Trainer, Thomas Martin and others) - without this leading to the withdrawal of their support for the journal. In fact, as the founder of the journal showed above, Bookchin had nothing to do with the founding of the journal (something that the biased P.C now admits); he simply helped in the promotion of the journal –as all other members of the IAB did at the time.

Second, the reason some users signed their interventions in this discussion as ‘members of the EB’ was obviously that their membership of the board enabled them to have a clearer picture of the facts than a user who was simply a reader or (as we now know in this case) a disgruntled ex-member of the journal who served it only in the last few years of its long history and who, for his own personal reasons, was (and continues to be) involved in vitriolic attacks against it in order to undermine its significance. P.C. pretends that he is only interested in democracy, but is there a worse way of distorting democracy than by trying to impose one’s own distorted view of the facts on everybody else? Furthermore, is Wikipedia just a democratic forum for discussion or is it primarily an alternative encyclopaedia which, like any other encyclopaedia, is useless unless it provides reliable information? The aim of free editing has always been to improve entries, not to distort the facts, particularly when presented by their creators, otherwise Wikipedia will end up as an encyclopaedia of misinformation, betraying its own admirable aims.

Third, the ‘crucial’ distinction P.C. draws between “formalities” and “what was actually going on” is ridiculous since only the people who manned the journal at the time could possibly know what was actually taking place on the inside, and as regards how the journal is seen by the general public, this is something that only posterity can judge, and not an ex-member of the journal who is obviously biased for his own personal reasons.

However, even the ‘facts’ about formalities are distorted: i) From the very first issue of the journal Fotopoulos was not simply ‘a member of the editorial committee’, as P.C. inaccurately presents it, but its ‘Managing editor’ to begin with and later its ‘editor’—did P.C. ever get hold of copies of all the issues of the journal??? ii) Had P.C ever understood the programmatic texts OUR AIMS he would have realised that the inclusive democracy project was described as such in all but name from issue no 1 of S&N, and indeed by name in the last fifteen issues of it (out of a total of 27 issues). Bookchin, who obviously had a much better grasp of the nature of the journal than this biased user has, realised this very early on and this is why he dissociated himself from the journal - see

           [5] and the  
           "Editorial Board Response" 
           [6]).

iii) Even If we add up all the articles written by Bookchinites (11) and Castoriadians (1), the proportion of articles expressing their own projects remains extremely low at about 12 percent (as opposed to the 8 percent mentioned in Fotopoulos’ letter) of the total number of contributions. This is the “huge distortion” of the facts that P.C has discovered! On the other hand, the fact that Inclusive Democracy has much more to do with the journal than the contributions by Bookchin, Castoriadis and their supporters is obvious to any non-biased reader of the journal, not only from the articles of Takis Fotopoulos and several other contributors who adopted the project but also from the programmatic AIMS of the journal themselves! This is absolutely clear to anybody remotely connected with the journal - apart from a certain member of the broad Editorial Board who, while he was in active service, wrote several articles fully adopting the ID project’s view, but who since leaving the journal has opportunistically turned against it, using any forum available to him to belittle Takis Fotopoulos’s contribution to the ID project, as well as to undermine the significance of the project itself, without ever daring to offer a comprehensive alternative theoretical view!

Finally, let’s consider ‘what was actually going on’, according to the biased user, who clearly exploits the hospitality of Wikipedia in order to air his personal vendetta against Takis Fotopoulos (note his insulting comment about ‘the Fotopoulos school of Stalinist falsification’). P.C., having been cought blatantly lying about the role of Bookchin in founding the journal, now resorts to the assertion that “Bookchin's name and Castoriadis's ideas were what got the journal going, and also what gave it the little fame that it did have back in the day”. In fact, Bookchin severed every link with the journal and his name was removed from the IAB as from issue no 9. Since then, the journal went from strength to strength, as shown by the fact that, not only were another 17 issues published after Bookchin’s resignation, but also that its broader appeal was further established—as manifested by the numerous references made to it in other journals and the fact that almost all major international universities and libraries became subscribers to D&N. What really got the journal going, therefore, and what ‘gave it the little fame that it did have’ was not just the contributions by Bookchin and Castoriadis (the latter was then relatively unkown to the English-speaking world) but also the contributions by such distinguished members of the IAB as Steven Best, Noam Chomsky, Andre Gunder Frank, Serge Latouche and the endless list of other distinguished contributors, some of whom are mentioned on the D&N page. In other words it was the lively and important debates going on in the journal between all major figures of the radical Left. Finally, it was the sheer amount of work of all those who served the journal in the long term and contributed to its reputation, whom the biased P.C. now attempts to belittle, with clearly personal motives User: john November, 17, 2005

Final Comment

OK, this is getting nowhere. "Mr." Fotopoulos obviously has nothing better to do than to write vitriolic attacks and then give them to other people to upload, hoping that he can persuade somebody (anybody!) that there are other people supporting his views.

This could go on forever, but I have better things to do than to try and oppose an armada of henchmen writing everything their master tells them to write, even though they know nothing about the issues involved.

Therefore, I have decided to leave this whole thing to Fotopoulos's stooges. Democracy & Nature (although initially influenced by Bookchin & Castoriadis, like I tried over and over to point out) was simply a biased journal that Fotopoulos used to promote his own confused theoretical "line", and would accordingly punish people for disagreeing with it.

History will hopefully let the truth shine. Personally, I cannot keep insisting on simple truths against blind followers of a dogma. With this then, I bow out...

User: PaulCardan 02:45, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Conclusion

The above "final comment" fully confirms the comments made by all other members of the Editorial Board, who are now being insulted as “an armada of henchmen”, “stooges” and “blind followers of a dogma”. It is worth noting that some of them are his former colleagues whose only sin was that they did not side with him in his personal vendetta against Takis Fotopoulos, and that the confused theoretical “line” he now talks about is the one he celebrated in several articles which he authored while he was a member of the journal. Presumably, at that time he was also a stooge who, after leaving the journal for his own personal reasons which had nothing to do with this “confused” line, suddenly saw the light as a new Saul! The question remains, however, why he still quotes these articles proudly in his credentials if he finds that they no longer express his new self.(Member of the Editorial Board) 11:58, 18 November 2005

Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for page protection

I've copied the following long and detailed stuff from the requests for page protection because it seems to be a continuation of the content dispute, and so doesn't really seem to belong there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Democracy & Nature

As founder of Democracy & Nature I have tried, in the discussion page of the journal, to put its historical record straight, since it seems that there is an obvious attempt by some quarters to distort it. (Takis Fotopoulos)

The administrators of Wikipedia must honor and protect the history of the Advisory Board that the Editorial Board has written. The person who is changing the entry seems to want to alter the importance of D&N as if Bookchin and Castoriadis were its originators. I support the EB and request that Wikipedia protect it. User: john November 11, 2005

Thank you for the advice and we fully realise that the site is not ours provided however that EVERYBODY understands this! We notice however that although we provided a series of reasons why no differentiation in the listing of Advisory Board members has ever been made by our journal (and as far as we know no other journal for that matter) you have not provided a SINGLE reason why we have to adopt the ludicrous distinction between first and second class members of the Advisory Board, the former being entitled to separate sections on them and the latter just being entitled to the simple mentioning of their name! If Wikipedia would like to introduce such politically biased practices (based, as in this case, on the arbitrary judgement of a user) we would prefer to withdraw our entry altogether rather than cooperate with such an arbitrarily differentiating practice which insults most of our Advisory Board members. (Member of the Editorial Board)

Please bear in mind that once you post it here, it's not yours anymore. If you want complete creative control, leave it on your own site.--SarekOfVulcan 17:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Could we avoid for once technicalities and concentrate on the substance of the matter? Of course, after the unprotection, we had to correct the blatant inaccuracies of Paul Cardan as regards the history of the Editorial Board and also concerning his arbitrary decision that two of our IAB members (Castoriadis and Bookchin) were the 'main theoretical influences of the journal'! This was the whole point of the dispute between the Editorial Board and several users who supported us here on the one hand and Paul Cardan in the other. It is clear that SarekOfVulcan, not well informed about the exchanges and having no idea of what the dispute was about he restored Paul Cardan's section on Bookchin and Castoriadis, simply changing the title from 'Main Theoretical Influences' to ‘International Advisory Board Members'. For the reasons I described below , it is totally unacceptable to draw such distinctions between IAB members . Furthermore, an Encyclopedia should be as neutral as possible in presenting political information and obviously the arbitrary decision to emphasise the supposed 'enormous' significance of two members of our Board (whose articles published in the journal is in fact a minuscule proportion of the total number of articles published in it) is ludicrous. This is why we changed this section again and replaced it with one presenting all members of the IAB on an equal basis. We hope the administrators would support this fair and unbiased presentation of the composition of our IAB and protect the relevant entry from Paul Cardan’s vandalism. (Member of the Editorial Board).

I would like to point out that the first edit after the unprotection was by the IP that made the below comment, and the content of the edit was a wholesale revert, with no edit summary. --SarekOfVulcan 15:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Could the administrators protect the D&N page from somebody under the nickname 'Paul Cardan', who has continued vandalising the page, as soon as you unlocked it? In his systematic effort to belittle the journal and present it as simply reflecting the views of two members of the International Advisory Board (Bookchin and Castoriadis) --presumably because of his connections with these writers or their associates--he first added a ludicrous section yesterday night in which he presented in detail, under the title 'International Advisory Board members', the work of these two members, ignoring all the other members and insulting in the process such people as Steve Best, Pierre Bourdieu, Noam Chomsky, Gunder Frank, Serge Latouche, Harold Pinter and others. After this ridiculous entry was replaced by a new one in which ALL members of the Board were mentioned equally, he came back today, vandalising again the D&N page with two paragraphs (of exactly the same content as yesterday) devoted to the same two writers and just mentioning the names of the others! THe Editorial Board of The International Journal for Inclusive Democracy (which has succeeded D&N of which I am a member) finds totally unacceptable such distinctions to be made between the honorable members of our International Advisory Board in order to satisfy the whims of a single user. Furthermore, we think that Wikipedia's reliability could not be enhanced by the arbitrary decision of every 'Paul Gardan'(!) to decide who of the IAB members is important (in general, or for D&N in particular) at the expense of all the others. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.65.127.105 (talk • contribs) .

I request the administrators protect D&N entry 23.18 dated Jan. 7, 2005. This material needs to be protected so the webmaster can protect against malicious changes. User:jason November 10,2005

I am asking that the administrators to protect the D&N entry 23.18 of Jan. 7, 2005. I am in agreemnet with the EB of D&N. Protecting the entry from individuals who give mis- information is needed.User:arunaNov.10,2005

I am supporting the EB of D&N in their request to protect the D&N entry 23.18 as originally uploaded on Jan. 7, '05, since it is being vandalized. User:john November 9, 2005

The user with IP number 130.126.8.84 (Paul Cardan(!)-- (P.C.), who vandalised repeatedly the page on Democracy & Nature, which was uploaded by me as the webmaster of the International Journal of Inclusive Democracy that has succeeded and continued the work of D&N, continues his vandalism even here. He moved our correspondence arbitrarily to “requests for unprotection" because he decided (democratically enough!) that we do not understand what we need. Clearly, either this guy does not know how to read, or deliberately aims to confuse the administrators, so that he will be free to continue his vandalism. As the letter by the member of the EB put it, “We hope that the wikipedia entry on D&N that we provided at 23.18 on January 7 (here P.C. even insults us as “probably drunk” because of the obvious mistake in the month) will be uploaded again AND BE PROTECTED against any further vandalism by Paul Cardan”. For anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of English it is therefore clear that we requested from the admins not just to unprotect the D&N page but to restore the page which P.C. repeatedly reverted and then protect it from his vandalism.

Secondly, he mischieously quotes the Wikipedia rules to justify his vandalism. It is clear however that any self-respecting encclopedia aims first of all to provide as much as possible accurate information otherwise it becomes a useless tool of knowledge. Surely, Wikipedia aims to provide realiable information and not just to satisfy the whims of any user. So, although users should help in improving entries, this should never be at the expense of realiability. And, surely, the people involved in publishing a journal are much better qualified in providing accurate information about such things as the history of the composition of the Editorial Board, the aims of the journal, the names of important contributors etc . Still, it is exactly on this sort of factual information that P.C exercised his vandalism repeatedly when reverting our page. It is also indicative that this guy not only kept reverting our page but he had the nerve to request protection of his page—a protection which he unfortunately got because of an obvious mistake by an admnistrator. No wonder that, as the history of this page shows, he kept uploading today the present intervention of his every five minutes or so, with the obvious aim to keep it at the top of the list of requests.

Thirdly, he pathetically attempted to justify his addition of an entire new section entitled “Main theoretical influences” –which, though legitimate of course in discussing the bio of a writer, it is unheard of for a journal! His ludicrous justification is that “the journal was known because of Murray Bookchin and Cornelius Castoriadis”. Surely, P.C. carried out a comprehensive poll among all readers of D&N and derived his wise conclusion ! We are sure that Wikipedia will not host this sort of ridiculous assertions which will not contribute at all to its reliability. Not to mention, that this is insulting for many intellectuals that have contributed to the journal, e.g. Chomsky, Boggs, Latouche and others.

Anyway, as far as the Editorial Board is concerned, I am authorised to state that unless Wikipedia are willing and able to protect our page from the vandalism of P.C., we would like to withraw the entry altogether and, in case P.C. attempts in the future to upload an unauthorised page on D&N with this sort of inaccurate and mischievous information, we will take all necessary measures to protect the name of the journal. User: Narap43

i) How can the information I have contributed be considered "inaccurate and mischievous" given that I have offered specific links to texts published in the journal itself???

ii) I insist that all this should be in the section "requests for unprotection" given that the page is now protected.

iii) "he kept uploading today the present intervention of his every five minutes or so, with the obvious aim to keep it at the top of the list of requests" These people obviously do not know how Wikipedia works.

iv) To the Wikipedia administrators: I'd like to apologize (event though it is not my fault) that all this "dialogue" is taking up space here and not on the Talk page of the relevant entry. These people however think they rule the world or something. What they are asking for is ridiculous: I am providing specific links to specific texts from the journal and all they can do is howl that it should all be deleted. If people like them had won out, the history of the Soviet Union would have been written by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!!!

--User: PaulCardan 00:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed! Paul Cardan(!) can easily justify everything under the sun provided he speaks in sufficiently general terms to disguise his inability to give specific answers to the concrete questions raised by User: Narap43. For example, the “specific links to texts published in the journal itself” are of course irrelevant if they were taken out of context and therefore could not justify the conclusions he derives about why “the journal was known” and, consequently, his arbitrary introduction of a section about “Main Theoretical influences”. Furthermore, this kind of ’explanation’ does not cover the grossly inaccurate view of the history of the Editorial Board that he offered, the selective presentation of the main contributors according to his own personal interests and tastes and so on. Finally, the fact that he has now resorted to insulting the Editorial Board, without attempting to provide any real answers to their accusations concerning his vandalism, is revealing of his desperate position but also of his ulterior motives all along to defame the journal.

Might I suggest you try following the Dispute resolution procedures, instead of making vague threats and repeatedly reverting without edit summaries or commenting on the Talk:Democracy & Nature talk page?--SarekOfVulcan 03:20, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Might we ask why you did not suggest the same procedure from the beginning but instead you acted quickly to protect the version of D&N that constituted an obvious act of vandalism against the version offered by the Editorial Board itself? All we are asking is that one of the administrators reads carefully all the exchanges between the Editorial Board and the so-called ‘Paul Cardan’, and then unlocks our page and protects the updated version we published at 23:18 on 7 November 2005 (which took on board several changes made by ‘Cardan’ but discarded all inaccurate factual material) against further attacks by him. We do not have any intention of wasting any more of our time in talking to this person and if you are not willing and able to protect our page (which is supported by the entire editorial board as well as third parties (see e.g. User:john) then we would like, as we have - we suppose - the right, to withdraw the entry on D&N. In case however, this person continues to upload his own version of the history of D&N with Wikipedia’s protection, we will have no other option but publicly to dissociate ourselves from this grossly distorted picture of the journal which defames all the important work that went into it for over ten years—something that will obviously not enhance Wikipedia’s effort to be a reliable source of information.

On behalf of the Editorial Board

The webmaster

)

semicolons vs. linebreaks

There's a list on the page for the "International Advisory Board". Formerly, it was just a long list going down the page, but it has recently been changed to a long sentence, with each entry seperated by semicolons. Personally, I think this is harder to read. Comments? — mæstro ^t/c, 12:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

AfD - No Consensus

This article was nominated for deletion on November 18, 2005. The result of the discussion was no consensus. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

AfD - The result of the debate was keep

The way the result of the debate is summarized by Extreme Unction {yak©©blah} is clearly biased and should be amended, if Wikipedia administrators are to be believed to play an independent editorial role. It is stated that:The result of the debate was, if the various sockpuppets and meatpuppets are ignored, no consensus. Default to keep. First, it is insulting to all those new users, who did not follow the prescribed procedures to get a recognized user name from the beginning, to be labelled sockpuppets and meatpuppets. I was one of those who initially did not have a proper user name, simply because I was not aware of these regulations-- particularly so since I saw in similar Wikipedia debates (see e.g. the Parecon discussion) that anonymous (in this sense) comments were always acceptable—and I strongly resent this name calling by an administrator. Second, it is grossly inaccurate that the result of the debate was no consensus. Even if we exclude those who did not follow proper registration procedures, out of 12 votes, some 9 votes were in favor of keeping the page and only 3 were against it. This is a majority and according to the Wikipedia guidelines this is considered a consensus —in fact, in some cases even 60% majority is considered a consensus! User:john14:00, 29 November 2005

AfD - You're being a naughty boy!

Of course you're going to get a majority when the same people show up and vote over and over again in favor of keeping your journal. The point however is what ACTUALLY EXISTING Wikipedians voted... User:DisposableAccount04:35, 30 November 2005

AfD - Goebbells would be proud of you!

As user: John above put it, the result of the debate was a [[consensus : keep]] vote with 9 out of 12 votes in favour and EXCLUDING ALL THOSE (like yourself!) WHO WERE NOT ACTUALLY EXISTING Wikipedians at the beginning of the discussion. Here is the proof:

Voted against: SarekOfVulcan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarekOfVulcan> (proposer), Just zis <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Just_zis_Guy%2C_you_know%3F> Guy, you know? , Eusebeus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Eusebeus>

I hope the administrators will at last intervene to amend the above incorrect summary of the vote given by [[Extreme Unction {yakCCblah}]], so that the Goebbelian tactics could stop once and for all. --TheVel 09:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Why the administrators are silent?

Two users, including myself, have proved that the result of the AfD discussion was not a “no consensus” vote, as it was wrongly described by an administrator, but a clear consensus to keep. 75% of votes cast (excluding all those who the administrator insultingly called “various sockpuppets and meatpuppets”) were in favor of keep. Note that WP guidelines clearly state on several occasions that a 75% (or even 60%) majority IS a consensus: “the threshold for consensus (as far as Requests for adminship. are concerned) is roughly 75-80 percent support”; “Requested moves may be implemented if there is a Wikipedia community consensus (60% or more)” etc. Furthermore, it is obvious that consensus cannot mean unanimity in cases of AfD debates since at least one user (the proposer) should be in favor of it! However, although more than 48 hours have lapsed since then, the administrators not only did not amend the obvious serious error, which raises doubts about the impartiality of some of them, but did not even bother to justify their judgement. Is this an example of the grassroot democracy promoted by Wikipedia? User:john 8:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Percentages are not consensus. Votes do not count as the final determination in anything on Wikipedia. They merely let everyone know where everyone else stands on the issue. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-1 15:10

The difference between 'keep' and 'no consensus' is unimportant, because both result in the article being kept. Because the practical difference is nil, different admins interpret the line between a consensus for Keep and a no consensus result in a different place. The percentage figures you refer to are controversial, while excluding the opinions of people whose sole contribution to Wikipedia is a contribution to one AfD is not. Please calm down ,take a step back, and reconsider your views in a few days. The Land 15:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you both for the explanations, but the question raised has not in fact been answered. Instead, your explanations give the impression that the way an AfD discussion is finally assessed is a completely subjective decision left to each individual administrator. The question was how the result of an AfD discussion is assessed as a “no consensus therefore keep by default” as in the present case, versus “ the result of the discussion was keep” as it happened in similar cases. It may be true that in practical terms it does not matter whether the result of the discussion is assessed one way or another but, to use a similar analogy, there is a world of difference between an “open verdict” and an “innocent” one! Furthermore, even if we accept that it is a generally accepted practice in AfD discussions to exclude “the opinions of people whose sole contribution to Wikipedia is a contribution to one AfD”, (SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT GIVE, OF COURSE, THE RIGHT TO ANY ADMINISTRATOR TO LABEL THEM AS SOCKPUPPETS AND MEATPUPPETS) still, I cannot understand why the percentage figures I referred to are controversial, given that not only do they refer to users who satisfy this criterion, but they also represent the general consensus of all participants in the discussion—unless of course by consensus you mean unanimity, which is a contradiction in terms for AfD discussions. User:john 16:20, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
- The first sentence of your statement is very much the case. The legal analogy is incorrect. The % guideliens are controversial because a number of people disagree with them. The Land 10:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)