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RfA

Thanks for your comments on my RfA. I have responded to your post on my RfA talk page. --E♴(talk) 02:29, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the courteous notice and good response. I recognize that it is more difficult to write WP articles on scientific topics, because the need for precision makes most of us stay rather close to the source cited. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 02:45, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi again! I'm sorry that your RfA is turning out to be a stressful experience for you. I think it might be best just to withdraw, and then enjoy editing again. As I wrote, you have improved a lot, and there's no reason to expect that you would have any problem with RfA in a year. Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:19, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
That's a good decision, I think. There's so much work to do without being an administrator! :)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:29, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring this morning

Morning Kiefer. Just to make a few points, firstly, you did cross 3rr by my reckoning, reverting the editor, a Strange Passerby, Demiurge1000 and finally Ryan. Secondly, the information, whilst personal, is not identifying - ttherefore I don't believe it actually contravenes NYB's guidance. Not forgetting, the editor in question added the userbox with the summary "should have re-added this a long time ago", implying it had previously been removed, he had considered the up and down sides and decided to replace it. On top of this, NYB's guidance is an essay, and while very sensible - it really does not give you the right to edit war. Please do consider carefully what I've said here. WormTT · (talk) 08:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

That is what computer scientists call an indexing error! Oops! My bad!
Well, in retrospect, I failed to count my correction of the imprudent personal information.
However, the natural numbers begin with 0, by the Dedekind-Peirce axiomatization, so the initial sequence (0, 1, 2, 3) is still short of the dreaded 4. (Whew!) ;)
Horseplay aside, did you see that peace had already been restored? and that Ryan and I had reached some kind of consensus? (Ryan was the only one who bothered to write and deal with issues.)
Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:32, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, yes, peace has been restored... in your preferred version of the page. Ryan contacted the user on the page and withdrew from the discussion, I hardly call that consensus. I do see why you were reverting, but constant reversions made a large fuss, something that would have been better avoided. Can you please ensure that an edit war like this doesn't happen again, this would have been handled much better by email, or a polite talk page note. WormTT · (talk) 08:38, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
WTT, it's time for you to hit the road, at least today, because I'm not in the mood for you to take the tone "please consider carefully what I say" when I have already acknowledged my 3RR mistake to Ryan and we'd resolved the issues: As I had written, I had never before even come close to a 3RR violation, so you try flexing your administrative musculature in a venue offering better reflections.
Now you have written that you understand why I was reverting. Before suggesting that I should have written a note to the minor, you should have checked whether I had done so, simply by looking at my contributions. (And my note preserved the privacy better than Ryan's well written note.) In any event, I shan't respond again today. Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Kiefer. I was planning to leave this alone based on your last comment, but since your "copyedit" very much changed the tone of what you said, I thought I should respond.
  • I was not "flexing my administrative muscle" as I was not an administrator at the time, I am involved to an extent (Ryan is one of my mentee graduates) and I am unlikely to block an established editor given the caution I showed at my RfA. I would have made exactly the same edit 2 weeks ago.
  • You did not acknowledge your 3RR violation to Ryan. In fact, it appeared that your interpretation was that if 3 editors all revert once against 1 editor, then the final editor is the one who crossed 3RR. However, you did acknowledge it when I showed you your 4 revisions. You were clearly editing against local consensus and from what I've seen of you in the past, I expect better.
I do appreciate that the note that you left Dylan was attempting to keep his privacy, but by that time you had already reverted him. I certainly don't think it was a call to action, and it was not clear that you were removing his information for that reason. Perhaps you over-obfuscated to ensure privacy, but I am curious as to why you take such pains to protect his privacy, before announcing what you were trying to keep private in multiple venues, even pointing to where users can confirm it.
I don't mind if you reply to this or not, no action will be taken by me for the reasons stated above. I just wanted to inform you that I'm not impressed by your behaviour there in this instance. WormTT · (talk) 08:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
The secret of being a bore is .... 17:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Look, Ryan told me that I had violated a serious WP:Policy, and I noted surprise. Obviously I then confirmed what he'd said and so felt no need to defend myself. Since there was no further reversions by me, the case was closed.
If you want to impress anybody serious, stop this nonsense and write something useful. Seriously, you are too intelligent to be writing so many GA frivolous articles on food and none on any topic worthy of your attention. The world has so many problems, and so many solutions are known, and you could help by sharing your knowledge: You have a B.S. degree, apparently. Your mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:55, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Kiefer, don't let this get out of hand. I would suggest archiving this or deleting it or something. Perhaps Worm spends so much of his day doing whatever he does it is a nice relief to do some work on food pages. In addition, perhaps you should do some research before you run your mouth. Here are the pages Worm has created. Ryan Vesey (talk) 07:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
He's got a point there actually. I do "waste" my mind. I have two degrees, BSc Mathematics and MSc Autonomous Systems, but you'll see I've never edited a maths or comp sci article. I'm much more interested in the articles I write though, I don't think I've been interested in a mathematical theorem in years.
I'm happy to consider this matter closed also, though I may be revisiting here sooner or later to get an opinion on an essay I was thinking of writing. WormTT · (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I was quite familiar with the pages created, having participated in his RfA last weak without misfeasance. His intelligence and character suggest that we should all look forward to his future writings. :)
(ec) With great worms, comes great responsibility! ;)
WTT confirms my judgment about his intelligence and back-bone. Where is the article about modularization of computer programs, particularly about specifying each procedure's behavior without describing its implementation, for example? I was looking just last week to understand this post-"structured programming" innovation. (I have sometimes relaxed by writing about P. Orno and John Rainwater and in the last month by writing about the American democratic left, now recalling the sectarianism that cooled my interest decades ago.) :D
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I would honored if you would ask my opinion about any essay, WTT. Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Will do Kiefer. And no offence to the listening computer scientists that are always watching on Wikipedia... it's boring. It's bad enough I do it all day, that I'd do it as a hobby too is terrible. WormTT · (talk) 08:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 July 2011

Disequilibrium economics article

I would like to start an article on disequilibrium economics. I would start by taking the current content on History of macroeconomic thought, expand on it, and create a new article. I would replace the content on HMT with slightly shorter and more basic treatment. Please let me know if you're OK with this, and if you have any ideas on the contents, scope, title, etc. for an article on disequilibrium economics.--Bkwillwm (talk) 02:30, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Like most of your ideas, this is a good idea, and consistent with the spinning-off policy for large articles. This would allow interested readers to learn more.
There is a need to discuss serious GET theory in the macro article. "Arrow-Debreu GET" is invoked by the RBC people the way Julia Kristeva invokes catastrophe theory, or the way country preachers invoke their month of Greek and Hebrew. I would hope that you would remove illegitimate invocations of GET, even if "authorities" (with no contributions to GET) repeat them.
I seem to be the only one championing general-equilibrium economics, and the extension to price-rationing GET (which has disequilibrium consequences for macroeconomics). I'm amazed that people living (especially in the U.S.) during this deep recession are so happy to assume instantaneous market-clearing and that the economy should be modeled with 3 agents solving stochastic dynamic-programming problems: It's time for me to re-read When Prophecy Fails.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 02:52, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Kiefer.Wolfowitz. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--Dylan620 (I'm all ears) 15:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Dear Dylan, Sorry for my delay in responding. I hope to write today or tomorrow. With every best wish,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Dylan! thanks for the email. BTW, Nice to see that your "return to active duty" was protecting an article about of my favorite bands!  :)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

RFB question

Just curious, did you read that entire thread that you just linked to?--Cube lurker (talk) 23:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, Cube lurker, I read the statement containing an apology which was dated in 2010. This sufficed for me to reply to TCO that Hershold had apologized.
Following your prompt, I shall read the entire thread.
Of course, I shall correct any mistatement (following my reading).
(I was just looking at Bertrand Russell!)
Thanks for your gentle prompting! Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I only ask because the apology only came after someone (ok, me) called him on failing to apologize.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
(EC) I read it. He states that he was incorrect but that he's pressed for time by other events (IRL??) and irritated at having an apology demanded from him (which seems to be to be an honest admission of human limitations). The next day, he states that the thread has been archived, but makes an apology on his talk page.
To me, that may not be the best response possible, but it looks like the response of an honest and considerate person who admitted a mistake.
If you tell me to read the ANI archives, to understand why I was wrong to reply to TCO, I will need coffee but I'll do so.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I accept that your view of the conversation may not match mine. That's natural, perceptions vary for a multitude of reasons. My only real issue is that you specifically state that he apologized 'not because he was called on it' where if you check timestamps between the ANI thread, my comment on his talk page, and the apology, It's clear that it never would have occurred had he not been called on it. I just found your firm statement there at odds with the chronology of events.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Just saw your modification. 100% cool with it now.--Cube lurker (talk) 23:57, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Your gentle manner, and your letting me discover my error rather than rubbing my face in it, made it easy to forget my ego and clarify my statement, to stress my objecting to "just now" (while allowing for TCO/your "calling him on it"). Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 July 2011

The Signpost: 25 July 2011

Quoted with approval (emboldening added):

Q: WikiProject Philosophy has 44 FA-class articles, 2 FLs, and 70 GA-class articles. How did your Project achieve this and how can other Projects work toward this?

A The big advantage is that most of these articles do not attract the nuts. Or maybe I should say, the nuts here are at least highly educated nuts.
The biggest problems on other big projects: "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity".
Rick Norwood

RfAs

Re: Civility

Sorry, I assumed you were watching the page. Zagalejo^^^ 18:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

No problem
Copied from Zagalejo's page: Sometimes I monitor that page, but sometimes I don't!
I did read your comments on the that page with attention, and I'll certainly remember your comment and others' comments in the future.
Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not so nice

Reading this had irritated (usually sweet-hearted) me.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of K.W.
Damn, you got a raw deal. Your Denial of Death article was never an essay; it was obviously meant as a summary of the work. Does Kiefer.Wolfowitz realize how condescending his question #6 was? Zagalejo^^^ 04:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I had left a challenge question for the candidate, asking him to fix an article which he'd started....
He started the article, and left it in the state where it "read like an essay", a good essay as I granted. However, WP requires secondary sources, and this was a chance for Tim to fix a short article. (Of course, I did not state that the article was a WP User Essay.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I doubt that he realizes his own condescension given this comment. Also refer to this conversation in which he seems to reveal that his whole problem with the article was the author's point of view on Schizophrenia! I guess I had the feeling of a "drive-by opposition". I will not reopen the RfA, as many wise folks have suggested, I will give it some time. There is no rush on my part to become an admin, but there seemed to be a rush to close any discussion of it. ;) --TimL (talk) 05:48, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Condescension is an inappropriate but understandable response when an new, usually good-hearted, and energetic editor displays petulance. In this case, Tim quoted a policy which he had not read, to justify his reverting me on my own talk page. 08:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Who wants to be treated as an equal, when you have not had the manners to alert me of this discussion or to bother to read the history (of Tim's inappropriate edit and misguided quotation of policy) and correct him?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:03, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC from you

Please review the comment I posted here and consider helping to gain a consensus. I think you could help make a difference. My76Strat (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi My76Strat!
Thanks for your kind words and courteous note here.
As I wrote there, I (like most) have only a favorable impression of the candidate, and I believe that his having had written a C-class encyclopedic article or two (in the next few months) should result in his receiving acclamation at his next RfA.
Like others, I am concerned that RfA is increasingly dominated by "editors" inexperienced with writing encyclopedic articles (many of whom seem obsessed with "racking up" Twinkle edits and supporting their friends): Frivolous or pop-culture articles have a place, but they should be kept in their place, also.
Until RfA is dominated by encyclopedia writers/editors (not "editors") with intellectual maturity (e.g. sufficient to recognize that plagiarism is a serious problem on WP), I shall have difficulty supporting candidates with as little content contribution as the most recent candidate, who otherwise seems like an excellent RfA candidate. I am tired of reading 50 vapid support statements that show no scrutiny of the RfA candidate's contributions, and at best a quick checking-off of whether the candidate has discussed sufficiently many (worthless) articles at CSD, etc., and so I have decided to be more conservative about supporting or being neutral towards non-excellent candidates.
The sins of the children are visited upon the fathers unto the third generation....
Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you kindly

Thank you for your support
Thank you very much for your support on my RfA. I shall endeavor to meet your and the community's expectations as an admin. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


Thanks for the nice "thank you"! You will do fine. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Time to bask in the sunshine

Trachemys scripta elegans
We wish our friendly outstanding editor the best!
:-)

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Infantilization

We agree that positive reinforcement is wonderful. However, negative reinforcement is also beneficial. Read Paul Meehl's Presidential Address to the American Psychological Association, "Why I do not attend case conferences":

Reward everything—gold and garbage—alike. The tradition of exaggerated tenderness in psychiatry and psychology reflects our “therapeutic attitude” and contrasts with that of scholars in fields like philosophy or law, where a dumb argument is called a dumb argument, and he who makes a dumb argument can expect to be slapped down by his peers. Nobody ever gives anybody negative reinforcement in a psychiatric case conference. (Try it once—you will be heard with horror and disbelief.) The most inane remark is received with joy and open arms as part of the groupthink process. Consequently the educational function, for either staff or students, is prevented from getting off the ground. Any psychologist should know that part of the process of training or educating is to administer differential reinforcement for good versus bad, effective versus ineffective, correct versus incorrect behaviors. If all behavior is rewarded by friendly attention and nobody is ever non-reinforced (let alone punished!) for talking foolishly, it is unlikely that significant educational growth will take place. (pp. 228-229)


...
The obvious educational question is, how does it happen that this bright, conscientious, well-motivated, social-service-oriented premed psychology major with a 3.80 average doesn’t know the most elementary things about psychotic depression, such as its diagnostic indicators, its statistical suicide risk, or the time phase in the natural history of the illness which presents the greatest risk of suicide? The answer, brethren, is very simple: Some of those who are “teaching” and “supervising” him either don’t know these things themselves or don’t think it is important for him to know them. This hapless student is at the educational mercy of a crew that is so unscholarly, antiscientific, “groupy-groupy,” and “touchy-feely” that they have almost no concern for facts, statistics, ... or the work of the intellect generally. (p. 280)

(Emboldening and links added)

Spare the rod and spoil the child,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:12, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Auld Lang Syne

Talk:Stonewall riots

A color photograph of the Stonewall taken recently, showing a smaller plate glass window in a portion of the 1969 building
The Stonewall, a bar in part of the building where the Stonewall Inn was located. The building and the surrounding streets have been declared a National Historic Landmark.

I'm sure both of us would welcome your comments regards The local press and national gay press covered the event extensively. Pjefts (talk) 04:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Be still my beating heart! I may be perhaps the greatest Nordic fan of the Professor Armstrong:
  • Armstrong, Elizabeth A.; Crage, Suzanna M. (2006). "Movements and memory: The making of the Stonewall myth" (PDF). American Sociological Review. 71 (5): 724–751. doi:10.1177/000312240607100502. JSTOR 25472425. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Armstrong, Elizabeth A. (2002). Forging gay identities: Organizing sexuality in San Francisco, 1950–1994. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226026949.
I was delighted to help. (00:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC))
Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 04:20, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


Dwight Macdonald

You're right in your comment on my user page: Macdonald did say that he would choose the west if forced to take sides (as you say, it was in a debate with Norman Mailer in 1952). I thought it safer to remove the whole paragraph as unsourced, and I apologize for removing a legitimate passage. Perhaps you could feel free to restore it, with a source and date? There are plenty of references to it online. Since this is a point that you made, I would feel uncomfortable taking it over as my own. Incidentally, it's odd that, apparently, one can't figure out from the page history who it was who added the mythical reference. Perhaps that revision was removed from the record along with other revisions by the same vandal.Macspaunday(talk) 16:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Macspaunday! You have great tastes in authors and great WP spirit in insisting on sourcing and editing in a team spirit. I added a quick reference, with sloppy formatting, I'm afraid. I am tired and need to go out for a few hours. (OHIO Only Handle It Once) Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:31, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I regret ending my summary with a crack about it taking a few seconds on Google. I'm tired. (I've been finishing an algorithmic paper today, besides off and on editing here, and my eyes and brain are fried!) Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I didn't even notice the crack, so no apology required. - I've now edited the paragraph to clarify the date, the fact that he said (not wrote) the comment, and that it's documented that he later repudiated the debate-style either/or statement, which was never his style. I'm now finished with this - it all got started because I noticed that unlikely reference to the non-existent "Aeron Potter." I certainly didn't intend to get into an edit dispute. Please feel free to revise or revert my edits without any complaint from me! Macspaunday (talk) 16:47, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
After writing this, I went back and added Macdonald's printed, published statement of choosing the West, which is a stronger citation than a quotation from a spoken debate. Finally done now, and am not watching the Macdonald page.Macspaunday (talk) 17:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Well done, Macspaunday! Primary sources feed the minds of our serious readers, and secondary sources slow the heat death of the universe, at least by slowing chaos on WP. I suppose that Macdonald would have never chosen Soviet communism, given his declaration of uncompromising opposition after the Warsaw Uprising, although he may have had his doubts about the West. (BTW, I agree that some skepticism is in order about RR, when he was on the extreme left and later when he was on the zealous right, altough he has always been serious.) Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:20, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I've uploaded the NYT stuff to my server:

  • Anonymous (1972). "Young Socialists open parley; to weigh 'New Politics' split". New York Times. p. 25. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Johnston, Laurie (1972). "Young Socialists defeat motion favoring recognition of Cuba". New York Times. p. 15. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Anonymous (1972). "Socialist Party now the Social Democrats,U.S.A.". New York Times. p. 36. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Anonymous (1973). "'Firmness' urged on Communists: Social Democrats reach end of U.S. Convention here". New York Times. p. 11. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help).

Hopefully those links work, let me know if you have a problem. Carrite (talk) 16:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's another:
I've reformated them and shall add them to the article.
I must say, that I am very concerned about the possibility of copyright infringement: There is a ban on "further reproduction" at the top of each article. Is there something I am missing?
I assume that I shall have to add urls to the NYT, where users can decide to pay or not.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. Reviewing the quotes from Harrington on the DSOC page, I'm beginning to accept (SDUSA-member) Paul Feldman's analysis that the "irreconcilable disagreement" was the working-class (AFL-CIO) versus middle-class (Withdrawal activists in the McGovern campaign) issue; they could have reached a compromise on the Vietnam War. As usual, Bogdan Denitch has some comments worth considering, about MH's difficulty with breaking with his associates (on the DSA org's page about Isserman's MH biography).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:38, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Did you know that the mildly Trotish, moderately Christian, and irrepressibly catchy (Paul Heaton's) Beautiful South broke up because of "irreconcilable similarities"? ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:47, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


NYT: Socialist Party of America, Socialist Party USA, and American Left

Hi Carrite!

I tried to follow-through on your suggestion to use the NYT to write an account of the alphabet soup of SDUSA, DSOC, SPUSA, and SPA. Please forgive me my errors and try to correct some! I used the paragraphs for Socialist Party of America,Socialist Party USA, and American Left, and SDUSA, and (ending with rejection) for American Left.

I raised a concern about copyright with the NYT. I don't think that we may show PDF files to a server: May we?

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Have you seen "Brother Outsider"? It's not available in Sweden, even for ready cash.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Hey K.Wolf--
The first section looks pretty good, I made a couple little phrasing and capitalization tweaks but no substantive changes. I haven't seen "Brother Outsider," I wasn't even aware of it, actually. I'm not much of a film guy though. As for the NY Times pdfs, since that's paywalled material there's no really good way to link that stuff up at WP within the rules, so footnoting just to issue date and, if possible, page is the way to go. I think you've done that, also with links to the paywall. If there was one change I'd suggest, it would be to eliminate the "references" section and to integrate that information into the inline footnotes themselves. It feels like the footnotes have footnotes currently. That's just a matter of style though. Nice work on the piece and good luck with your efforts at WP. Carrite (talk) 14:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Tom Kahn

Tom Kahn was an organization genius who advanced social-democratic politics around the world, particularly in the USA.

(I think that Mayer Zald and _ Thompson would have enjoyed discussing him from the standpoint of their resource mobilization theory of social movements, which was often associated with the University of Michigan's Sociology Department.)

Because of his open (but personal) homosexuality, and my ignorance and inexperience, I requested reviews of that section in particular. Turnabout being fair play, I was delighted to respond to a request to look at a debate about the Stonewall rebellion, whose resolution involved reviewing an article written by a Professor (and former undergraduate) at UM's Sociology Department.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 01:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Tom Kahn

The Solidarity was supported by Tom Kahn, who testified on behalf of the AFL–CIO to the US Congress. The picture displays the 21 demands of Solidarity.

Materialscientist (talk) 00:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Kudos on this one--a good hook, an interesting guy, and a great addition to the wiki. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! James Miller's Democracy is in the Streets recorded Kahn's being menaced by a man, in Irving Howe's words, in whose "soul" had seeped some of the "totalitarian poisons" of the last century. Kahn and impressionable youth deserve better.
Kahn's work in the civil-rights movement and to help Solidarity deserves to be remembered. I only wish that he and Michael Harrington had lived long enough to reconcile, the way that Steve Max and MH did and in the spirit of Rachelle Horowitz's memorial article, which records the depth of their friendship and suggests the pain of their estrangement.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Expansion

Nicely balanced. I'm glad you didn't flinch from the matter of sexuality, which needed to be there. I note you've got the Solidarity graphic up twice — once at the top and again below. I'm still no fan of the footnotes having footnotes ("Notes" + "References"), but different strokes for different folks, as they say. Nice biography. Carrite (talk) 05:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim.
Actually, I flinched for months. However, I didn't like that I had stuck all of his personal life in the "Personal relationships" section at the end (his youth, his relationship with Rustin, and then his living with AIDS and his partner).
Well, let me know if I wrote too much of the conflict with Michael Harrington, and Kahn's personal attacks. (Kahn made a several nasty remarks in an interview with the Wall Street Journal around 1973.) Around that time, Harrington took a break from his saintly "Father Socialism" personality to plant a slander that Kahn was a self-hating gay-basher (a slander that was uncritically repeated in Maurice Isserman's biography and Jack Newfield's autobiography), which has been critiqued by Horowitz. I can agree with Irving Howe that "things got to be pretty bad". There was later some more conflict about the Socialist Internationale, also, which Harrington described in The Long Distance Runner. Let us hope that Kahn agreed with SDUSA's buying an ad honoring Harrington, which was a kind & honorable act, of which even the democratic left should perform more often.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

GAR

Hey, I hear you. You should list the article at WP:GAR and cite why you think the GA was inappropriate. Follow the instruction. You add a subst:GAR on the article talk page and then open a review.It will automanticaly appear later on the GAR review page with the others.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I've added the subst:GAR for you. All you have to do now is simply state why you think it is not GA suitable here Hokay mate?♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

That was very helpful. I used my old GAR nomination, which I wrote quickly some weeks ago, before starting the clean-up operation. Thank you very much for your help.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

No worries! Have a good rest!♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Edits regarding Socialist Party of America

Talkback

You have new messages (last change).

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Note to self

Self, this looks like a nifty tool: http://toolserver.org/~dcoetzee/duplicationdetector/ This would have saved me a lot of time.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Civility complaint

Hello, Kiefer.Wolfowitz. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Peter G Werner (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

What an unfounded complaint. Ryan Vesey (talk) 23:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Ryan. I appreciate a vote of support especially after we have had direct differences discussed, which ended amiably and with mutual respect, I'm glad to note. It may be that the culture of biology has different standards for paraphrasing and citing things than in history, so that a clash of cultures may be occuring:
You should consider his point of view. I'm coming down on him tough for 4 edits he made years ago. I was rather blunt and tough on his talk page. I assume he is rather ignorant of the history of these organizations and of the broader left history, and that he accepted the SPUSA history somewhat naively, and repeated the slander of "democratic centralism" without understanding that this is a diabolical slander (particularly given the blood, which could fill rivers, between communism and socialism; the non-rhetorical observation of rivers of blood was also made by Irving Howe, perhaps in his autobiography A Margin of Hope). He may well have cited Drucker in the spirit of "this is a good book, which covers these events, which a lay reader would benefit from reading"—such loose citing is suboptimal but harmless when there is a carefully written account using 2 or more reliable high quality sources. Here Drucker was the only independent/reliable source cited for these events, which are contentious and covered by WP:BLP, since many are still alive.
I think my tone was tougher in the later exchanges on his talk page than on the article page. Make sure that you know what I've written before you vouch for me, okay! :)
It's always good to be tough on ourselves and gentle on the opponent when push comes to shove.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


American Left

Please consider looking at American Left. There are related discussions at the noticeboard on NPOV.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:10, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, K-Wolf--
There's been a bit of discord perking about the changes, particularly with respect to a purported overrepresentation of the 1960s and 1970s at the expense of older and newer periods -- at least that's what I've heard. in actually looking at things, I'm not terribly distressed, but I can see the point. It's more like the early period is underdeveloped rather than the latter period overdeveloped.
I do have something of a problem with the dichotomy between "Social Democratic" and "Marxist-Leninist" parties. In my view this is a bit of a Cold War-era relic; it's hard to construct any reasonable definition of "Marxism-Leninism" that includes today's CPUSA, for example. They aren't for armed struggle, they aren't for the establishment of a Soviet system, they've formally renounced the concept of the vanguard party. They don't run their own candidates and the organization is largely composed of a new generation of younger people that didn't have much of anything to do with the Gus Hall-era party. They're basically, and you will roll your eyes but it's true, a Social Democratic Party in 2011. Instead of an undifferentiated list of parties which would allow that they were one thing and evolved into another, they are lumped into an objectively wrong category based on multiple decades of past history.
Conversely, the Socialist Labor Party began as a Social Democratic Party and evolved into something different — and whatever you want to call it, I don't think the words "Marxist-Leninist" do it justice. Quasi-syndicalist? Not sure. Life is not as simple as the Social Democratic / Communist dichotomy that is represented on the page. They aren't even a functioning organization in 2011, as nearly as I can tell, although party head Robert Bills is still contributing DDL writings to Marxists Internet Archive in the name of the party, so neither can dirt unconditionally be shoveled on the grave.
A further critique would be that the ISO is missing altogether — this a quasi-Trotskyist, quasi-Social Democratic organization. The Sparts think that the ISO are SDs; many would call them Trots. I'm not sure labels are all that valuable myself. The lack of specificity about anarchist grouplets is also less than desirable.
I'm just not sure that my venturing into this is worth the time and effort. I can appreciate what you're doing and I think it's fine. I can appreciate the critique of the end result, and I think that has merit. I can see a number of flaws, mostly fixable by what I think would be a contentious position — that the SD/ML dichotomy should be ditched and that organizations should be listed alphabetically. But that's one person's opinion.
I will paste this correspondence to the talk. Maybe it will provide a tiny bit of food for thought. Carrite (talk) 02:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


Hi Carrite!
I agree that the "Marxist-Leninist category" is ill-named for some groups. It would be better to call them small-c communists that are distinct from social-democratic/democratic-socialist organizations. Perhaps "Marxist organizations advocating communism"?
  • CPUSA: It is a pity that the CPUSA had squandered its USSR-subsidies so that the People's Daily World had become the People's Weekly World when the old guard implemented its coup against Gorbachev, so that the CPUSA did not come out publicly in favor of Stalinism once again (as in the Soviet-imposed regimes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland). The last I saw, the CPUSA and its front organizations had become the press agents of North Korea. Even if they have renounced vanguardism, they are "Marxist" advocates of totalitarianism. (Commenting on his son-in-law Paul Lafarge, Karl Marx exclaimed, "Je ne suis pas une Marxiste")
  • ISO (International Socialist Organization): I'm not familiar with that organization, apart from that formidable Berkeley librarian, Hal Draper.
  • Solidarity which may be larger than ISO is described as coming from the Trotskyist organization International Socialists.
  • DeLeon's Socialist Labor Party ---file under curiosa, like Huber the Tuber --- I once saw a member of the SLP's youth section members pasing out a newspaper outside of a Woolworth's: The youth section member seemed to be about 87 years old!
  • SPUSA. David McReynolds has written in his blog that this group has lately been dominated by enthusiasts of Leninism and Trotsky, who want to stop U.S. socialist history at the age of Debs, who have expelled several state chapters on the grounds that their members are social democrats, etc. It's not clear that this group, as it currently opperates, is far from the post-Trotskyist organizations, like Solidarity. At least the SPUSA's Ohio Governor's candidate is a member of Solidarity. (The American Left article, with its short history after Debs, would be consistent with McReynold's description, whether by chance or no.)
Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 04:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Hiya K-Wolf--

Here's the URL for ISO: http://www.internationalsocialist.org/branches.html

My understanding is that the Trotskyists are composed primarily of the Spartacists, who are more hardline traditionalists, and the ISO, who are more electorally-oriented. The latter is tight with Haymarket Books, whose publications you may have seen. The SWP is still extant but is more or less a Pathfinder Press bookstore with a generally Castroite orientation. Not sure what to make of Solidarity and the rest, my spin is that its mostly those two groups these days. Hope this helps. Carrite (talk) 04:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Carrite!
Thanks for the notes on the Joy of Sects. I had thought that ISO was predominantly British, but now I know that ISO, Limited is a transnational operation.
The Sparts seem to have won the prize for nuttiest sect, with their slogan "The defense of the Soviet Union begins in El Salvador".
About the SWP, there was a SWP woman at a bar who, after making some inappropriate comments/advances to a friend of mine, coyly said, "I guess that I am breaking 'Party discipline'."! I think that somebody (Dwight Macdonald?) once compared the SWP to the Jehovah's Witnesses, because of their dogmatism and their (significantly) working-class composition.
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

SDS

It seems to have been accepted that the Progressive Labor Party was a Marxist-Leninist sect that helped to destroy SDS. There were other destroyers.

Bob Dylan's "It don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", furnished the name of the Weatherman (national office) faction of SDS, whose behavior inspired the slogan, "It don't take a rectal thermometer to know who the ass-holes are".

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

NPOV Flag(s): Socialist Party of America

Hi K-Wolf--

You lost me on the Werner flag, which article is that on?

While on the same subject, a heads-up that I pulled a couple flags from Max Shachtman, which I dropped by in the process of my ongoing Communist League of America writing project. Do you have remaining concerns here? I was rather shocked to see we don't have a photo of Mighty Max, any ideas where to find this? I raised my eyebrows a little that you pulled him from the "Neoconservatism" category, since he is often regarded as the godfather of neoconservatism but I didn't switch back on that, since I know where you're coming from that the Right SDs have been excessively tarred. Carrite (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Socialist Party of America#From_the_Socialist_Party_to_Social_Democrats.2C_USA
More to come.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I was just reading his talk page. I don't think he's a very happy camper with the changes you've made. I haven't looked at any diffs, I've got no opinion other than it looks to me like you were coming after him pretty aggressively and he took umbrage and doesn't seem to have much intention of pulling down the flag on his own. I'd give it a little time. Carrite (talk) 23:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
The slander that Michael Harrington, Bayard Rustin, Tom Kahn, etc., were "democratic centralists" was on Wikipedia for 5 years. I think that my response was quite restrained, honestly. He is welcome to remove the critique of his scholarship from his talk page; his freedom to remove whatever he wants is why I wrote there. (On the other hand, I think that the short criticisms of his [close paraphrasing] needs to remain on the talk page, unless an administrator removes 5 years of history from the article.)
His obligation to suggest actions to improve the article was incurred by his placing the NPOV tag. He cannot abrogate his obligation because of high disdain from sense of injured merit.
If he doesn't suggest anything in a reasonable time, the tag should be removed.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
A reasonable time elapsed, already, imho, so the flag is gone, per the WP policy against "drive by tagging" stated on the NPOV-template's instructions.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Glotzer

Take it away on him, I pretty much got the Trotskyist period stuff lined up this morning. Not sure if you can come up with a photo or not, but maybe you can fill in a little bit about his 1970s and 1980s activities. I was rather chagrined to learn this morning that there are 67 boxes of his papers down at the Hoover Archives, where I was earlier this month doing research. Oh, well, that will give me a reason to head south again in a couple years...

By the way, I'd like to do a piece on the Hoover Institution Archives -- not sure if you've got any sourcing ideas on that. They let me take a picture inside, which is ordinarily against the rules for security reasons (Chinese dissidents read there). I haven't really done any legwork on that topic, sources-wise, but I do know that will be kind of difficult. The Archives are a separate entity from the right-wing Hoover Institution think tank and I'd really like a blue link for that. Anyway, not sure how connected you are with links there, but just thought that I'd bounce it off you. — tim Carrite (talk) 06:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Carrite!
Think about Albert Glotzer's profession---stenographer!---and you will understand why he has so many important papers, e.g. for the Dewey Commission of Inquiry.
About the Hoover Institute, I have no experience: Do you think me to be a social democrat so right wing? ;)
However, we should tip our hats to the HI, for supporting Max Shachtman & Sidney Hook and others on the democratic left/center/right, to make the world of ideas more interesting. Ditto with Robert Conquest's Harvest Of Sorrow, which remembered 10-30 million lives destroyed by Stalin. Maybe the HI has nice luncheons, which you can crash ...? ;)
It seems problematic to label Shachtman and Kahn as right-wing .... What was so left-wing about destroying the Democratic Party so that, to regain the presidency and have OSHA laws enforced we had to wait for Clinton? (Did you read Dissent 2010 about the crack-down on dissent in Vietnam?)
Enjoy your stay in Palo Alto!
Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi K-Wolf--
Harvest of Sorrow is bad history, but we won't get into that... But do be sure not to personalize everything, STALIN didn't do it all, it was a system bigger than him (for which he is ultimately responsible, to be sure — but still). And remember in the 1932/33 famine — there were as many as a million Kazakhs that died, as well as ethnic Russians. So don't reduce this to anti-Ukrainian genocide. This was something else. Ugly and brutal — but something else.
Hoover Archive has a bad reputation, see? It shouldn't. Working there is no different than a visit to the archives at the Universities of Michigan or Wisconsin... There needs to be a page that makes clear the difference between the Archive and Library, on the one hand, and the (right wing) Think Tank, on the other. Anyway, I'll get to it sometime this year...
The Labadie collection is a treasure.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
It is interesting that you've captured the mentality of the historic SDUSA so well yet you live in Scandinavia. Are you an expatriate American? An American Studies student? I was in that group for a very short time and you've nailed their thinking. I think you underestimate their underlying conservative trend there a little bit, but that's okay. You really understand why they hated the McGovern Democrats. I'm just a little bit too young to have been part of that movement, but those were "my people" philosophically, so there is this little hurdle I have to clear to be fully objective about SDUSA. But you understand...
I quit the organization very shortly after I joined, over their Africa policy. They were cheerleaders for Savimbi in Angola, hated Mugabe and the ANC's guts. They weren't so wrong about Mugabe, I suppose, but were totally incorrect on the ANC. Still, it looked to me like they had become a political arm of the CIA and I was out the door and on to DSOC in a matter of months.
These days, after a long, circuitous route, I've become a scholar of 1920s American radicalism. I'm a Left SD politically, but the Communists are WAAAAAY more interesting. I've learned not to hate them, but to understand them, which is a good goal for all of us now that the war is over.
I hope you don't mind my ramblings here. I like you, you're good stuff... Carrite (talk) 03:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Carrite!
Thanks for your pats on the back, which are very much appreciated, given recent PA attacks on me and my alleged politics. As you know, the political (even historical) area of Wikipedia is prone to irritation than the mathematical area, so editing political/ideological articles can often be a headache. (See the above quote about WikiProject Philosophy, which is funny and more pithy than my remarks about WikiProject Mathematics c. March.)
I prefer not to say to much to identify myself on-Wiki, although you guessed correctly: I am American living in Sweden and have been for many years. Any organizational ties I once had were left long ago, more than 15 years, and any COI expired long ago (and did not involve SDUSA). I heard about SDUSA from people mispronouncing their name "seduce-ah".
The charge that SDUSA "supported the Vietnam War" has often been made but turned out not to be true, when I checked. I learned just this Spring that the SP did not split but rather that the majority voted to turn the SP into SDUSA. Learning this fact made me extremely skeptical of most "histories" of the 1960s and 1970s American left, and made me want to learn more.
I had heard that SDUSA had helped to support Solidarity, and was surprised to find sources documenting this. I thought that this was a story deserving to be told.
I spun off the article about Kahn and then have been enlarging it because I think that he was probably the best U.S. political strategist of the latter 20th century---much broader and more profound than Kevin Philips. Kahn has a mind like a good mathematician---he wants to understand things, and so deals with counter-examples and inconvenient facts, and he writes very clearly. I understand, as did Howe, that Kahn's writings after 1972 have many bitter asides about Harrington's personality and leadership, and now I can say that I agree with many of them. On the other hand, Harrington was a nice guy and helped inspire the War on Poverty, so I wish that Kahn had not twisted the knife so often. Well, we all have sides of our personalities that trouble our friends and ourselves.
America would have been better off with a leader combining Harrington's charm, kindness and good humor with Kahn's analytic & strategic genius.
I don't have the energy to enlarge on the criticism of the new politics of McGovern or the new left's elitism, but this would be an important part of any serious article on SDUSA: Maybe SDUSA and the AFL-CIO's criticisms are reported in reliable sources focused on the Coalition for a Democratic Majority or the Democratic Leadership Council or about neo-conservatism?
Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
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