Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anarchism/Archive 3
This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 8 |
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
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Advice requested on online anarchist resources
A student asks at the ref desk for online sources to further her studies of anarchism. Can anyone help out? Skomorokh 03:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Post-Colonial Anarchism
Hey folks,
I've been working on a page for Post-Colonial Anarchism (anarchism from the perspective of colonized peoples as opposed to from the perspective of western proletarians). Right now it's at User:Anarchocelt/Post Colonial Anarchism. If ya'll could give it a look and help flesh it out that would be great. sources include http://illvox.org/articles/, a lot of stuff from anarchismo, jailbreakpress.org, http://celticanarchy.org/, and others. as well as a lot of books (illvox has the full text for a lot of books). I'd just go ahead and create the page, but I don't want to deal with it getting deleted because some class reductionist doesn't think it's relevant so I want to get it fleshed out more before moving it to wikipedia proper. thanks Anarchocelt (talk) 04:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yo Anarchocelt, I've given your article a run-through for Manual of Style issues and added it to the project page as a "work in progress". One of the main issues with the present state of the article is that it looks like original research and could benefit from showing that the concept has been widely written about in reliable sources. Good luck! Skomorokh 05:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Anna Quist: making shit up?
User:Anna Quist has been posting prolificly about various mysterious anarchist organizations such as The Anarchist International and "GREEN ANARCHIST INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION" without reliable sources. Does anyone have any idea if these guys are actually a noteworthy anarcha-faction? I think Anna Quist posts on Anarchism.net, but aside from that I have no knowledge of this business and am not sure if we should be helping with references and saving the content from removal or banning her as a troll. Any ideas? Skomorokh 06:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- She has been spamming stuff from her website on anarchism.net for years, she is far from popular there. She has never offered any proof that they exist beyond their website. The AI calls for such things as 'anarchist police,' 'anarchist courts' and 'anarchist laws.' Also, last week a troll we've been dealing with confessed to being her, but he offered little proof. Zazaban (talk) 06:30, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- She is most certainly making shit up. Posters on Anarchism.net have been in frequent discussions with the character that is Anna Quist for a few years now. She presents mostly gibberish, much of the work on the homepage is plagiarised, her organisation purports to be other organisations - writing off the originals as fake - while attempting to rewrite history, arguing for conscription, anti-drug rules and condemning anyone who disagrees as a 'ochlarist' or 'Anarcho-Capitalist' (even when that person is definitely not an Anarcho-Capitalist). She has no legitimate information to add and there has been warnings on flag.blackened.net.--121.220.217.195 (talk) 06:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- Very interesting link and info, thanks. Skomorokh 07:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
To my knowledge she is either a troll, or a very confused and lonely individual. Once thing she isn't, is a member of the fictional organisation AI (who I believe have already had their wiki page deleted) Lostsocks (talk) 11:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- Seems to be the consensus view. I've started an AN/I thread on the matter here. Skomorokh 12:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Yepp, Anna Quist is a pain of disastrous proportions. Lord Metroid (talk) 17:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I learned of this Anarchist International group several years ago, and correctly disregarded them as a fringe organization with little actual political clout. How little I realized. I had no conception that their fringe behavior was this extreme. I can only be glad that I've known better than to recommend their website to those curious about anarchism. Is there some precedent the task force should follow regarding this besides going to administration and complaining about specific users? I don't know what most wikiprojects do when they encounter hoax pushers.--Cast (talk) 00:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- Cranks and wingnuts have this ability to suck people into their little worlds and waste huge amounts of their time. IFA has been spamming people for years with nonsensical postings about being a series of groups. If you read their missives it's pretty clear that one person is behind this crap. It's too bad that this person is now using Wikipedia to promote their "project." Their recent re-writing of the main "Anarchism" entry was rather hilarious. Chuck0 (talk) 05:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- Many WikiProjects have guidelines on what are reliable sources for their topic area. I've been thinking for a while now that since coverage of anarchism in mainstream media is a) rare, b) usually superficial and c) frequently inaccurate, establishing a guideline on which anarchist media is acceptable on Wikipedia would be a very welcome idea. For example, articles published on Indymedia probably do not meet the criteria for reliable sources given their usual lack of neutrality, the lack of selectivity and quality control in which articles is published, and Indymedia's poor reputation for fact checking and accuracy, whereas some articles published by Infoshop.org probably would meet the criteria, as Infoshop has noticeable editorial oversight, quality control (per its recent policy change, most announcements are rejected for publication), and is independent of the organizations whose articles it publishes. If we had such a policy, we could easily dismiss hoaxes known in anarchist circles: "This is a hoax as established by [article] published in [source], which is a credible and reliable source on anarchism according to the anarchist task force". It would also help with the concerns voiced by Chuck and Aefflin (sp) on Talk:Anarchism about reliable sources on anarchism. What do people think? Skomorokh 17:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- That is a splendid Idea. May I suggest adding Libcom.org to the list? Zazaban (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- I agree that this is a good idea. We should compile a list of acceptable sources and place them on the Task force page. While trying to get Anarky to pass the Featured Article nomination process, I was constantly asked to prove if my sources were trustworthy, only to find out that the discussion had come up repeatedly at the Comics wikiproject and no one had compiled some list to explain that they were. A lot of legwork on my part could have been saved if forerunners had set their findings down for those who would come after. By creating this list, we could make sourcing an easier task and pave the way for future GA and FA nominations. I suggest adding Research Anarchism, unless anyone knows of any reason they might be inappropriate.--Cast (talk) 18:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
- That is a splendid Idea. May I suggest adding Libcom.org to the list? Zazaban (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Glad to see there's support for this. I've created the beginnings of a guide at WP:ANCITE (anarchism citation...rhymes with incite, like a riot, which is what anarchism is all about according to the reliable sources, get it?). I'd appreciate if you all held off from editing it for next half an hour or so while I research how to write one of these things so that they will look credible to GA/FA/AFD reviewers. Go wild on the talkpage for now, and input is enthusiastically encouraged once I've figured out the formatting etc. Solidarity, Skomorokh 19:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC) OK, good to go, please add your expertise where possible.
Chomsky an anarchist or not?
I watched the critique from brainpolice, Re: Chomsky vs. porn junkies. Wouldn't it be misleading to the readers of wikipedia to say Chomsky is an anarchist when he is obviously not anarchist by when he allegedly promotes statism. Wouldn't it be better to say something like "known as anarchist but..." or something instead of as it says now in the first paragraph in Noam Chomsky, "he has become known more widely as a political activist, an anarchist[3], and a libertarian socialist intellectual." Lord Metroid (talk) 18:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- Hmmm, we have him on our list of anarchists as self-identified by the quote "I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since." It doesn't seem like a very strong rationale to consider him an anarchist now. However, AK Press published Chomsky on Anarchism as recently as 2005, unequivocally identifying him as an anarchist. I suppose as a matter of opinion it's up there with "anarcho-communists can't be anarchists because they don't support individual liberty" and "anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction because capitalism is necessarily exploitative". If we're going to stick to the sources, it's a pretty open and shut case with Chomsky. If you could find an individualist critique we could add it ot the article, but that's about as far as it would go, I think. Skomorokh 18:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- It's rather easy to establish Chomsky's credentials as an anarchist. Not only is he widely known as an anarchist, but he has written for and contributed to many anarchist periodicals over the years. He has also donated money to anarchist projects and donated money from speaking appearances to anarchist projects. Chuck0 (talk) 05:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Left-libertarian/anarchist scholar Roderick Long has an interesting article up here critiquing Chomsky's anarchism, which might be of interest. the skomorokh 19:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Your input requested on Talk:Property is theft!
The article on Proudhon's famous slogan "property is theft!" is fully-protected to prevent an edit war about including a section which discusses its apparent literal contradiction (how can property be theft when theft presupposes property etc.). I'm trying to get outside involvement on the matter if anyone would care to join in. Skomorokh 16:50, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Proposed restyling of {{Anarchism sidebar}}
There's a dormant discussion on Allixpeeke (talk · contribs)'s proposal to restyle {{Anarchism sidebar}} here. I'd like to implement Allix's version, but wanted to notify the task force as this will effect most of our pages. Skomorokh 00:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, it would really stand out, I like that. Really emphasizes the individuality of anarchism. Quite a contrast to most wikipedia templates, will put a shock into the unsuspecting visitor, not that that's a bad thing. Zazaban (talk) 01:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
- It has been done. Zazaban (talk) 01:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
- Alright, thanks for doing the hard work. Should the {{Anarchism}} template be left as is? Skomorokh 01:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
- Just leaving a note saying that the proposed change was reverted. Hoping it's still up for discussion. Zazaban (talk) 22:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- The black version uses a horrible amount of coding, and we need to figure out how to make the bluelinks white. Other than that, there's no problem I'd say. Skomorokh 22:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- I myself didn't have a problem with the colour, but I'll get to work with changing it to white. Give me a half hour. Zazaban (talk) 23:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- The black version uses a horrible amount of coding, and we need to figure out how to make the bluelinks white. Other than that, there's no problem I'd say. Skomorokh 22:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- Just leaving a note saying that the proposed change was reverted. Hoping it's still up for discussion. Zazaban (talk) 22:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- Alright, thanks for doing the hard work. Should the {{Anarchism}} template be left as is? Skomorokh 01:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
- It has been done. Zazaban (talk) 01:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Unidentified Russian anarchist
Can anyone identify who ne:अ.यु. गे, a Russian anarchist who died in 1919, is? The original source doesn't give the name in Latin or Cyrillic character, the Devanagari name is sortof 'A. U. Ge'. --Soman (talk) 06:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Seeking collaborators on individualist anarchism
Yo compadres, our article on individualist anarchism is rather good, and I'm hoping to have it reach featured status (after WP:GA of course), but it would help a lot if I had some help from others. Specifically, although the references look reliable, the formatting is inconsistent and messy; I could use help converting and expanding them using {{cite book}} {{cite journal}} and so on. I've been thinking about sending around a little note from the taskforce each month with little updates, as most of our members are infrequent contributors and might benefit from some reminding of our works in progress etc. I think Cast has raised the idea before, but what do people think of a collaboration of the month, and individualist anarchism as our first? Skomorokh 12:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
- Pardon for the late response. Been busy. Yes, I would be interested in joining in on this. I don't know how much you've done since you first left this note, but I'll give the article a look over and add it to my watchlist. In the upcoming days, I'll try to schedule some time for editing it. --Cast (talk) 21:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
RfC on AIF article
Some of you will have noticed an user claiming that the International of Anarchist Federations is just the "southern" section of the IAF, and claiming that his organization is the northern part, that they have an international tribunal of anarchism, and some other stuff. She is now inserting that information on the IAF article. This is related to the "Anna Quist: making shit up?" section on this same page.
I have opened a RfC about the reliability of that source. Please participate there in order to stop this silliness going on at anarchism-related articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Anna Quist
I've reported her at the ANB. Hopefully this will put an end to this lunacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#User:Anna_Quist Zazaban (talk) 22:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- She now appears to be using a sockpuppet to continue to revert to her version of the article. [1] Zazaban (talk) 23:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm. She's been unblocked for nearly 15 minutes and all hell has not broken loose. I'm surprised. Zazaban (talk) 23:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Spanish
Hi, I'm Spanish, and I've seen that they are a couple of articles in the project page about spanish/latin american anarchists needing translation. I don't really know how the bureaucracy works, so should I simply start translating them or do I have to ask someone? Randomlychaotic (talk) 17:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- You can definitely just start translating them. The only catch might be that someone will complain of there are no references and sources given, like is common with more Spanish Wikipedia articles. So, if you have the time to find a few sources (preferrably in English, Google Books works really well for searching inside of books) to throw in the articles, it would be even better. Salud!Murderbike (talk) 17:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- Can I simply translate and hope someone will find sources with time or if an article has no sources it is authomaticly deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Randomlychaotic (talk • contribs) 17:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- You could, but I discourage it. It won't come up for deletion until someone takes notice of it and decides to nominate it for deletion – perhaps "speedy deletion", if it warrants it – at which point we'd have to go through a process of defending the article. There are many articles that have gone a long time without proper citations, but these days new articles are seen more quickly and can get deleted right away. It would be best to establish the article's notability immediately, even if only with just a few reference notes. The article can be tagged as needing more citations, but it wouldn't be nominated for deletion so readily. --Cast (talk) 18:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, I've translated two articles: Joaquín Ascaso and Segundo Blanco. They definetely need proofreading! Two of the books that appear in the references sections were mentioned in the original article, is that a problem? Anyway, I haven't found sources in English, so maybe none of them is valid. Appart from that, I'm not sure if the spanish word "libertario", as used in this text, is correctly translated by "libertarian" (as I've done, not knowing which other word to say). "Libertario" means almost exclusively "anarchist" in Spanish; according to wikipedia's article, it means many things in English, so maybe it should be changed.Randomlychaotic (talk) 19:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- You're translation of "libertario" is correct. It also means "libertarian". The fact that "libertarian" has been used by non-anarchists in the English language doesn't change the translation. It just means one has to take historical and cultural context into account when it is read. Don't worry about it. The references should be fine, and although they are not in English, that does not make them invalid. It just means they could be harder to verify. Thanks for your efforts. These will make great editions to the encyclopedia.--Cast (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- I'm almost finished translating the article about "Los Solidarios", an anarchist group with members such as Durruti. In the Spanish version, the lyrics of a song by a somehow-famous Spanish singer (no English article, so I suppose not famous at all outside Spain) which narrates briefly their story asppears as part of the article. Is that notable enough to translate it? If it is, should I leave the original or act as if it was a normal quote and translate it? Another thing: are articles used before foreign trade union's names? Is it "he entered the CNT" or "he entered CNT"? "He entered the "Confederation Nacional del Trabajo" or "he entered Confederación Nacional del Trabajo"? Or should I translate it to "he entered the National Confederation of Labor"?Randomlychaotic (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- Glad to see you're putting such great effort to this. I recommend not including the entire song lyrics to the page, as it would require clean up and be giving undue weight to a single song, but the song can be referenced and I'd like to see it quoted in a subsection about the legacy of the group. I suggest translating the lyrics and posting them on the talk page, so future editors can decide how to incorporate it into the article. As for your other question, I would use the article ("the CNT"; "the Confederation"; "the Confederation Nacional del Trabajo"), and when using the term for the first time, include the Spanish name in italics and the translation in parenthesize ("Confederation Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labor)"). In all the times it is used thereafter, you can just refer to it as "the CNT" or "the Confederation" to simplify the writing. You would only need to use more specific terms if organizations with similar names are mentioned, and then you'd have to specify to be clear. If you were mentioning a CNT or FAI branch from Italy, you'd have to specify that. The Confederation is primarily known in its Spanish name, and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style specifies that editors should use foreign language words in italics, and not translate an organizations name if their official name is not English. Letting the reader know what the name means is important, but they shouldn't be led to think the group isn't Spanish. And again, dont' worry about being perfect. Future editors can fix any errors. What is primarily important is that you include your references. --Cast (talk) 16:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- I'm almost finished translating the article about "Los Solidarios", an anarchist group with members such as Durruti. In the Spanish version, the lyrics of a song by a somehow-famous Spanish singer (no English article, so I suppose not famous at all outside Spain) which narrates briefly their story asppears as part of the article. Is that notable enough to translate it? If it is, should I leave the original or act as if it was a normal quote and translate it? Another thing: are articles used before foreign trade union's names? Is it "he entered the CNT" or "he entered CNT"? "He entered the "Confederation Nacional del Trabajo" or "he entered Confederación Nacional del Trabajo"? Or should I translate it to "he entered the National Confederation of Labor"?Randomlychaotic (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
- You're translation of "libertario" is correct. It also means "libertarian". The fact that "libertarian" has been used by non-anarchists in the English language doesn't change the translation. It just means one has to take historical and cultural context into account when it is read. Don't worry about it. The references should be fine, and although they are not in English, that does not make them invalid. It just means they could be harder to verify. Thanks for your efforts. These will make great editions to the encyclopedia.--Cast (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- Ok, I've translated two articles: Joaquín Ascaso and Segundo Blanco. They definetely need proofreading! Two of the books that appear in the references sections were mentioned in the original article, is that a problem? Anyway, I haven't found sources in English, so maybe none of them is valid. Appart from that, I'm not sure if the spanish word "libertario", as used in this text, is correctly translated by "libertarian" (as I've done, not knowing which other word to say). "Libertario" means almost exclusively "anarchist" in Spanish; according to wikipedia's article, it means many things in English, so maybe it should be changed.Randomlychaotic (talk) 19:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- You could, but I discourage it. It won't come up for deletion until someone takes notice of it and decides to nominate it for deletion – perhaps "speedy deletion", if it warrants it – at which point we'd have to go through a process of defending the article. There are many articles that have gone a long time without proper citations, but these days new articles are seen more quickly and can get deleted right away. It would be best to establish the article's notability immediately, even if only with just a few reference notes. The article can be tagged as needing more citations, but it wouldn't be nominated for deletion so readily. --Cast (talk) 18:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
- Can I simply translate and hope someone will find sources with time or if an article has no sources it is authomaticly deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Randomlychaotic (talk • contribs) 17:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
I've translated the article about Pistolerismo, which was a struggle between spanish employers and syndicalists, but not exclusively anarcho-syndicalists. Given that, should it be included in this wikiproject or is it too broad to be classified as an article about "anarchism"?Randomlychaotic (talk) 01:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
- If a notable element of the article is devoted to its relationship with anarchism, then the anarchist task force has a stake in it and it can be included within this wikiproject. I notice that the article does include references to the CNT and anarcho-syndicalism as being a major reason for the beginning of Pistolerismo. That certainly counts.--Cast (talk) 02:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Anarcho-capitalism
It seems to me that it would be more sensible to have a Libertarianism WikiProject and put anarcho-capitalist content under that, than to have the anarcho-capitalist content under the Anarchism WikiProject. Reason being, anarcho-capitalism is really just the most extreme point on the spectrum of libertarianism, whereas it is a totally different philosophy from most other forms of anarchism. Anarcho-capitalism has a lot more commonalities with minarchism, for instance, than with anarcho-syndicalism. Also, many leading anarcho-capitalists, such as Murray Rothbard, worked within the Libertarian Party; and under the Dallas Accord the LP sought to be a big tent that would include both minarchists and anarcho-capitalists. EVCM (talk) 17:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
- You've failed to provide a single good reason why anarcho-capitalism shouldn't fall within this Task Force's domain. It does not matter that anarcho-capitalism shares little on common with anarcho-syndicalism, or if individual anarcho-capitalists also supported non-anarchist political projects. That is their choice and does not reflect on all anarchists in general, or anarcho-capitalists in particular, and anarcho-capitalism shares much in common with other variants of Free Market based anarchist branches. Regardless of any philosophical or ideological conflict anarcho-capitalism has with other variants of Anarchism, the philosophy has still had a notable impact on the Anarchist project since its inception. If a wikiproject for Libertarianism was created, anarcho-capitalism would simply be a shared article between that project and this one. Further, a Libertarianism project would most likely just be another task force of WikiProject Philosophy, so even the suggestion to create another wikiproject is unlikely. --Cast (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Anarchist perspectives on revolution
Anarchist perspectives on revolution should be a priority right now. There are diverse opinions on revolution within anarchism, something that wikipedia does not really cover as it is. In fact, most people seem to think that anarchists universally support violent/armed revolution. Zazaban (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Anarchism
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
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They are an anarchist philosophical searching for...
This mysterious request recently surfaced on my talkpage.
Please help me to read more on these topics and perhaps send me a newletter ar letter of some local minds loke mine, who seem to be searching for more enlightenment on this subject. My email address is Pennyds1@aol.com Will someoe please send me literaure and/or a list of local itineraries concrning my search for knowledge? I am a 38 yo person, am tired of the injustices our country seems to give a shit less about. Freedom is a thing of he past anymore.
I fear as a modest encyclopaedian this is not really my thing. Can any anarcho-taskforcians suggest a course of action? Supplementary info: the I.P. address resolves to the United States, though the seeker does not seem a native speaker. Gracias, the skomorokh 11:38, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
- Well, this seems...earnest, if misguided. I do not encourage you to respond directly to the email, as that would require you provide your own and could lead to annoying follow ups on your inbox. You could use an anonymous, single-use email service, such as this one: Send Anonymous Mail.net. Include links to websites, spunk.org for example. Ignore the request for a list of upcoming events; you don't even know where this came from, much less what is happening in that area, and the writer will eventually figure that out on their own. Perhaps informing comrade "anarchist philosophical" that you are not a personal assistant would be a good addition to the message so there are no followups on your talk page. Or just ignore it. It's up to you.--Cast (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Appeal for assistance with List of anarchists
Since the list of anarchists article was deleted on the grounds of poor referencing, a few of us have been working on a sandboxed version at User:SwitChar/Anarchlist, building it back up from scratch with rigourous referencing. The problem is that we are few, and the putative anarchists we need to vet and find references for are many. We could really use some extra hands sorting through the potential additions here here, finding references for their being anarchists and adding their names with a brief description to the sandboxed version. If you could help, it would be really appreciated. Sincerely, the skomorokh 15:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Origins of Democracy Project Deletion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Origins_of_Democracy_Project
It was not a hoax but I don't know if it merits the "notable academic project" appelation. It's a small but IMO significant trend within the modern anarchist movement which is itself small, mostly underground and quite a bit of the culture of which is luddite and doesn't publish online. Some people are interested in anarchist theory and ongoing trends, not all of which are encompassed by the more well known public anarchist periodicals. In fact it could be argued that there is an artificial skewing of coverage of this topic due to the fact that certain groups within that movement tend to be more active online, wheras others for whatever reasons prefer not to be.
The page which was deleted didn't give a very good overview of the project, as I hadn't had time to really work on it, but it's a real thing, I wish it hadn't been deleted.
I'm trying to get permission to post some of their research material online which was published in underground zines, and even scan some of the zines, but I don't want to do that if the authors don't like the idea, though I don't see why they wouldn't. From what I understand it is an ongoing effort on the part of several anarchists and some academics who may prefer to remain anonymous- to revive Kropotkins idea of examining History to find examples of democratic societies. They seem to have done a lot of good research, I think more people should know about the project, as it has implications for the future of the movement. It is sort of a return to methods which hadn't been looked at seriously since the 19th century as far as I can tell.
Does wikipedia not want to include articles about people who themselves don't publish online?
Drifter bob (talk) 15:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Yo bob. Sorry we had to delete the article. It's not that the organisation has to publish online to merit an article, it's just that the content of every Wikipedia article needs to be verifiable—that is, based on reliable sources. Reliable sources don't have to be online, but it helps; the article was deleted because no-one could find reliable sources which covered the project. Hope this clears things up, and please ask if there's anything else you're wondering about. the skomorokh 11:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
- I think it was deleted because nobody in the clique of people who edit the anarchist articles on Wikipedia had heard of it. I think the verifiable sources standard is subjective and aribtrary. To be discussed in the established print media of the US "anarchiste" scene means being linked with the particular factions that publish and distribute them, who many people prefer to avoid. Anarchy a Journal of Desire Armed? I don't know many people who would want to be associated in any way with that rag. But frankly I don't care that much about it either way. If the OODP ever amounts to anything somebody else can cover it and get into the whole hassle of fighting with people here about having a page done for it, it's not really my fight. Drifter bob (talk) 15:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Don't get upset because the article was deleted. It was deleted because the "totally arbitrary" sources you supplied for it were a cross synthesis of subjects that didn't point to a cohesive concept, but rather were originally researched for the sake of the article. So you think this project wil have major ramifications for "the future of the movement"? So you say it has academics and several anarchists involved, and it's really important for us to know about it, but they -- the very members of the project -- feel it's better to remain anonymous? This is not adding up. I didn't just advance that the article should be deleted because I hadn't heard of it. I advanced that it should be deleted because no other anarchist I knows has ever heard of it. What? Is it bubbling under the surface of the anarchist tension? Will it spring forth any day now and revitalize the anarchist cause? Then where has it gone in the weeks since it's deletion? I still haven't met anyone who has heard of it, and I still can't find any sources for it -- online or off. Don't feed me your sob story about not wanting to be allied with publications you don't like. These same publications will choose to talk about you if you warrant it. None of them seem to be aware of this project. Get us some original sources. Don't just make up excuses for the project's creators, and tell us they don't want to compromise themselves with the hassle of being published. No one even mentioned AJODA. Where the hell did that come from? Get that chip off your shoulder; it's starting to give your worldview an awkward slant. --Cast (talk) 18:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Help! Flavio Costantini's Images will be Deleted!
Whassup Folks,
I'm AltCtrlDel from southern Brazil, and one of the responsibles for the Portal da Anarquia (Anarchy's Portal) in Wikipedia-PT. I'm here to ask your help in one source problem. Some guy want to delete Flavio Costantini's images from the Commons. Just uploaded that images to ilustrate Ravachol, Jules Bonnot, and others articles thinking that they aren't copyrighted. But now this guy came with a page license... well. You all can see his deletion request. What we can do?! Could we contact the responsible for that page? That's no possibility to create a anarchist license or something like that?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Flavio_Costantini_images
salud y libertad!!
AltCtrlDel (talk) 23:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.120.0.63 (talk)
- There is no such thing as an "anarchist license". Anti-capitalist anarchists have never been big on the whole "copyright" thing. The thing to do is to contact Kate Sharpley Library. The website from which these images were taken is hosted by the KSL, and does not contain any anti/copyright notices. The Kate Sharpley Library does include a small note that all of it's content is made free for activist use, and I've privately spoken to Barry Pateman, a Bay Area anarchist speaker and all-around badass. He confirmed that work on Wikipedia would be covered by their standards. Unfortunately, we'd need to get a specific email from them, because their website isn't technically clear on the subject. They need to state that they are completely anti-copyright, provided the work is attributed and not commercially sold. That would satisfy Wikipedia. And we can't be certain that would work in this situation, because this artwork isn't produced by KSL exactly. It's digitized format is hosted by them, but may not be released by them. We'll need to send an e-mail to KSL, ask if they can represent the artist and give us free license, or if they can't, we must ask that they contact the artist and ask him to contact wikipedia directly. Also, consider that you don't have to host these on the commons. You could just host them on wikipedia, and provide an appropriate "non-free fair use" disclaimer. --Cast (talk) 01:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
- Salud AltCtrlDel! As Cast says, we need explicit formal permission from the copyright owners in order to use the images. I've asked here if anyone who knows the process can help us out. Alternatively, the Wikipedia:Example requests for permission gives some useful advice on how to obtain permission yourself. Sorry we couldn't be of more help, but asking the anarchist task force for help with copyright is a bit of a long shot to begin with ;) Solidarity, the skomorokh 11:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
- Hey fellas, good news. I contacted the Library Kate Sharpley via e-mail, and they promptly sent a reply. Below follows a link containing the e-mail (in English) in the boxes (the rest is explanation of the case in Portuguese). Mutirão Anarquista Wikipediano's Discussion Page The conclusion of this episode really surprised me. Greetings to you all! AltCtrlDel (talk) 03:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.120.0.63 (talk)
- This news is heartening, but not quite as good as you might think it is. The wording of the email sent by Cristi does not specify that the images are released on a Free License. That is what is required for hosting on WikiCommons. If we don't have Free License, but do have the artist's permission, we can still use the images on Wikipedia pages, but they will still be removed from WikiCommons. The surest way you can get these images secured as free for use on WikiCommons is to ask that the administrative team of the website hosting the artist's work, include a tag specifying that the work is released on a Free License of some type. The specifics of the disclaimer must be that the artist permits any "1. Modification; 2. Redistribution; and 3. Use for any purpose, including commercial purposes." They can insist that any derivative work must state who the original creator was. That is the one point that is not a problem. If you can get the artist, through Mr. Cristi, to permit these things, you can upload the work on Commons. If they don't want to update their webpage, but do confirm these three points over email, follow these directions. If the images should be deleted before this can be done, don't despair. Once it is done, you can re-upload the images. It may take time, but the task will at least be accomplished. --Cast (talk) 04:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Local Quebec anarchist article to be deleted - help!!!!
Heya, I'm new here and my article on Bruno Masse, local Montreal anarchist author / researcher is under threat of deletion. I really need help here, it would be a shame to lose this one. Please go vote and spread the word!! You can vote [| here]. In solidarity! Lkeryl (talk) 18:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Bravo
The sheer number of new articles lately is phenomenal! Now I've decided to finally get to work on Egoist anarchism. A draft will probably pop up on my namespace within the next few days. Zazaban (talk) 23:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- Looking forward to it; let the rest of us know if you need help with anything specifically :) the skomorokh 23:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- I've started it, but I don't think it's ready to be posted on the ATF yet, there's still some things I want to work on without interference. Probably by tomorrow. Zazaban (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- And now it is listed. I've done quite a good job so far if I do say so myself. Zazaban (talk) 02:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- That's quite a comprehensive start! There are some issues with prose and it's not always clear which source you have cited for the claims, but the Stirner content is quite difficult for an unfamiliar reader, so expository issues are to be expected. Nice work, the skomorokh 17:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I put the sources at the end of paragraphs I'm sourcing, in case the U.O.E. section is what you're confused about. I feel that if we do a good job we can even be ready to put the article on the main space tomorrow or the day after. Zazaban (talk) 20:09, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- That's quite a comprehensive start! There are some issues with prose and it's not always clear which source you have cited for the claims, but the Stirner content is quite difficult for an unfamiliar reader, so expository issues are to be expected. Nice work, the skomorokh 17:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Egoist anarchism
We are nearly done at User:Zazaban/Egoist anarchism, and it would be great if anyone could contribute ANYTHING. The property section needs some sourcing, and I feel that we maybe should have a section on egoism's unique take on morality. Zazaban (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sorry I haven't been able to contribute more, but my books and I are separated by several hundred miles. Skomorokh 17:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Purpose of task list?
I've started a topic on the Anarchism Open Task template talk page to discuss the purpose of the list. It is my contention that the Open Task template's current form is becoming obsolete. With the advent of the Anarchism Task Force as a centralized location for discussing improvement to anarchism coverage on Wikipedia, and with the creation of an automated cleanup list, there simply isn't much purpose for the template as it stands. However, I can see how it may still be useful, and so it's time we consider what to do with it. --Cast (talk) 17:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- I take it this is best discussed at that talk page? I'll comment there. Skomorokh 17:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that would be why I provided the link. Perhaps I should have specified that. --Cast (talk) 17:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ha ha rrrrawr. On a related note, input requested at Portal talk:Anarchism concerning anniversaries. Skomorokh 18:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that would be why I provided the link. Perhaps I should have specified that. --Cast (talk) 17:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Face lift for the ATF?
For a few months now, I've been thinking about giving our main task force page a new look. Why? Well, at my most simplified and superficial, I want the page to look aesthetically pleasing. To elaborate, I want the page to be immediately accessible to new users. I first noticed a few months ago that the page was exceptionally long, with long "list" sections for participants, 1.0 editorial team choices, and templates. The huge eye-sore that was the Open Task list wasn't helping at all, either. I began using collapsible windows for the open tasks, columns for the lists, and tables for the templates in a futile effort to compress all of the data. What I ideally wanted was the page to be accessible with a minimum of scrolling, which even the contents window wasn't able to help out with. I've recently entertained myself while fiddling around with added coding to columns, as if surreptitiously creating a portal. I stopped myself when I realized that the increasing complexity of the page would act as an obstacle for editors, new and old alike. I also knew that if sub-pages proliferated, it would become increasingly difficult to monitor changes made. Case in point, I've just updated the list of Good articles to include the promoted Manifesto of the Sixteen, but anyone watching the main page wouldn't have noticed it. Previously the page was long and cluttered, but it was easy to monitor and edit. However, I'm reluctant to undue my work — in principle. I'd like to move the task force forward; not back. So with the one-year anniversary (Dec. 13) of the task force almost here, I've created a sandbox for myself to toy with. I invite anyone to participate in figuring out how to:
- Improve the visibility of sections. (Ideally, sections should be found with a minimum of scrolling, and while "introductory" sections should be at the top, I'd like people to quickly dive into the work zones. Maybe they could be side-by-side?)
- Make it easy to monitor. (I don't want multiple subpages. Subpages for sections that never change would be fine, but frequently changing sections should all be together.)
- Organize the "work place" sections. (Most of us come here to see where we're needed. I'd like links to resources, guidelines, automated cleanup lists, alerts, works in progress, etc, etc, to all be as close together as possible.)
So this is what I'll be aiming for in the sandbox. Don't know what will come of it, but hopefully it'll be something useful. As of this posting, I've got about ten days left before the anniversary. What do you think of this project? Worth our while, or trivial? Ultimately, I'll be first to admit that so long as the task force continues to crank out FAs and GAs, it doesn't matter what the page looks like. Sometimes less is more.--Cast (talk) 06:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Do you think it is at all possible that this could be promoted up to a wikiproject? There isn't a lot of cross polination with the rest of the philosophy WP and this is pretty active in its own right, more so that any actuall WP I'm a member of. Zazaban (talk) 16:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I suppose we always could have, but I never considered it a serious option, and wouldn't encourage it. I think part of why the task force has been so successful is that it was able to get off the ground running thanks to the infrastructure our parent WikiProject had for us. We didn't have to worry about assessment scales or banner templates, for the most part, because that was all provided for us. Maybe we've squirmed under certain constraints, like the priority of importance ratings on WikiProject Philosophy banners, but for the most part I think we've benefited from the situation. It might be due to its lower numbers of active members, but I think it's telling that the Libertarian WikiProject has been stagnant for its first few months and is only just getting itself started. After our first few months, we already had several GA and FA articles, and were quickly rolling out new projects to take part in. Can WikiProject Fascism, Sociology, or Atheism, claim that same level of success in their first few months, much less their last few? I think we're pretty strong thanks to our ability to take advantage of that which is given to us, and quickly push forward into activity. For that reason, I am not pushing for this task force's page to be updated too much. It's not about us looking like "Pseudo-WikiProject Anarchism". It's just about us having a clean place to work. If it takes time away from article editing, it's no good to us. I'm shooting for practicality over luxury. --Cast (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- To address the sandbox first; I agree that we ought to be making the task force page as aesthetically pleasing and attractive to new editors as possible. So I suggest that the clearer, more introductory material come first, and the more arcane later. The To-do section whose contents I suspect most active members are more than familiar with already, should probably come right after scope; "this is what we cover; this is what we are doing to it". The participants section (can we condense/columnise this at all?) ought to come before current priorities too; thus the new editor can see who is doing the work before seeing the specifics of what is going on. I recommend that Former Recognized Content be a subsection of Recognized Content, and that the section be combined in a supersection with the Selections (the fewer top-level sections the better). While scrolling works well for DYKs, and it needs to be condensed somehow, the Templates section isn't very enticing to use at present; perhaps a show/hide box would be better. The sandbox Resources section is great, and we might perhaps think of something to add to the third column; relevant Wikipedia guidelines? I agree that it's important that the Current Priorities not be transcluded for monitoring reasons, but perhaps it could be wrapped in a pretty white box like the rest? On the whole, I commend your tireless efforts and initiative!
- Regarding taskforce navelgazing, while the work that gets done seems to be minor and slow, I think the cumulative effect is significant (our Philosophy overlords certainly seem to think so). I think that had it not been for the ATF, there would be far fewer DYKs (and new articles generally), articles rescued from deletion, the portal would not be half as well developed as it is now. There are two more important contributions, however. Firstly, the last year has seen a marked lack of factionalist disputes over content (with the exceptions of the left-libertarian AfD's which drove both left-libertarian and socialist sympathizers from the task force, and the ongoing issue of nationalist anarchism) compared to previous years. I think the taskforce has played a role in enforcing an inclusionist/pluralist attitude, through talkpages as well as the anarchism article, {{anarchism}}, topical outline of anarchism and the portal. Secondly, I personally feel a lot more inclined to take on large reform projects knowing there is a collective of editors interested in improving coverage of anarchism, (a) because I can raise suggestions and see if the interested editors think they are good ideas before implementing them, (b) because I can (help and) get help with the projects and (c) because I know I won't be treading on the toes of anyone, seeing as the majority of editors who care are taskforce members already. The downside of the past year has been the almost total stagnation of our core articles; at least when motivated factionalist editors were active, they were pouring a lot of effort into articles like Anarchism in Spain and Individualist anarchism. Now that we have improved and solidified a lot of the structure around anarchism articles (portal, templates, topical outline, stubs, articles for deletion, new articles and so on), I think we ought to turn our attention to, as Cast put it, cranking out Featured and Good Articles. Manifesto of the Sixteen and Egoist anarchism have been encouraging recent steps in that direction.
- As to Zazaban's suggestion that this be promoted to a WikiProject, I think that suggestion has some merit; the scope of this task force is considerably wider than many existing projects, and we are significantly more active than most taskforces (see link above). I also agree that there is little cross-pollination with WP:PHIL, and I feel a little silly slapping a "philosophy" template on articles like Moishe Tokar or Really Really Free Market. On a personal note, I contend that "Anarchism Task Force" is a sexier and less imperious name than "WikiProject Anarchism", and I for one would feel less subversive operating under the aegis of a WikiProject. For another thing, although we are more active than most taskforces, there are probably only a handful of editors who do anything ATF-related in an average week, and it would only take two or three editors becoming inactive for the whole thing to lose momentum. A broader issue here is the drive (Council-based) to incorporate as many minor WikiProjects as possible into existing larger infrastructures, to streamline assessment/co-ordination and prevent work groups from falling through the cracks. There is also the issue of task force assessment; we have abandoned importance ratings. My preferred solution to all of this is to make the ATF an autonomous task force (You see, we'd each take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week...) of WikiProject Philosophy and WikiProject Politics (and perhaps others); this would allow the ATF to remain in touch with the broader WikiProject edifice while giving us the independence to structure task force-level work how it best suits (obvious ones include important assessments and iconography); concentrate on how anarchism coverage could be best improved instead of relying on the default structures. If the ATF became dormant, it could be very easily folded back into WP:PHIL (more difficult if as a WikiProject).
- Those are my thoughts on these momentous issues for now, phew. I'd be interested in hearing suggestions on potential improvements to the ATF from other perspectives. Skomorokh 17:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, egoism at its best I see. Lovely. Zazaban (talk) 02:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Que? Skomorokh 03:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- We're in an autonomous union with the philosophy wikiproject, in which we both gain, thus allowing us to function at a high level and get a hell of a lot done. Zazaban (talk) 04:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Que? Skomorokh 03:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, egoism at its best I see. Lovely. Zazaban (talk) 02:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- Those are my thoughts on these momentous issues for now, phew. I'd be interested in hearing suggestions on potential improvements to the ATF from other perspectives. Skomorokh 17:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Ah! Sorry, so rare to spend time around those to whom "egoist" is not an insult. Aye, though I'm sure the socially inclined in our midst would call that mutual aid... Skomorokh 04:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I've continued to work on the project for a possible renovation of the ATF page. Consider taking another look at it now. New changes include that the vast majority of sections are now transcluded from subpages, to reduce to amount of coding one would dig through on an edit page. As a possible result of this, it becomes feasible to place whole sections of the main page into independent pages and include them in a tabbed format. This is basically what WikiProject Philosophy currently uses. This design has the advantage that each subsequent section would be short enough that a minimal amount of scrolling is necessary to navigate through a page. Any web designer will tell you it is best to have the key elements of a webpage on the section the viewer will first see without having to scroll down. That is why I put such a high prominence on that aspect of the page. However, this tabbed design means at least two pages will need to be actively watched: the main page, which itself will not change, but is tied to the ATF talk page; and the current projects page, which will be the work space of the project, and will change the most rapidly. There is, however, an option available to us that would make this tabbed design work with the need to only watch a single page. That would be that we redirect this talk page to the current project/priority talk page, and centralize all discussion there. The talk page for the work station then becomes the primary arena for discussing the work which is done concerning this task force. I present these ideas to you for your consideration. With my personal deadline of the 13th almost upon us, I do hope you are all happy with any of the above options. --Cast (talk) 08:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- I fully endorse the sandbox work, both here and at P:AN; be bold with the facelift and we can tinker with the details afterward. Great work, Skomorokh 20:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, in celebration of our one year anniversary, I've gone and made all of the necessary edits. I hope you're all happy with it. Now the question remaining: we should certainly merge all talk pages together, but to which page? We could navigate them all here, or towards the work station and centralize the number of pages needing watching down to just one. I understand that it can be a bit much to do, that I've thought it all out, and that I'm free over the weekend, so certainly I should take responsibility and handle it. Just tell me what you all want and I'll carry it out. Just a point of notice. If we route this talkspace elsewhere, I'll also need to request a history merge and redirect the archives too; a relatively simple matter. --Cast (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- Alright folks, it's all done. At least, for the most part. Due to a lack of responses (hope you're all enjoying your weekend) I went ahead and centralized all of the talk pages to the workstation talk page. Now you'll only need to add this page to your watch settings. For the most part, the majority of announcements and proposed projects will come through here, so dispite having multiple pages, we should be able to keep things simple. I hope you all find the new tabbed-layout productive and functional. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to explain how any of the coding works, and why I chose to do certain things the way I did them. And again, happy one-year anniversary everyone. Here's to another year for the ATF. --Cast (talk) 09:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Huzzah! I must say Cast, the pages look fantastic; it's hard to believe we were once dealing with this. The "Solidarity Among Rogues?" addition is a witty and erudite summation of the spirit of the task force. Profuse thanks for all your hard work. On the question of the talkpage, I really don't see any compelling reason to have it at /Anarchism/Workstation rather than /Anarchism. The latter is where outside editors expect the talkpage to be, and particularly where bots (e.g. [2]) will look to find us. Editors looking to contact the ATF might be discouraged when they click "talk" from the main page and end up at the "Workstation". I agree with redirecting all the talkpage, but I think /Anarchism ought to be the target rather than /Anarchism/Workstation. One extra watchlisted page does not seem to be an extravagant expense; all it would take is to drop a message on our colleagues' talkpages informing them of the facelift and asking them to watchlist the tabs they are invested in. Skomorokh 20:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Alright, well I'm glad you appreciate all of the effort. If you feel the talk page should go back, all of the redirects can be undone easily enough. I'm not too concerned with where new editors will expect to find us, as they can quickly catch on when they read the message at the top of this page. What does concern me are bots, which are not capable of understanding what they are working with, and would require a great deal of technical effort to rewrite just for our sakes. On that basis, I'll transfer everything back to the main talkspace. --Cast (talk) 23:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Finished centralizing the discussions back to the main talk space. Enjoy. --Cast (talk) 02:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Alright, well I'm glad you appreciate all of the effort. If you feel the talk page should go back, all of the redirects can be undone easily enough. I'm not too concerned with where new editors will expect to find us, as they can quickly catch on when they read the message at the top of this page. What does concern me are bots, which are not capable of understanding what they are working with, and would require a great deal of technical effort to rewrite just for our sakes. On that basis, I'll transfer everything back to the main talkspace. --Cast (talk) 23:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Huzzah! I must say Cast, the pages look fantastic; it's hard to believe we were once dealing with this. The "Solidarity Among Rogues?" addition is a witty and erudite summation of the spirit of the task force. Profuse thanks for all your hard work. On the question of the talkpage, I really don't see any compelling reason to have it at /Anarchism/Workstation rather than /Anarchism. The latter is where outside editors expect the talkpage to be, and particularly where bots (e.g. [2]) will look to find us. Editors looking to contact the ATF might be discouraged when they click "talk" from the main page and end up at the "Workstation". I agree with redirecting all the talkpage, but I think /Anarchism ought to be the target rather than /Anarchism/Workstation. One extra watchlisted page does not seem to be an extravagant expense; all it would take is to drop a message on our colleagues' talkpages informing them of the facelift and asking them to watchlist the tabs they are invested in. Skomorokh 20:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Alright folks, it's all done. At least, for the most part. Due to a lack of responses (hope you're all enjoying your weekend) I went ahead and centralized all of the talk pages to the workstation talk page. Now you'll only need to add this page to your watch settings. For the most part, the majority of announcements and proposed projects will come through here, so dispite having multiple pages, we should be able to keep things simple. I hope you all find the new tabbed-layout productive and functional. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to explain how any of the coding works, and why I chose to do certain things the way I did them. And again, happy one-year anniversary everyone. Here's to another year for the ATF. --Cast (talk) 09:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, in celebration of our one year anniversary, I've gone and made all of the necessary edits. I hope you're all happy with it. Now the question remaining: we should certainly merge all talk pages together, but to which page? We could navigate them all here, or towards the work station and centralize the number of pages needing watching down to just one. I understand that it can be a bit much to do, that I've thought it all out, and that I'm free over the weekend, so certainly I should take responsibility and handle it. Just tell me what you all want and I'll carry it out. Just a point of notice. If we route this talkspace elsewhere, I'll also need to request a history merge and redirect the archives too; a relatively simple matter. --Cast (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Tinkering
- On the Recognized content page, is it possible to make the FA and GA icons click through to WP:FA and WP:GA respectively? I've tried to do it using {{click}} (as in User:Cast/iconstasis) but couldn't get the alignment right.
- On the same page, can we put the whitespace to the right of "Good articles" to use? I tried to split the good articles over two columns so as to avoid having to use a scrollbox, but it broke up the numbering.
- Same with the DYK section - it seems pointless to scroll if we can columnise instead.
- On the main page, Category:Unassessed Anarchism articles has gone missing again.
- Is there a point to the redlinked "Anarchism topics"?
- I suggest the sequence of tabs be reconsidered; at present the "recognized content" and "resources" tabs seem like afterthoughts. How about:
- Main - the introduction to the ATF
- Recognized content - what we've done so far
- Workstation - what we're doing at the moment
- Resources - what we are using to do it
- Participate - how you can help with what we're doing
- Under this schema, if a reader is interested enough to flick through the tabs, they will end up at Participate - right where we want to snare them. Thoughts? Skomorokh 20:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Lots to respond to here. Thanks for all of your input. I'll respond in the same order as your notes, to keep everything well ordered.
- I have not considered making the images links. I'll refresh my memory on the process, but my first thought is not to hold out much hope for it. I don't recall seeing it done much, and I doubt that is for a lack of trying on the part of other editors. I tried something similar on the portal and found it problematic.
- The white space may seem excessive on certain widescreen formats, while on smaller resolution screens they will be compressed. I tried to take the smaller resolution screens into account and accepted white space at the side as a small price to pay. I cannot make multi-column number lists in order. If we should decide to drop the number lists in favor of bullet lists, this becomes completely possible. The question here is, do we want viewers to be able to immediately recognize how many DYKs, Good articles, and potentially in the future, Featured articles, we have?
- The DYK list presents us with alternative options. Originally I wanted to compress the DYK list next to the GA and FA lists, and so turning it into a scrolling list made a great deal of sense. Since we can't break it into columns without destroying the numbering system, we could swap the GA articles into a single column with the FA articles, or break both of those into their own sections. At present, having the first section for both GA and FA lists headed as "Recognized content" takes away from the fact that everything on the page is recognized content. These two sections can be relabeled GA and FA, respectively, and set into a single vertical column. DYKs can then be turned retained as a scrolling bar, but be placed next to them. This was the format used previously. Compare this to the current Metaphysics Task Force page, which displays the original coding that inspired the new ATF format.
- The missing Category:Unassessed Anarchism articles goes completely over my head. Not only did I not touch them, but I didn't even recognize they were gone. I'll fiddle around to see what happened, but I hope you understand that I don't know how to address that.
- The {{TopicTOC-Anarchism}} template was part of a larger formatting project I wanted to take on prior to this face lift. I was planning on basing our own TOC formats on those loosely presented on the list of index templates, and recognized that a lot of effort would need to go into creating something in line with those already created, but also organic and uniquely suited to the layout of anarchism related topics. As I'm sure you're aware, these types of projects require a great deal of foresight and effort if you don't just let them develop organically. With the decision to push this face lift forward, I rushed the template out before the content for it was ready. It's a cart-before-the-horse scenario. It wouldn't be a problem to delete the redlinks, but it would be just as easy to create stubs for those needed sections. For now I'll remove them.
- The current tabs order is based on the former main sections of the task force page. Each tab is essentially a section of the page, broken up, with sub-sections given pretty frames. Not much thought went into it beyond that, since I figured if the layout was fine before, it would be fine after. However, you are right to reconsider this. Tabs are not the same as a table of contents. I think your suggested arrangement for the tabs is well thought out and I'll carry it forward.
- Keep those ideas coming. I've noticed that you've already started making edits on several of the pages. What do you think of the coding? I tried to label everything for ease of use, but it may be possible to streamline these even more so. I transformed all of the coding on the workstation into a transposed page so the workspace would be clutter free. This could possibly—emphasis on possibly—be done on the rest of the pages. I didn't do that because it could increase the number of pages that would need monitoring. It all comes down to what task force members find easier to use. --Cast (talk) 20:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, I've managed to transform images on the Recognized Content page into links, and created a new layout for the whole page. Tell me what you think. Again, if the coding is too confusing, we may be able to do something about that. What I really want to plan for is a scenario where I'm not available and a hypothetical new editor can pick up where I left off, without ever having been around to witness this entire transformation. If they can pick it up as they go with no instruction, I left it in good condition. I've had to completely educate myself on the creation of these tabs, with no assistance, by dissecting the coding in my sandbox. I want this to be easier on the rest of you. --Cast (talk) 06:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Anybody got time
to deal with this deletion? Murderbike (talk) 01:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I had a look (have your talkpage watched), but I can't imagine the author of the photograph is dead 70+ years (so not public domain) or that there aren't free images of the column available somewhere (so fails WP:NFCC criterion 8). Cast probably has more experience with images. Skomorokh 03:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I don't have the kind of experience with images you might be imagining. I could only suggest emailing the administrators of the Sparticus Educational website and asking them for the origin of the image, and if it was released to the public. Note that anonymous artworks are only protected by copyright for 50 years from their point of creation, so if this is anonymous, it will be possible to upload it to the commons. Also, if it is saved or re-uploaded, don't state that the individuals are historically notable. I don't recognize any of them as being so. Instead, just state that as members of a notable group, the photo is notable. That's the path to victory in these kinds of issues. --Cast (talk) 04:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Greece
Don't know if y'all have been paying attention or not, but the talk page at 2008 Greek riots is pretty hot, and the article under protection now. Murderbike (talk) 22:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I propose, since it seems a lot of the rioters are anarchists, the article should be added to category:anarchism, and possible have a mention in history of anarchism, if only a point on a timeline. Zazaban (talk) 22:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
- I appreciate that you've noticed this article, which I wasn't aware of yet. It's important that the ATF have a presence in these affairs, as there is the possibility that anti-anarchist prejudice will creep in from bias' held by Wikipedia editors, enhanced by mainstream media sources giving voice to their biased assumptions. Although it is not our place to see to it that the article paints a rosy picture of anarchists involved in the event, we can certainly demand objectivity in the reporting of the events. I also agree that this should be included on a Timeline of anarchist history. I've set up a userspace for creating an anarchist history template in tune with the Timeline of United States history. My hope is that we'll eventually be able to tie it in with the History of anarchism article, the section on history in the Topical outline of anarchism list, and the facts used on the Portal:Anarchism/Anniversaries system. This event can certainly be included in it. I've also been considering renaming our List of anarchist movements by region into an index of "anarchist history by region" (not all of them have anarchist movements—India had no anarchist movement, but it does have "anarchist history"), or such. But that's a major overhaul, and I can only handle so many major ATF projects at a time. The point would simply be to tighten up the cross referencing between historical event articles on anarchism. That would also put this Greece Riot article, and other articles like it, into a global and historical context, if we could include it on a timeline of anarchist history.--Cast (talk) 01:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I've stayed away from this article because I haven't come across much in the way of reliable sources that discuss the anarchist dimension to the whole thing. Anyone seen any? Skomorokh 01:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Man, almost every reference to anarchism has been removed from this article. Discussion has started, but isn't getting far, and I don't have the time to deal with it. Murderbike (talk) 21:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
- After a quick google news search, I found several reliable sources (uh, by wikipedia standards that is) talking about the anarchist presence in the riots. If anyone wants to try to work the info in, a lot of users are working really hard to keep the info out. Seems like just what this taskforce should be taking care of right now. Murderbike (talk) 23:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't been able to follow this developing article due to other priorities off the internet, and what time I reserve for wikipedia I've spent on other articles. I'll make a commitment to addressing these issues as best I can in the next few days. --Cast (talk) 02:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Ian McKay / Iain McKay
On the Workstation page, it said "Iain McKay - An Anarchist FAQ chief author; is this the same hombre as Ian McKay (historian)?" - it's not. Ian is a Canadian historian, and Iain is a Scottish anarchist that used to edit Black Flag. I just deleted it from the page as I'm not really sure of the procedure (I'm new to all this!) - was that the right thing to do? SetaLyas (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- I re-added it, without mention of Ian. Although I'm not sure why you thought to delete it. Zazaban (talk) 23:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
- Welcome to the task force. Glad to see a fresh face ready to jump in enthusiastically. Thanks for clarifying the Ian/Iain confusion, but Iain is still a subject someone wanted to create an article on. The point of that section of the workstation is that these are topics an editor would like to create an article for, but due to the general obscurity of anarchism in mainstream media, sources can be hard to come by. Deletion isn't generally necessary unless you can confirm that there is no way the topic could possibly be notable. Iain could still possibly be notable, so there's no reason to remove the entry just yet. I think we should change the format to include the signatures of those who added the topic, so we can track who wanted to create the article, ask if they are still interested in the topic, or let them know that sources are/aren't available. --Cast (talk) 04:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- Gotcha. Sorry about the deletion off the workstation page Zazaban - I was confused, and thought that the only reason that bullet point was there was to find out if the two Ia(i)ns were the same person (I didn't realise it was actually because someone wanted to do an article on Ian, and were just positing a connection to another radical Iain) ^_^ SetaLyas (talk) 21:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
- The fact that its not the same person actually gives it even more reason to be there. Zazaban (talk) 02:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
- Gotcha. Sorry about the deletion off the workstation page Zazaban - I was confused, and thought that the only reason that bullet point was there was to find out if the two Ia(i)ns were the same person (I didn't realise it was actually because someone wanted to do an article on Ian, and were just positing a connection to another radical Iain) ^_^ SetaLyas (talk) 21:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
We're nearly done!
Over at User:Zazaban/Egoist anarchism we are nearly done- all we need are a few more sources, many from The Ego and Its Own. We could use some help, so if anyone can spare the time, that would be great. Zazaban (talk) 02:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)