Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Che y Marijuana

It appears that Viajero may be correct that this dispute does not belong as a user RfC. The main RfC page says: "Disputes over the writing of articles, including disputes over how best to follow the NPOV policy, belong in the Article content disputes section above." As far as I'm aware, this is about the only thing being disputed. On the other hand, the same page says: "This section is for discussing specific users who have allegedly violated Wikipedia policies and guidelines", which seems a little contradictory, considering that NPOV is the most important policy. Still, unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't, I guess I'm going to have to rescind my certification. This seems unfortunate, because, while this matter is already listed as a content RfC, nobody seems to pay very much attention to content RfCs, so it appears that this will abandon any hope of getting anywhere with the pages in question. - Nat Krause 13:20, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think given the evidence of bad faith on Che y Marijuana's part (masking substantial content edits by marking them "minor") and his avowed POV that coincides with the skew of his edits, it seems like this goes beyond a content dispute and crosses the line to a personal dispute when one person seems to be evangelizing his political program across multiple articles.

I don't even blame him for it, really. His POV is so strong, his conception of reality so tinted, that he has come to believe that his POV is fact. This makes him a hindrance across the anarchist articles, even if he is a good-faith substantive contributor on other articles.

Really, my two alternatives on RfC were to list multiple articles and under the listing for each article, say that Che y Marijuana was responsible for what I'm complaining about; or to list Che y Marijuana. Philwelch 17:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Once in a while, I have mislabelled as minor edits some that weren't by forgetting to uncheck that box, but as exemplified by my edit at Anti-Globalization, I usually mention it either in the talk page or in my next edit, apologizing for the mix up. As for my POV, I have my own POV, but that does not mean I cannot make a rational edit based in fact. And in this case, I am completely basing myself in fact.-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 20:26, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Your perception of fact is perhaps tinted by your POV. Regardless, you have in the past masked your POV-mongering as "minor edits", and been unapologetic about it when called on it. Philwelch 21:45, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The only situation where I have been "called on it" and been unappologetic is the deletion of one line, the listing of Anarcho-Capitalism at the top in the list of schools of anarchism. Which, is one word, and as such is a minor edit.-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 21:52, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia:Minor edit (emphasis added):

The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth relooking at for somebody who wants to watch the article rather closely, so any "real" change, even if it is a single word, is a major edit. This feature is important, because users can choose to hide minor edits in their view of the Recent Changes page, to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.

Reverts to a disputed page are unlikely to be minor. When a page is disputed, and especially if an edit war is brewing or in full eruption -- then it's better not to mark ANY edit as minor: not unless you're sure that all other users will agree it's minor, like correcting a misspelling.

Philwelch 22:43, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah, very well, that was a mistake on my part then. I just changed my prefs.-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 22:47, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Philwelch should stop harrassing good editors like Che.  :) — Helpful Dave 00:16, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, in his short time of editing the anarchism related pages Phil has gone out of his way to demonstrate a considerable bias. His only reason for making this RfC page is an attempt to try to silence someone who dared obstruct his efforts to riddle the anarchism pages with capitalist POV. Kev 05:44, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm a frequent opponent of his, and will continue to fight to get a fair balance in the anarchism articles, but like some others above I don't really think a user RfC is the proper tool for this; the issue is a content disagreement, not a user offense. The user in question's tendency to mark edits as "minor" when they involved major ideological change was possibly deserving of action against him, but he has said he won't do this any more; the remaining disputes don't rise to the level of sanctionable action, in my opinion. The only solution is for more reasonable people (aka capitalists :-) ) to participate in the editing of the anarchism articles to counteract the POV of the socialists. *Dan* 11:13, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Dan (Dtobias) that some of Che y's reverts, which were marked as minor, were objectionable on procedural grounds. However, since there was no real concerted effort to resolve that particular problem before, and since he has promised not to do it anymore, there can't be an RfC for it. So, I've reluctantly decided to rescind my certification of this RfC.

Incidentally, I know that Dan was joking, but I'd still like to say that the articles in question need more editors to get involved with them, and ideally they should be people without any axe to grind. User:Snowspinner, who worked on anarchism a while back, took a position more aggressively than anyone else in the direction that Kev and Che y describe as "capitalist propaganda", but I don't think anyone's ever accused Snowspinner of being a right-winger. - Nat Krause 14:46, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Snowspinner's attempt were actually far more NPOV than yours. At the same time, he didn't entirely understand the subject, and I'm sure that if he had taken the time to fully educate himself on it he would have been less predisposed to fall for the kinds of tactics that capitalists have been using to push their POV in those articles. Kev 23:21, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Just a small point about all legitimate anarchists supposedly being leftwing: as an example of a study of rightwing anarchism, Anarchy, State, and Utopia — a famous and influential book by Robert Nozick — examines the idea of a minimal, anarcho-capitalist state, though the overall thrust of the book is libertarian, not anarchist. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:47, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Nothing surprising there, Nozick's book came into waters long since muddied by Rothbard and others who claimed the anarchist tradition while going out of their way to minimize or flat out dismiss all of the essential ideas of the tradition they were claiming. That Nozick makes a mistake in accepting the anarcho-capitalist attempt to redefine anarchism is not evidence, in itself, to any legitimacy of claims on their part. Evidence of legitimacy to anarcho-capitalist claims of tradition within anarchism would be evidence that the individualist anarchists who supposedly "inspired" anarcho-capitalists would have remotely accepted capitalist ideology as a genuine branch of the free-market anarchism individualists had developed. The only problem with this is that anyone who has ever read an individualist knows that they all denounced capitalism, usually quite explicitly. Thus we get the never-ending attempts to explain how one could, in theory, have capitalism without property, or capitalism without wage and rent, or how when so-and-so said "socialism" he meant something different than what modern anarchists means, or when so-and-so said "capitalism" he meant something different than what modern anarcho-capitalists mean, or how such-and-such single line out of a single essay should be read in isolation from the rest of the texts of the author because doing so just might put capitalism in a not-so-negative light if we squint our eyes really hard. Kev 14:40, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kev, as usual, assumes the answer before he begins. Nozick's use of "anarchism" isn't relevant because, well, he's not using it the way anarchists use it. Well, we already know he's not talking about anarchism in the sense that you use it. But, what we have here is an excellent example of the word "anarchism" being used in a different sense in a high-profile book by an author who is taken seriously in mainstream academe (although the author is not the libertarian most worthy of acclaim, we'll take what we can get). Nozick's readership, to my knowledge, did not react with confusion or derision at his "mistake", and I would be surprised to learn that anyone had ever suggested he change the title to Statelessness, the State, and Utopia, or something like that. This doesn't show, nor do I claim, that Nozick's use is the only acceptable use of the word "anarchy", but it is evidence that it is one acceptable use. Nat Krause 09:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC) (incidentally, I think this discussion would be of interest to the general editorship of Anarchism, so I am going to copy it to Talk:Anarchism -- I hope nobody minds)