User talk:Andrew Sylvia

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Contents 1 Welcome 1.1 Reply from Centerfielder 1.2 Reply from AlanF 1.3 Idea 1.4 Image Thumbnails 1.5 ReCaptcha 1.6 Reply from Darrelljon 2 Anarcho-communism is not an Anachronism 3 Content

Welcome

Welcome. Yes, this place is thinly populated.

One of the problems is that we're not strictly NPOV, seeing things from a more progressive view. Some take this to mean the gloves are off and you can say what you want without censure. Despite admonitions to avoid adjectives and make sure to source everything, conflicts arise: "what you've written is inflammatory" vs. "don't fucking censor me." You can understand where that leads.

A second problem is one of visibility. This is a companion project to Daily Kos, but the dKos audience hasn't taken to it. I'm not sure what to do about that exactly, other than to proselytize to deaf ears in a dKos diary on occasion. If you'd like to do that as well it couldn't hurt.

Some of the approaches I've tried to take have been:

• Find some "action diary" and create a space for those expressing interest in that diary's topic to use. This has worked in the past -- see Congressional Committees Project and, as you've seen, The dKosopedia Category Project -- but interest has either not been sustained or the project was spun off into some other entity. This latter is not so bad, I guess, since dKp served a useful purpose in getting it going.
• Ask in a dKos diary for someone to take on a specific topic and shepherd that through it's growth. User:AlanF is sort of managing the topic of election fraud, but few others want to help.

Often one person will take something and run with it. Over the years User:Jbet777 has fleshed out pages on Hawaiian politics and it may now be one of the internet's best resources on that topic.

Don't worry abut stepping on toes. If you have any suggestions for getting the larger dKos community to help out, by all means try them. What I really want to insist on is that contributions be noninflammatory and sourced. It's ok to have opinions, but for the dKosopedia to be taken seriously we have to treat our passions with dispassion. The Republican Sex Scandals page is Google's top hit when you google "republian sex scandals," so it needs to be accurate, matter of fact, and non-inflammatory. This is often difficult to enforce, but necessary. (It also means there should be a corresponding Democratic Sex Scandals, but there is none.)

Anyway, like I say, welcome.

--Centerfielder 11:28, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Reply from Centerfielder

Re: NPOV. Yes, I'm all for NPOV, especially as I believe reality has a progressive bias. I've gotten pretty good results with eliminating adjectives and requiring sources. --Centerfielder 14:48, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Reply from AlanF

To be precise, I'm currently maintaining two sets of pages: the Voting Rights pages (of which election fraud is only a small part) and the Progressive talk radio pages. Both have been solo enterprises, though occasionally someone has made a change to one of the pages. --AlanF 18:15, 3 December 2008 (EST)

Idea

At the moment, the problem isn't so much that policies, such as they are, aren't being followed, it's that there are so few contributors. There's not enough people adding content to comprise a Legislature. I think geting bodies in the seats should be the first order of business. --Centerfielder 17:56, 29 November 2008 (EST)

I agree, but I figured it might be a gimmick to get people involved while fixing another problem: setting some guidelines for this project to make it run better. Andrew Sylvia 18:09, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Image Thumbnails

The dKp was recently ported from my servers to the dKos servers, and I don't know if ct (the dKos tech guy) has set up gd on his boxes. He's pretty busy, so unless you really need thumbnails that should probably be put on a to-do list. --Centerfielder 17:56, 29 November 2008 (EST)

I was just wondering how to get images on. I put up List of current United States Governors, mostly from Wikipedia via the GNU License, but I wasn't able to bring over one of the photos and I figured I should wait until the technical side was fixed. Andrew Sylvia 18:08, 29 November 2008 (EST)

ReCaptcha

The ReCaptcha was put in after a spambot attack. i think it's only triggered if an edit contains an external link. It's disabled for admins, and you need to be around for a while to become one. --Centerfielder 08:44, 6 December 2008 (EST)

Reply from Darrelljon

Hi, you've edited the List of Left-Wing Parties in the United Kingdom to include the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats are not a left-wing party in the UK, they are a centrist party, I should know, I used to be a active member of them.--Darrelljon 10:57, 26 December 2008 (EST)

• The Lib Dems have never been a member of the Socialist International (Labour are).
• The Lib Dems have never given unions a third of votes to elect the leader (Labour do).
• The Lib Dems have never been funded by the trade unions (Labour are).
• The Lib Dems leaders wife has never proudly called the leader a socialist (This year Cherie Blair said Labour leader Tony Blair was a socialist)
• The Lib Dems constitution, members or leaders have never been left-wing (Labours constitution and members are - even if the last 3 leaders have been more right-wing than centrist Lib Dem leaders).
• The Lib Dems originally formed from a group breaking away from Labour from the right-wing (called the SDP).

See the Political Compass--Darrelljon 09:51, 27 December 2008 (EST)

• I don't think the US perspective on "left-wing" should apply to the article about the UK.
• An objective definition of left-wing might be redistributing wealth from rich to poor.
• According to the Anarchist FAQ, Anarchism is a left-wing ideology and "Anarcho-capitalism" is not true Anarchism at all since it accepts the concept of private property.
• "Anarcho-capitalist" parties may exist but Anarchist Federation, Class War and Solidarity Federation would all describe themselves as left-wing and none of them would describe themselves as "anarcho-capitalist".
• However, if you want to change the sub-heading "Anarchists" to "Left-wing Anarchists" or "Anarchists who would describe themselves as left-wing" feel free.
• I'd favour keeping the article entitled "Left-Wing" as it encompasses the broadest spectrum.
• "Socialist" wouldn't encompass the Lib Dems and would exclude IWCA, Green and possibly Labour. It might also blur the distinction between socialist parties, trotskyist and communist parties.
• "Liberal" is even more subjective and has a totally different meaning in the US compared to the rest of the world. Why use the US definition of "liberal" in a article about the UK? Also to describe Maoists like the CPGB-ML as "liberal" seems strange. Even in the rest of world, the definition of "Liberal" could exclude all the communist parties, trotskyist parties and most of the socialist parties.

--Darrelljon 14:59, 27 December 2008 (EST)

Anarcho-communism is not an Anachronism

• It's not so much that the two countries have different definitions of "liberal", as the US definition of "liberal" is different from the rest of the (English speaking) worlds. In the interests of objectivity I would agree to avoiding this term altogether.
• However, the definition of "left-wing" is agreed worldwide, albeit with the duopoly electoral illusion in the US that because the Democrats are left of the Republicans ergo they are "left-wing".
• The Political Compass provides the closest thing to an objective comparison on which libertarians and authoritarians can be compared with communists and capitalists.
• IMHO, the Democrats are a right-wing party for many reasons including being pro-business and anti-"single-payer healthcare". Nevertheless I have included them on List of Left-Wing Parties in the United States because it should be from a US perspective.
• While it could be argued that, as a US site, dkospedia should provide a US perspective, I'd suggest in an article about UK parties, it should either be from a UK perspective or International perspective (not US perspective).
• So, apart from being in the US and the Lib Dems being left of the Democrats, is there any other reason (preferably policy based) why you think the Lib Dems are "left-wing"?
• An attempt at an objective international definition of "left-wing" might include (not solely though) redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. Why wouldn't this include Maoists and Communists?
• Anarchy and communism aren't opposites (the Anarchy Federation UK even call themselves anarcho-communists!). Maybe study anarcho-communism at Wikipedia.
• It is a myth that communism invariably amounts to totalitarianism. Among the famous communists who opposed power structures and totalitarianism are Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta and Nestor Makhno.
• I'm grateful for your comments/feedback and hope you're not misunderstanding this as a personal disagreement rather than an ideological one.

--Darrelljon 08:51, 28 December 2008 (EST)

Content

Andrew, this is primarily a political wiki. However, we've allowed (limited) non-political content with the view that those adding non-political content may be more prone to sticking around and adding political content. But much as we admire her smile, we'd frown on someone creating, for example, a shrine to Jessica Alba on dKosopedia.

And to ad to a current conversation, this is primarily a wiki of American politics. So while entries on European (or South American or ...) politics are welcome, keep in mind that the average reader will most likely be approaching the article in need of some background or with a different set of definitions. --Centerfielder 11:54, 28 December 2008 (EST)