ProleWiki | |
|---|---|
 The logo of ProleWiki, a globe featuring a star and wheat emblem, historically communist symbols | |
 Main page of English ProleWiki | |
| Type | Online encyclopedia |
| Available in | 7 languages |
| Founded | 30 September, 2020 |
| Founder | Comrade Forte |
| Key people | CriticalResist, MxAsh |
| Users | 16 active users 411 registered users |
| URL | prolewiki.org |
ProleWiki is a free, collaborative Marxist-Leninist encyclopedia founded in September 2020 aiming to build an anti-imperialist proletarian online collection of pages and essays with information on history, current events, communist parties worldwide, and countries, as well as hosting a library of texts important to the international proletarian movement.
ProleWiki was conceived and created in the community of Lemmygrad, which is a communist community using the open-source software Lemmy. As of October 2022, ProleWiki is available in seven languages and has over 1,700 articles and 530,000 page views.[1]
History
ProleWiki was created in 30 September 2020 by current ProleWiki administrator Forte. The project began under his sole administration for some time, receiving a casual help from several contributors on technical aspects, the most important of which was MxAsh. She helped with organizing the database, maintaining the server and establishing regular backups if needed.
On 1 November, 2020, user Jucheguevara joined ProleWiki, which would later become an administrator. In the month of November, ProleWiki received a mass influx of account creations and spam accounts,[2] prompting the administration to implement an account request system.[3] In 16 November, current ProleWiki administrator CriticalResist joined the project.[2] Jucheguevara was made an administrator in 30 November and CriticalResist in 5 February 2021, along with several other members of ProleWiki, in an effort to diminish the centralization of tasks into a single person.[4] Eventually, the effort was ineffective as the administration group suffered with absenteeism, and eventually the administrators would have their functions revoked months later.[4] The administrators who remained committed to the project then was Jucheguevara, Forte and CriticalResist.
On 29 December 2021, ProleWiki editor Ledlecreeper27 joined the project.[2] He brought the project to new heights through his extremely quality contributions spanning several subjects. As of 2022, he is the most prolific editor of ProleWiki.[5]
Purge of patriotic socialists
In September 2022, Jucheguevara worked with Infrared in an attempt to infiltrate ProleWiki with MAGA communists and patriotic socialists. He was banned on 27 September 2022.[6] Following the purge of patsocs, banned members of ProleWiki created InfraWiki on 13 October to promote settler colonialism and social conservatism.[7] On 22 October, ProleWiki added opposition to chauvinism and patriotic socialism to its principles.
Wisconcom incident
In June 2022, self-declared Hoxhaist user Wisconcom joined ProleWiki. He was a competent editor and overall improved many articles on ProleWiki, reaching 4th in all time edits up until the end of 2022.[5] However, in ProleWiki's Discord server, Wisconcom had conflicts with editors related to his behavior in addition to ideological conflict, but due to his prolific editing he was allowed to stay. For the most part he respected the line of ProleWiki, even though he did not agree with it.
In August 2022, Wisconcom began to oppose ProleWiki's principles in the talk page of the Socialist market economy article.[8] The discussion was shared in Lemmygrad, where Wisconcom engaged with others sometimes insulting them.[9] Because of his behavior, he was eventually banned from Lemmygrad, but later created another account to evade his ban.
After creating a community for Hoxhaism in Lemmygrad dedicated exclusively to anti-China propaganda, Lemmygrad administrators called for a collective debate on the issue in the People's Court of Lemmygrad,[10] and it was decided that Wisconcom would be banned for ban-evading and anti-communist propaganda. Even though he was banned in Lemmygrad, he was allowed to continue in ProleWiki. What started with honest engagements with ProleWiki's editors would gradually evolve to name-calling and general disruptive behavior. Wisconcom would then edit articles to oppose the consensus of the editors without consultation and also engage in a dishonest manner with others, even resorting to lying and editing his messages after sending it to make it look like he said something different.
He retired on 17 October after being severely criticized for his behavior. Just 3 days later, he came back demanding that he had a higher authority over ProleWiki "to ensure that no unfair rejections of anti-revisionists takes place."[11] After arguing with administrators and condemning ProleWiki and Lemmygrad, he was banned on 21 October.[12] Following his ban, he has attempted infiltrating ProleWiki through several means and even manage to deface some ProleWiki articles in German. He has denounced ProleWiki as promoting "Dengist revisionist ideology."[13]
He used his account in RationalWiki to spread anti-China propaganda and denounce ProleWiki as "tankie", "pro-CCP", "whitewashing Chinese imperialism".[14] He even called China a fascist state.[13] This event was shared on Lemmygrad,[15] and in response to this, Wisconcom briefly renamed his account on RationalWiki to "Fiscornius"[16] (a username he had already used on lemmygrad for an alt) and created another fake account on Lemmygrad.[17]
Working principles
International solidarity
The name chosen for ProleWiki was based on the term "proletariat", whose root "prole" you may find in common with very different Western languages: proletariat, proletariado, prolétariat, proletariato, proletariaat, etc.. This linguistic phenomenon accurately reflects the internationalist aim of the encyclopedia.
Free encyclopedia
ProleWiki is a free encyclopedia, in more ways than one.
Firstly, the encyclopedia has no price attached. It is free to access without payment as well as copy for private use.
Secondly, the encyclopedia is free because any comrade is eligible to apply for an account (a measure installed to combat spam) and start editing.
Finally, ProleWiki is free in the sense of free software. The content found on ProleWiki is generally free to use by anyone for their own needs.
Collaborative work
ProleWiki is also a collaborative project, meaning that most everyone is welcome to make an account and start editing. The encyclopedia does not belong to one person specifically, and relies instead on the labour of many editors who also give their inputs on decisions regarding the direction ProleWiki takes.
References
- ↑ "Statistics". ProleWiki. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 ProleWiki logs on user creation
- ↑ Camarada Forte (2020-11-16). "Enjoy ProleWiki's first spam attack" Lemmygrad.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 ProleWiki logs on user rights
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 ProleWiki contribution scores
- ↑ @felipeforte (2022-09-27). "Jucheguevara has been removed from administrative positions" Lemmygrad.
- ↑ "InfraWiki" (2022-11-21). InfraWiki. Retrieved 2022-11-25.
- ↑ Topic on Socialist market economy talk page
- ↑ Camarada Forte (2022-08-16). "Discussion about socialist market economy. Does socialism have commodity production? Is China a capitalist country because it has commodity production?" Lemmygrad.
- ↑ Black Tulip (2022-08-26). "The Admins want your opinion on the Hoxhaism community. [RESOLVED"] Lemmygrad.
- ↑ Topic on the talk page of ProleWiki administrator Forte
- ↑ "Blocked users". ProleWiki. Retrieved 2022-11-26.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Wisconcom (2022-11-13). "On ProleWiki" Substack.
- ↑ Wisconcom (2022-11-03). "Revision of the page "Wiki" as of 02:08, 3 November 2022" RationalWiki.
- ↑ @felipeforte (2022-11-13). "Wisconcom has made edits on RationalWiki claiming we are "pro-CCP" propaganda" Lemmygrad. Retrieved 2022-11-26.
- ↑ “I request to have my username changed to "Fiscornus", [my] present username just doesn't feel right for me.”
Wisconcom (2022-11-03). "Revision of the page "RationalWiki:Requests to change username" as of 20:20, 13 November 2022" RationalWiki. - ↑ @Leninimusundthings (Wisconcom) (2022-11-13). "Comment on "Wisconcom has made edits on RationalWiki claiming we are "pro-CCP" propaganda"" Lemmygrad. Retrieved 2022-11-27.