Topic on ProleWiki:Hub

closing old (2 years+) topics

ProleWiki was started in September 2020 with much fanfare. In the early months already, dozens of editors had joined and believed in the project. This early success forced the project to quickly adopt mechanisms to ensure its survival and continuity, which we will detail in this document.

This document is not binding to our principles; it details how ProleWiki acts, and how it has been acting in the past. It was written and validated by the administration team, consisting currently of Forte and CriticalResist.

While ProleWiki strives to establish a proper democratic centralist structure, we have learned from the past that it is not currently feasible based on our numbers.

ProleWiki remains quite young. We passed our 2 year anniversary just a month ago. Due to the very large scope such a project entails, we have lots of decisions to make -- on editing guidelines, on principles, on who to let in as an editor, on pages to patrol for changes, etc. These decisions require decisional power guided by the original vision set out for ProleWiki, the reason it was founded: to be a proletarian encyclopedia for Marxist-Leninist learning.

Furthermore, we need to protect our aims and objectives (as found in the Principles) and due to our activity and interest from many comrades with different ideological outlooks (as well as outright detractors, for example fascists), the administration believes it needs to have this decisional power to safeguard the project.

The administration was not always what it is. In the early days of ProleWiki, we saw a lot of hype and the administration team was gigantic, to say the least. This was a mistake; it was too early to make an assembly out of the administration. It became impossible to take any decision as not everyone was equally interested in participating. Soon, ideological differences came up without any way of settling them. We were paralysed and spent more time in struggle sessions than actually writing on the wiki. That was about the time we decided to make our principles clear.

The administrators remaining after this initial wave were simply those that stayed interested in the project and did not leave. One was invited but left due to lack of time to commit, another was removed for betraying the project, leaving just two administrators currently. New administrators are approached individually based on their trustworthiness, involvement in the project, and general personality. While we are only two administrators, we would like to form a triumvirate of three administrators at the very least so as to diversify our range of ideas and capacity to act.

At this time, we look for administrators that align with the principles of the project. Learning from our past, we do not want a repeat of the fiasco from when the administrator team included anyone that momentaneously wanted in.

There remains lots of work to do on the wiki. Our editorial guidelines, our principles did not come out of nowhere, but were the results of days and weeks of assessing, debating, and writing – labour. To say nothing of the technical aspects, such as setting up and maintaining hosting, bringing outside talent to the project when needed, setting up namespaces, templates, and other MediaWiki software specificities. We cannot, at this time, be bogged down in struggle sessions or looking over the shoulder of every editor to patrol their edits. Not while we are so few to participate.

Currently, our editors act mostly as auditors towards the administration. They are encouraged to voice their criticisms on our principles and decisions, but the decision remains with the administration. This is the only way ProleWiki is currently able to function and keep working.

Editors have to request an account on the wiki by answering questions, which the administrator team can either accept or deny. These questions are based on our principles. Originally, this measure was put in place to counter spam from bot accounts. However, we soon found it necessary to keep this measure in place so as to avoid defacement. It did happen, before this measure was in place, that people anonymously edited pages to fit their biases. This would mean extra work from our editors to undo the defacement – time that could be spent on writing instead. These defacers usually are not interested in helping the wiki or actually providing knowledge, they are interested either in undermining the project or being contrarians to the "established" outlook of ProleWiki. Essentially, without any interest for the well-being of ProleWiki and appreciation for the work that went into providing them this platform, they use it as their personal soapbox.

We must remember that ProleWiki exists on the internet and is not in charge of a country. There are people online, and we have had to deal with them, that want nothing more than to wreck projects, or care more about the purity of the ideological content than actually building something. Whereas in real life they would be investigated before their attempt or even be powerless to effect change, on ProleWiki they would find their voice amplified if left to their own devices.

Conversely, we have accepted users that did not agree 100% with our principles and let them edit on the wiki as well, to encourage different viewpoints and interpretations of Marxism-Leninism.

Our current system evidently works and rarely gives rise to difficulties or issues. In two years of existence, we have found active editors and the wiki now contains almost 1800 articles, with many being incredibly detailed. This averages out to 2.5 articles a day. People that are interested in simply writing can do so without worrying about the politics going on behind ProleWiki, and the people that want to take a more involved role can submit requests to the administration for discussion.

ProleWiki remains a Marxist-Leninist encyclopedia as an inalienable principle of the project. ProleWiki is not Wikipedia, and does not claim to be neutral or unbiased. ProleWiki is not a catch-all Marxist encyclopedia that lets all currents and ideologies express themselves equally: it is a proletarian encyclopedia, and we believe Marxism-Leninism to be the most advanced revolutionary theory towards the liberation of the proletariat.

I have some questions on points that I would like elaboration on:

While ProleWiki strives to establish a proper democratic centralist structure, we have learned from the past that it is not currently feasible based on our numbers.

• What experience (or event) did you derive this from?
• Why would a democratic centralist structure not work in small numbers?
• How many (active) users are on Prolewiki?

Conversely, we have accepted users that did not agree 100% with our principles and let them edit on the wiki as well, to encourage different viewpoints and interpretations of Marxism-Leninism.

• Is there a system of thought that corresponds to when users don't need to agree with certain principles?

> What experience (or event) did you derive this from?

In the very beginning of the project, we brought many editors and let most of them into what we now call administrative positions. They did not necessarily have access to accounts and other sensitive info, but they could make decisions to guide ProleWiki. Note that this was before I became an admin, but what we found out was that everyone had their own idea of what PW should be and ultimately, we spent more time debating than actually doing anything. Most of those editors eventually left the project due to a lack of interest (if I remember correctly) and we had to rebuild a new structure.

> Why would a democratic centralist structure not work in small numbers?

In our opinion (Forte and me), it was more efficient for the project to have executive power remain between the administrators considering the age, numbers, goals and general context of our project.

For example, we were and are still wary of potential trolls or wreckers joining -- this is a problem with all online projects.

Derived from my own experience as a moderator in the past, I generally don't want to give too much power to users because you never truly know you who are dealing with (see for example Wisconcom). Also, I've noticed people don't really care about what goes on behind the scenes as long as the website (any website) works and they're given enough liberty on it. I think this makes sense because it's not really their lives or livelihood at stake, it's just a website.

Certainly though editors are allowed to propose changes and for a while now we've made them more involved in administrative processes. Changes on our principles for example are voted on (and proposed) by the editors and so are most new account requests. This is mostly done on the Discord though as Wikimedia is terrible for this kind of discussion, so we might actually make that clearer to new editors that they should join the discord.

> How many (active) users are on Prolewiki?

There is a page here: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Special:ActiveUsers that shows Active Users based on at least 1 action in the last 30 days.

Generally I would say we are about 10 active editors, i.e. editors that edit every day or every 2 days. We've recently accepted 5 new editors too.

> Is there a system of thought that corresponds to when users don't need to agree with certain principles?

There's not any outlined process at this time. We evaluate their answers in the account request and might ask them more since they give their email. We generally look that they agree to our principles (which is a question), but sometimes it's difficult because they might say they agree to our principles, and then in later answers show they clearly do not.

100% (personal) agreement to the principles is not required, however PW pushes a certain line (ML) and so even if an editor does not agree with something, we ask that they at least contribute as if they agree to it. E.g. if an editor disagrees that China is socialist (contrary to our principle that China is AES), we might let them in, but look that they don't start reworking the whole page to remove mentions of socialism on the PRC.

I think generally we want to see maturity from our editors, in the case they don't entirely agree with the principles, i.e. that they understand why ProleWiki is the way it is and they don't try to go against it sneakily or push their own opinions in our articles like trots, lol.

Hope this answers your questions.

In our opinion (Forte and me), it was more efficient for the project to have executive power remain between the administrators considering the age, numbers, goals and general context of our project.

For example, we were and are still wary of potential trolls or wreckers joining -- this is a problem with all online projects.

Derived from my own experience as a moderator in the past, I generally don't want to give too much power to users because you never truly know you who are dealing with (see for example Wisconcom). Also, I've noticed people don't really care about what goes on behind the scenes as long as the website (any website) works and they're given enough liberty on it. I think this makes sense because it's not really their lives or livelihood at stake, it's just a website. Certainly though editors are allowed to propose changes and for a while now we've made them more involved in administrative processes. Changes on our principles for example are voted on (and proposed) by the editors and so are most new account requests. This is mostly done on the Discord though as Wikimedia is terrible for this kind of discussion, so we might actually make that clearer to new editors that they should join the discord.

I see where you're coming from, and I agree with you (Though Discord is a u.s social media platform, so I think we should seek an alternative if possible.)

We could apply democratic centralism to just the leadership or administrative positions and only after an amount of time participating.

There's not any outlined process at this time. We evaluate their answers in the account request and might ask them more since they give their email. We generally look that they agree to our principles (which is a question), but sometimes it's difficult because they might say they agree to our principles, and then in later answers show they clearly do not. 100% (personal) agreement to the principles is not required, however PW pushes a certain line (ML) and so even if an editor does not agree with something, we ask that they at least contribute as if they agree to it. E.g. if an editor disagrees that China is socialist (contrary to our principle that China is AES), we might let them in, but look that they don't start reworking the whole page to remove mentions of socialism on the PRC. I think generally we want to see maturity from our editors, in the case they don't entirely agree with the principles, i.e. that they understand why ProleWiki is the way it is and they don't try to go against it sneakily or push their own opinions in our articles like trots, lol.

Hope this answers your questions.

It does. Thanks.