ProleWiki talk:Essays/Archive

(Very neat table btw thank you to whoever made it, I think it was Wisconcom?)

I added a public domain section at the top of the essays to put in my guide to talk to police.

The public domain section therefore is a place for when you want to collectivize your essay, either by design or because you don't want to work on it and want to let other comrades take a shot. It's also a place to post your essay "anonymously" (it will still show who created the page in the logs) or detach it from your name specifically.

My essay was specifically meant to be public domain where people should add stuff where they can, and I didn't want it attached specifically to my own name.

This could also solve the "abandoned" essays question; they could be moved to an abandoned section after some time.

“(Very neat table btw thank you to whoever made it, I think it was Wisconcom?)”

It was me 🥺🥺🥺

Also as to the authorship question, I don't think it's fair that a comrade spent work and then after some time their authorship is lost...

The only suggestion I can think of is that the contents of the essay can be copied by someone interested in finishing it, and then we can add a section on the table for both authors.

For instance, if Wisconcom wanted to finish AmericanBaath's essay, he would create a new one and attribute the authorship to AmericanBaath & Wisconcom.

I think my solution is still insufficient and perhaps we can improve the idea, but it's the only thing I can think of. Because what if AmericanBaath decides to finish it up later?

Haha sorry comrade, I must have confused contributions.

Otherwise I agree, removing ownership is a bit difficult.

A comrade, @AmericanBaath, has been in the process of developing an essay under the name of "The American Crisis of Capital: The Nazification of the United States", however, this essay was never finished. Furthermore, the comrade who created this essay appears to have left ProleWiki entirely, his last edits being done nearly a month ago, and he has made none sence, nor has he shown any other indications of being active on ProleWiki recently.

With our existing and formalized procedures still being few, this could perhaps set a notable precedent on this matter. What do we do with essays which have not been finished, and whose creator has perminately left? Perhaps we should consider measures which will ensure we save space in the essays section, or something of that nature.

I think we can keep them as is, maybe create a "userbox" format to notify people of essays which are not finished at the top of the page.

There might still be good information and they might also come back to finish it some day.

In my opinion this opens up a bigger question of drafts in the essays section. Should essays be published only when they are done, or can we publish them as work in progress? In general in writing I follow the rule that it's better to have something half-finished than nothing at all.

I would like to note that this is not particularly a problem, not a major one, anyways, however, I merely thought that we could improve both the quality of ProleWiki and the experience of our readers by ensuring that are able to find fully-written content.

Anyways, your recent "public domain" addition will likely be able to correct this largely, but if this grows into a more notable trend of unfinished essays, we should ldeally create some sort of message box template in regards to this issue. Lastly, we should encourage comrades to complete their essay before making it public, or at least the vast majority of it.

> It is generally not recommended to edit others' essays unless for simple copyediting and typos. Unless you've explicitly established some kind of collaborative partnership with someone, it's best to build upon others' works by copying it and citing it in your own original works.

This is what the page currently says.

I would suggest (I'm not gonna make the change myself without prior consultation) that we just forbid people from editing others essays, and that they can suggest changes or ask for permission in the talk pages.

Typos and editing are a very personal topic to some people, and they want their text to be as close to their vision as possible and may feel some meaning is lost through third-party editing.

So the paragraph should read:

> It is forbidden to edit other members' essays, unless you've explicitly established some kind of collaborative partnership with someone. You can always use the talk pages and ask for editing permissions there. It's best to build upon others' works by copying it and citing it in your own original works.

In this way I think it will help the essays section flourish and remain true to their authors.

Seconded