ProleWiki talk:Principles

Following the patsoc bans after attempted infiltration and further talks of infiltration by wisconcom's "Hoxhaist friends" (which we have yet to see), I think it is clear that prolewiki needs to defend itself from infiltration.

To that end, I would like to add a simple principle: on the basis that every editor must complete an application and answer a few questions before joining, I would like to add that any editor who lied or failed to truthfully answer questions during application may be subject to an instant ban.

This is over all pretty standard for most projects (and indeed is standard for any governmental form you might have to fill in your lifetime), but of course our principles must be discussed by the community before being changed.

This principle would be all-encompassing and not just target specific infiltrators. This means, for example, people that answered that they love Joseph Stalin and hold him in high regard in their application but then edited the Stalin article to criticize him liberally could be banned for this. (It hasn't come up yet, I'm just giving an example).

This way we can protect prolewiki from infiltrators and wreckers down the line if they should happen. My main concern is that if many users join and get approved at once, they could start doing a lot of damage faster than we can revert it. And then, on which grounds would we penalise them if we never found out they were part of a targetted effort against the wiki?

I support this change, it is a simple yet effective measure.

I think it is clear that prolewiki needs to defend itself from infiltration.

This is absolutely true, and that goes for any political organization. We will be infiltrated eventually, hell, even the Bolsheviks suffered infiltration up to their Central Committee (Malinovsky). We shouldn't be too paranoid about that, but of course we should pay attention to that issue as best as we could.

To that end, I would like to add a simple principle: on the basis that every editor must complete an application and answer a few questions before joining, I would like to add that any editor who lied or failed to truthfully answer questions during application may be subject to an instant ban.

If that happens, we don't need a formal justification to ban a wrecker. Any change that would bring the editors' attention would be immediately discussed inside our channels, and we would collectively decide what to do with that user once it happens. I can only see this issue as a case-by-case situation, and I personally trust our internal democracy in dealing with that, even at its current early stages. As administrators, we have to answer to our editors, most of all, and if the majority is in agreement with a decision, all is good, no written rules are needed (not bashing on rules, they are useful too)

This principle would be all-encompassing and not just target specific infiltrators. This means, for example, people that answered that they love Joseph Stalin and hold him in high regard in their application but then edited the Stalin article to criticize him liberally could be banned for this. (It hasn't come up yet, I'm just giving an example).

Then we would ban them for making liberal edits about Stalin, their lies are irrelevant in such a case.

This way we can protect prolewiki from infiltrators and wreckers down the line if they should happen. My main concern is that if many users join and get approved at once, they could start doing a lot of damage faster than we can revert it. And then, on which grounds would we penalise them if we never found out they were part of a targetted effort against the wiki?

We penalize them on the grounds of the damage they made, backed by the majority of editors. It's as simple as that, at least for me.

In short, I am against this because it's a formalism that currently makes no difference based on how we are organized and how we take action against wreckers, but if other editors agree on this decision, I suggest we put it some place else that's not our principles, more like a Code of Conduct or something similar. Our principles page read more like an ideological-organizative principle than a set of rules regarding behavior, which would fit better in a Code of Conduct document

With the removal of all Patriotic Socialist and other social-chauvinist elements from our community, made offical on 27 September 2022, I suggest we formalize this into our principles somehow.

By doing this, we will be able to convey to any potential Patriotic Socialists, National Bolshevists, and "MAGA Communists" that their reactionary, revisionist ideology has no place on ProleWiki, and we will be able to more effectively remove any Patsoc sympathy which comrades may covertly have.

Thank you. Comrade Wisconcom ^(talk) 01:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm in agreement.

I agree too. I think we can perhaps expand on the Anti-oppression section to include an opposition to bourgeois nationalism, social-chauvinism or something along those lines. And we explicitly list examples, including the ones you mentioned (I'd add Strasserism and Fourth Political Theory)

[...] we will be able to convey to any potential Patriotic Socialists, National Bolshevists, and "MAGA Communists" that their reactionary, revisionist ideology has no place on ProleWiki, and we will be able to more effectively remove any Patsoc sympathy which comrades may covertly have.

Unfortunately, since they are usually movements which operate through infiltration, I believe it will only make them better at hiding. I think we can only discover reactionary elements through time, their behavior, and their edits. So while I support a change that makes this explicit, I don't think it will prevent anything.

Adding an explicit line in the principles at least lets people know where we stand exactly on this.

But yeah, if they want to infiltrate the wiki, they're not going to stop because we said no. They'll still try making accounts.

It does make it actionable to remove them though.

In the section "Goals", under "ProleWiki strives for collective ownership", there is the following sentence:

ProleWiki will never carry advertisements or tracking software, and will always strive to preserve the safety of our comrades.

However, throughout the development of the wiki, we found that tracking software is an inevitable necessity to understand the flow and origin of readers of ProleWiki to see how effective our propaganda and recruitment campaigns are. Here is for instance, a glimpse of the data we can gather with tracking software:

Total ProleWiki visits between 2022-07-16 and 2022-08-02

The software we currently use, Matomo, is open-source and we have rejected the idea of using Google Analytics. Matomo perfectly serves our purposes. This request is to change only the part about "tracking software"

I will share here a criticism of the language we use by an user on Matrix. While I disagree with some of this user's claims on China and Russia, I agree there is room for improvement in the language of the document.

I'm a little concerned about the principles. First, they say "we support the following nations for their defiance of NATO imperialism". Personally, I think this wording may suggest unilateral support. While I obviously do oppose NATO imperialism, I think it's more productive for me to focus on things I'm closer related to - so as a Russian, I stand against Russian imperialism while still condemning NATO and the Ukrainian regime. I consider DPR and LPR in their current state to be Russian puppet states, serving as grounds for Russia's imperialist expansion, and I think this should be pretty uncontroversial at this point. I suggest to change it to "we support the following nations in their defiance of NATO imperialism", that way the wiki's position on NATO imperialism stays clear, but it unambiguously leaves open room for criticism of those capitalist states.
Second, I think full support for AES doesn't align with the ML perspective. At least in Russia, there's plenty of MLs being somewhat critical of China because of its strong use of market economics or other reasons. That doesn't mean China isn't a socialist country or whatever, it doesn't mean China doesn't need to be supported, quite the contrary, the amount of Western propaganda around it is annoying - I just think the words "full support" feel like they preclude any criticism. Criticism backed by ML sources and not liberal propaganda should be allowed, but the current wording doesn't make it seem like they are.

My suggestion for the first point is to state that we critically support the nations stated in the "Anti-imperialism" section. Plus, I'd like to suggest adding that we support the struggle of these nations for self-determination.

As to the second point, my suggestion is to simply remove the word "fully" if applicable.

I suggest we remove the part which says:

"Most of the following text was collectivized from the Marxist Internet Archive, to which ProleWiki has no official ties"

It will make our project look more professional and respectable to readers. Additionally, the ideals from the Marxist Internet Archive that inspired our principles are, as they say, common sense; these ideals of collective ownership and democracy are something for and by the Communist community, not to the Marxist Internet Archive exclusively.