Talk:Democracy & Nature

message: I'm pleased to see that we appear to be editing in a slightly more harmonious manner since the re-write.  
There are some things we should all agree on:
*There does not exist any ownership of this article. (See WP:OWN)
*There do not exist any special positions with regard to editing.  (See WP:VANITY)
There are also some valid concerns expressed right now about Wikipedia:Reliable source.  If could proceed in as calm and dispassionate a manner as possible,  that would be helpful.  And henceforth commenting at all times only on the contributions and not on the contributor would be good, too.
brenneman(t)(c) 02:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stable version 

message: Talking is good.  So if there's something that anyone thinks could be improved, here's a good spot to make a concise case for it.  brenneman(t)(c) 00:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talking 

message: This entry gives a description of a journal that operated successfully for a number of years. Anyone coming across an article from this journal should be able to look up information about the journal so as to assess the article's provenance. If anyone feels the entry lacks information they are free to add to it. I don't see why it should be deleted.
WallabieJoey (talk) 23:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Democracy & Nature should be kept 

message: Keep  As a former member of the editorial panel and contributor to Democracy and Nature I find the suggestion that this entry be deleted astonishing. It is not just that the journal was very significant internationally during its period of publication; it is a reference point for current work on how to deal with the threat of a global ecological catasrophe. If Wikipedia does not have a place to keep alive memory of the recent past, it seems to me we are in a sorry state, coming closer to 1984. Memory, as Samuel Butler argued, is a defining feature of life.
Associate Professor Arran Gare,
Swinburne University,
Victoria, Australia.Arran Gare (talk) 12:18, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Very unlikely that this article will be deleted as it conforms with  WP:SJ, WP:NJournals. Cwobeel (talk) 00:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to delete entry for Democracy & Nature 

message: I removed the Original Research warning tag, because I did not see any obvious issues in the article related to WP:NOR. Cwobeel (talk) 16:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  You added the templates, so maybe you can try removing the offending content. There is no harm in reducing the size of the article. -  Cwobeel (talk) 17:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

text: *There we go again with the personal attacks. I will not respond to posts like this. Discuss the issues, not the person. The problems have been described in edit summaries, above, etc. The tags are standard maintenance tags. I have tried to remove the problems indicated myself before, only to be reverted and be accused of "attacking" the journal, so I will not do that again. Clean it up and the tags can go. Leave as it is and the tags stay. --Randykitty (talk) 13:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  , I looked over the article and don't see any specific material that is so offensive to warrant these tags. If you could indicate in detail what are the specifics you want addressed, I and others can work to improve the article. If you have discussed already these issues before and  requested specific areas to be addressed, kindly provide some diffs.  -  Cwobeel (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: *OK, here goes. 1/ Primary sources tag: The article depends almost exclusively on primary sources and needs references to secondary sources. 2/ Third party sources tag. The article uses exclusively sources that in some way are connected with it: its own website, the website of the successor journal, etc. It needs independent sources. Note that this is a different issue from the previous one: adding a secondary source that is not independent (such as a review article published in the journal itself or its successor) would satisfy removing tag 1, but not tag2. 3/ Original research tag. The article claims that "The journal also served as a colloquium for a wide range of radical left groups, including libertarian socialists, social anarchists, and supporters of the autonomy/democratic project, which sometimes has led to debates." However, none of the sources establish this. There are references to articles in the journal and from reading those articles a WP editor has decided that this is what happened. That is about the very definition of original research. Similarly, a few people are mentioned as notable contributors, but there is no source for that beyond the journal's tables of contents and the fact that these people have WP bios: OR/SYNTH. As for the advisory board, the article states that it "consisted at times of some of the most notable figures of the radical left". This is only sourced to listings of the editorial board: OR/SYNTH again. 4/ Untagged problem. According to the academic journal article writing guide, we do not include lists of editorial/advisory board members or contributors, however notable, unless there are independent sources that document the fact that these persons had a role in the journal beyond merely figuring on the board or publishing in the journal. Being on an editorial board is a bit of an honorific, so many academics accept such invitations. Conversely, journals try to show that (notable) people have confidence in them (making it almost a kind of marketing gimmick). This is the situation with the vast majority of journals. Of course, there are exceptions where board members or contributors did much more than just being figureheads. If that is the case, this is absolutely something that needs to be included in the article, but only if the information is verifiable in independent sources. Hope this clarifies. --Randykitty (talk) 14:49, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

text:  Fixed. Anything else? -  Cwobeel (talk) 16:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent, thanks! I'll add a short section "abstracting and indexing" and use two of the ELs as references for that. I'd appreciate if you'd check my edits. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 16:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

text: I think your concerns can be easily addressed, for example: (a) remove all editorializing from the entries, (b) remove the overlinking, and finally (c) rename the section to something like "Editions", explain on the section lede  that these are some examples of issues. Basically, if we can provide our readers wit some sense of what the Journal was about and who were main contributors that would be very useful as well as being compliant with content policies. -  Cwobeel (talk) 15:04, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

text: *I agree that a, b, and c can easily be done (but not by me, because any edit I seem to be making here ends up reverted). However, that doesn't solve the problem of a WP editor making the selection. Note that the section says that all issues of the journal were organized around a central theme. So, if we don't list all (which would violate WP:NOTADIRECTORY and just copy the journal's own website), then how to make a selection. Normally we do that based on sources. Here there's a lack of sources about the journal and not even the journal itself seems ever to have said something like "issues x,y, and z where our best issues" (which would not necessarily be useful either, of course). The same goes for the contributors per issue. Note that as a rule (see the journal article writing guide), we do not include lists of contributors and even less so if we have no sources that discuss a contributor's involvement with a journal beyond the mere fact that they published in it. Even disregarding what we do with other journals, we have no basis whatsoever, except for our own opinions, to select which contributors to mention. OR/SYNTH... BTW, all that has to be checked. Noam Chomsky, for example, did not contribute to any issue listed. Instead, those issues contained interviews with him, which is quite something else. Looks like somebody is trying to ride Chomsky's coattails... --Randykitty (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh boy ... this is more complicated than I thought.... -  Cwobeel (talk) 19:47, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

text: *Please read WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OVERLINKING, and WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. There are over 4.5 million articles on WP and I indeed admit that there are one or two, or perhaps even several, that I have never seen yet. New Left Review seems to be one of them, I fear. --Randykitty (talk) 10:49, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: * Thank you for the non answers to my comments.94.66.5.222 (talk) 12:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: *My pleasure, thanks for not understanding them!--Randykitty (talk) 12:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

text: No need to search the 4.5 million articles. Just take a look @ New Left Review. Also take a look @ Z Communications. The 2nd paragraph is a list of contributors and no references at all. It could be also very entertaining to take a look at The Nation. Especially the section "Notable Contributors" DONG !!!. Or the section "Regular Columns". And the best of all is the section "Editorial Board" DONG !!! So you must be really happy that there are gently wiki contributors out there whose suggestions could improve the wikipedia project in general and make you life as administrator easier too. Instead of complaining, would be not more "productive" first to take a look and try to improve the above mentioned articles ? There are not "excuses" anymore. You did not know but now you know that the above mentioned articles have serious "reliable sources" and the rest problems. Why to spend your whole life here instead of doing some productive work regarding wikipedia. Be positive and productive. KosMal (talk) 20:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

text: *"not just a description of contents but provided also an analysis". Exactly. And that is indeed the whole problem. We are NOT supposed to editorialize, we do NOT give our analysis. Can't you people get it through your head that we are an encyclopedia that is build on some principles among which no original research and no synthesis are key. You can accuse me of malice as much and as often as you wish, but it would be more effective if you'd finally read and tried to understand those policies and guidelines. WP is an encyclopedia, not a place where we publish our opinions, analyses, or own work. We base ourselves on what others have said in reliable sources. Both the earlier version and the "superior version" are therefore completely unacceptable for WP. --Randykitty (talk) 21:17, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Can’t you people get it through your head (to use the same polite language you use!) that the analysis I was talking about was just a data analysis not a theoretical analysis of any sort and this is exactly why you cannot give a SINGLE example of what was ‘unverified’ in the text? However, unless you give such concrete examples, you simply use irrelevant wp regulations as pretexts to have the new version deleted, as you did also with your attempt to have the entire entry deleted and almost all participants in the discussion, apart from yourself, condemned your attempt. And of course encyclopedias DO publish analyses by the editors (and I don’t mean simply data analyses)  but obviously you have never read any other encyclopedias in your life apart from Wikipedia! 94.66.5.222 (talk) 21:53, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please cool it. If you want to learn about Wikipedia, and how the no original research applies here, please read these three pages: WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. These are the three core content policies of Wikipedia. If you don't like them, you are welcome to discuss changes to these in the respective talk pages. -  Cwobeel (talk) 23:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: On this article, as well as the articles on Inclusive Democracy and Takis Fotopoulos, John sargis has repeatedly violated his topic ban. I remind that, as per this discussion, he and Panlis had been topic-banned from all articles related to Inclusive Democracy, broadly construed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.205.231.42 (talk) 11:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Topic ban violations by [[User:John sargis|John sargis]]