About Us
Alert:
We're currently aggressively removing spam accounts. It is possible that in our fervor we will accidentally remove a non-spam account, if it has no associated comments, questions, or answers. If that happens, you can pm dot and let her know.
Purpose:
Anarchy 101 is a non-corporate, anarchist-run site with the primary goal of sharing information about anarchy with folks who are new to the ideas and history.
There are many places on line where newcomers can just dive in to a topic. This site is for a slower and more gentle introduction. So we're not worried about precise terminology (although pointing out assumptions and implications in language is quite appropriate).
Flags
Please don't flag obvious spam posts. They're obvious.
Links
Please do not post links alone as an answer, especially not links to ongoing conversations or to lengthy articles that have to be carefully parsed to find the relevant material.
Personal information
To the extent that sharing personal information is useful to exploring ideas or opinions, it's fine. If you want to have conversations with members that are about meeting up or are not about anarchy or in general are off topic, it is always possible to private message other members using this site's software.
Seeing responses
If you only look at the default front page, you might miss comments that people have made to your questions, comments, or answers. To see whatever has recently been commented on, click the Activity Tab (top left).
Removing questions, comments, and answers:
There have been four types of questions so far that have been problematic (and have been removed).
The first one is the type that is more of an accusation than a question, especially when a person is named. This site is not a place for flaming, and only the most subtle trolling will stay up. To keep it being a useful place for newcomers, excessively insider jokes and/or references shouldn't be the main point of a question (although they are welcome in comments or as parts of answers).
The second type is the kind that is designed to provoke. This is certainly a judgment call, but if it seems like mostly people will be aggravated beyond their ability to have a reasonable conversation, then the question will be removed.
The third type is not a question at all, but an announcement. This site's front page is not a place for announcements of events or campaigns. If an event announcement is appropriate for a question, then that announcement can be part of an answer, or can be put into a comment.
And the fourth have been comments and answers by people who call themselves anarchist capitalists. Posts by so called nationalist anarchists will also be removed. This should really go without saying, but there we are.
When possible, this site's policy when removing a question is to post a replacement question that identifies the underlying premise(s) in the removed one. So for example an announcement of an anti-money protest becomes a question about whether money is fundamental to capitalism, and if so, how to agitate against money.
Comments:
A note on the use of comments vs answers. It's easy to forget that your comment on a question should not go into the answer box. Comments are, of course, things like "that's a brilliant question," "you're not going to get a good answer to that on this site, " or "come and find other people who are interested in this question at the following event," etc. Comments are the place to engage in conversations with other answerers and posters. An answer, on the other hand, shows up on the front page as an answer, and should actually answer the question, even if only partially. (All answers are partial!)
Tagging:
Please don't tag with anarchy, anarchist, or anarchism. These are entirely redundant on this site. Do check out the tags that have already been used.
Moderation:
This is a moderated site. We believe that a diversity of answers is the most accurate way to reflect anarchist thinking, but we are under no illusion that our moderation (or this site) will satisfy everyone. We are excited to be hosting one of many forums in this scene, and hope that other forums will spring up with other perspectives. Editing that happens is almost always a) to add or correct tags (ie misspelled tags are useless), or b) to make something that was posted as an answer into a comment.
Etiquette:
Our preference is that people don't just downvote comments and/or questions. Use the comments! Let people know why you disagree with what they said.
And people who get downvoted, don't worry about it, especially if someone takes the time and energy to explain why they gave you the thumbs down. The comments area is a great way to explore people's disagreements, particularly if none of us are under any illusion about converting anyone. Anarchists disagree with each other! No hive mind!
Good faith
Finally, we will assume good faith, at least until we don't. addition! for spam control all new users will have posts moderated. Users with a certain number of points are able to post without mediation.
We're currently aggressively removing spam accounts. It is possible that in our fervor we will accidentally remove a non-spam account, if it has no associated comments, questions, or answers. If that happens, you can pm dot and let her know.
Purpose:
Anarchy 101 is a non-corporate, anarchist-run site with the primary goal of sharing information about anarchy with folks who are new to the ideas and history.
There are many places on line where newcomers can just dive in to a topic. This site is for a slower and more gentle introduction. So we're not worried about precise terminology (although pointing out assumptions and implications in language is quite appropriate).
Flags
Please don't flag obvious spam posts. They're obvious.
Links
Please do not post links alone as an answer, especially not links to ongoing conversations or to lengthy articles that have to be carefully parsed to find the relevant material.
Personal information
To the extent that sharing personal information is useful to exploring ideas or opinions, it's fine. If you want to have conversations with members that are about meeting up or are not about anarchy or in general are off topic, it is always possible to private message other members using this site's software.
Seeing responses
If you only look at the default front page, you might miss comments that people have made to your questions, comments, or answers. To see whatever has recently been commented on, click the Activity Tab (top left).
Removing questions, comments, and answers:
There have been four types of questions so far that have been problematic (and have been removed).
The first one is the type that is more of an accusation than a question, especially when a person is named. This site is not a place for flaming, and only the most subtle trolling will stay up. To keep it being a useful place for newcomers, excessively insider jokes and/or references shouldn't be the main point of a question (although they are welcome in comments or as parts of answers).
The second type is the kind that is designed to provoke. This is certainly a judgment call, but if it seems like mostly people will be aggravated beyond their ability to have a reasonable conversation, then the question will be removed.
The third type is not a question at all, but an announcement. This site's front page is not a place for announcements of events or campaigns. If an event announcement is appropriate for a question, then that announcement can be part of an answer, or can be put into a comment.
And the fourth have been comments and answers by people who call themselves anarchist capitalists. Posts by so called nationalist anarchists will also be removed. This should really go without saying, but there we are.
When possible, this site's policy when removing a question is to post a replacement question that identifies the underlying premise(s) in the removed one. So for example an announcement of an anti-money protest becomes a question about whether money is fundamental to capitalism, and if so, how to agitate against money.
Comments:
A note on the use of comments vs answers. It's easy to forget that your comment on a question should not go into the answer box. Comments are, of course, things like "that's a brilliant question," "you're not going to get a good answer to that on this site, " or "come and find other people who are interested in this question at the following event," etc. Comments are the place to engage in conversations with other answerers and posters. An answer, on the other hand, shows up on the front page as an answer, and should actually answer the question, even if only partially. (All answers are partial!)
Tagging:
Please don't tag with anarchy, anarchist, or anarchism. These are entirely redundant on this site. Do check out the tags that have already been used.
Moderation:
This is a moderated site. We believe that a diversity of answers is the most accurate way to reflect anarchist thinking, but we are under no illusion that our moderation (or this site) will satisfy everyone. We are excited to be hosting one of many forums in this scene, and hope that other forums will spring up with other perspectives. Editing that happens is almost always a) to add or correct tags (ie misspelled tags are useless), or b) to make something that was posted as an answer into a comment.
Etiquette:
Our preference is that people don't just downvote comments and/or questions. Use the comments! Let people know why you disagree with what they said.
And people who get downvoted, don't worry about it, especially if someone takes the time and energy to explain why they gave you the thumbs down. The comments area is a great way to explore people's disagreements, particularly if none of us are under any illusion about converting anyone. Anarchists disagree with each other! No hive mind!
Good faith
Finally, we will assume good faith, at least until we don't. addition! for spam control all new users will have posts moderated. Users with a certain number of points are able to post without mediation.