Talk:Not in Our Name

Well-intentioned but problematic edits

Recent anonymous edit looks at least partly useful, and clearly well intentioned, but:

• What is the basis for saying that the RCP is no longer prominent among the leadership? If this is true, at what point did they cease to be prominent among the leadership? Was this a sudden change of leadership or a gradual process? They certainly are still ardent supporters of NION, so I find this slightly suspect.
• "Not In Our Name was the first group to come out against the war on Afghanistan..." I don't believe this is true, even if we confine discussion to the U.S., which this remark fails to do. ANSWER had already organized rallies, the first of them September 29, 2001, half a year before NION was even founded. I personally attended a rally in London with about 50,000 people around that time, though I couldn't offhand tell you the name of the organizing group.
• "This of course does not inherently mean it is any better or worse for being a part of UFPJ." This is pure POV. It is the one thing I will delete without waiting for a response.

These changes were made anonymously, so I have no easy way to get hold of the contributor. I will leave a message on the relevant IP talk page and hope that person uses a fixed IP address, but if I haven't heard anything back within 24 hours, I will proceed to revert the things I think are wrong. If you are the person in question: it would be much simpler to discuss this if you open an account and log in. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:59, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I share your concerns, to the word. Please revert if you don't get a satisfactory answer promptly. RadicalSubversiv E 06:36, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Given the lack of answers, I am largely reverting. If any of what I am reverting is actually accurate, please restore, with citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:12, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel & Radicalsubversiv, I don't remember what I originally wrote, but changed the first part based on fact. I'm the current National Coordinator of the Not In Our Name project, and while I think that supporters of the RCP are certainly supporters of Not In Our Name, I would actually say that "ardent" is a bit... overstating it.

You're right about the other remark, and I neglected to add that it was in the U.S. I was trying to find a way that we were the first to come out broadly, reaching outside of the movement, but I'll have to think about it more. Obviously my description was lacking.

Lastly, I disagree that the last comment is pure POV, I added that because I think that some people think one way or the other about us being a member of UFPJ. We are no better off than groups who are a part of the ANSWER coalition, nor is it worse. I was trying to neutralize what seemed to me to be a leaning towards Not In Our Name being "better-than" simply because we are a member of UFPJ. I am not all that familiar with Wikipidea, and made those changes unaware of the fact that accounts even existed to be created. I stumbled on a page that alerted me to the tabs at the top, which included "discussion." And lo, I found this! I'm not even really sure that you will get this msg... but I'll check back in a few days to see. I am really glad that wikipedia exists. It's awesome.--Aimara 17:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC) Aimara

Yes, absolutely, a message here is the best way of communicating about the article. In general, directly editing an articl about oneself is frowned upon, but not banned: probably this talk page is exactly the best place to bring up issues about an article about your group.

You might also want to check out Wikipedia:Original research: basically what it comes down to is that Wikipedia is specifically not intended to be a primary source: any information in Wikipedia should be indepenently verifiable. Also WP:NPOV: the narrative voice of the article should stay neutral, any opinions should be clearly attributed. Thus, what Michael Albert had written about ANSWER ans NION is appropriate to mention; if you have your own distinct view, even though you are directly involved, Wikipedia cannot be the original place to propagate it, but if you have made public statements elsewhere (either an article, or quoted publicly), you are more than welcome to aim us at that; if worst comes to worst, while it is stretching things a little, what we've done a few times in the past is to come up with a way to verify your identity (basically, one of us would contact you through NION and by you passing back the message we would know you are who you say you are), etc. Obviously, we try to avoid that sort of thing, partly because it is pushing the boundaries of how we operate, and there is a "chain of trust" issue (what if I was faking having received confirmation, etc.) I'm sure you understand: the last thing you want is a situation where an imposter might claim to represent an organization and, yes, we've had people try to do that.

I know this is a little screwy; User:Cberlet/Chip Berlet has been up against a similar situation, as have others. It's tricky when a subject of an encyclopedia is also one of its contributors. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:18, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

you are welcome to verify through calling our national office (though it is likely you will have to leave a msg and i'll call you back). given all the hurricane katrina craziness, cindy sheehan, and renquist kicking the bucket, i probably won't be able to contribute much else for the time being. thanks for all the info though! Aimara 01:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Strange strange sequence

NION! is an American organization, so I (European) did not know about it before I found it in the anti-war template, or, what is the same thing, before I got addicted to wikipedia ;-D

I just read this article for the first time and it struck me: how very strange is the sequence of chapters. As a reader wanders into this article, the first thing he reads is criticism of another antiwar coalition (ANSWER) and specifics on the leadership of some group (RCP) which has so many other specialized ideas. This only widens the distance between article and the ordinary anti-war interested reader.

It is not a problem to me that ANSWER is critized, or that leadership is discussed. I only wondered: Why put sectarian issues first? Why not put priorities first: the anti-war movement? arguments? documents? protests? ... Sure, later on you can get into issues within the anti-war movement and name the differences. Fine. But, please, now this article leaves this impression: "NION is different from ANSWER and ANSWER has degressed and NION has not and NION has done different things... oh, that reminds me, NION has done anti-war protests." Strange strange sequence. -- 145.97.204.116 22:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Morton devonshire? hammer and sickle?

I realize that you feel that the subject of the article is communism, but I don't quite understand for what purpose you blanked a large part of the article and inserted an image of a hammer and sickle--205.188.116.132 06:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Role of RCP

I realize that the RCP played a significant role in the founding of NION, and I agree that it should be mentioned, but I'm not at all sure that it was founded "largely by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)" (emphasis mine), and in any case their role, including their continuing role, should be cited for. Given that this edit was by User:Morton devonshire, the same person who earlier added a hammer and sickle to the page, I don't trust it. - Jmabel | Talk 18:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I largely take that back, it's well cited for later in the article (though I'm not sure it belongs in the lead unless RCPs ongoing role can be demonstrated). That's the problem with someone cries wolf: you stop believing him even when he's saying something solid. - Jmabel | Talk 18:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Signatories → List

I suggest splitting the Signatories section into a new standalone list e.g. "List of Not in Our Name endorsers" or something like that. The list would be described as: "The following is a list of noteworthy people who have signed Not in Our Name's 'Pledge of Resistance' or 'Statement of Conscience:' " or something similiar --DieWeisseRose 02:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I have listed them going across rather than down page. I feel that it does not need to be a separate page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

NION no more

NION released a statement back in March that they've disbanded:

It is with some sadness... that we inform our supporters... that we closed our national office and related infrastructure on March 31, 2008.

I'm too busy (read:lazy) to add this, but someone should, methinks. 76.66.209.194 (talk) 15:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)