ProleWiki

ProleWiki "The proletarian encyclopedia" Type Collaborative online encyclopedia, wiki Available in 7 languages Founded 30 September, 2020 Founder Felipe Forte Key people CriticalResist,MxAsh, Jucheguevara Users 90> (official) ~10 (active editors) Espoused ideology Marxism-Leninism Support for AES URL prolewiki.org

ProleWiki is a Marxist-Leninist collaborative encyclopedia founded in September 2020. It is based on the MediaWiki software.

ProleWiki spans several subjects, including information on history, current events, communist parties worldwide, and countries, as well as hosting a library of texts related to Marxism. The site is greatly connected to another community on the online left, Lemmygrad. ProleWiki is available in several languages, but is most active in English.

History

The following is a timeline of major events and developments which have taken place on ProleWiki.

Founding and early development (30 September 2020 – 24 November 2021)

ProleWiki was founded on 30 September 2022 by a user who went by the name of Felipe Forte, as well as other users of the internet forum Lemmygrad. The initial concept for ProleWiki originated as a reaction to the liberal bias found on Wikipedia. The then-sole administrator of ProleWiki, Forte, would firstly attempt to attract editors via promoting the project on Lemmygrad. He also attempt to promote his site on Wikipedia shortly. The website faced several spam bot attacks and eventually established an "account request" system.

The site was able to enjoy a spike of editors and general activity for the first few weeks of its existence, which prompted then sole administrator Forte to delegate sysop roles to several other people. However, this strategy did not work out because of absenteeism and eventual lack of interest in the project from most of this first wave of editors. Eventually, the administration was restricted to those who continued to work in the project – CriticalResist and Jucheguevara. However, these administrators were greatly committed to their positions, and this action was done in order to ensure ProleWiki would have a stable administration.

Ideological conflicts and administrative disunity (1 August 2022 – 27 September 2022)

The internal condition of ProleWiki would remain relatively stable for most of early-to-mid 2022, with few notable conflicts within the editorship or administration, This state of internal coherence would all rapidly disintegrate in August of 2022 when the inevitable creation of the page on Patriotic Socialism happened. The page noted Patriotic Socialism (with regards to the pseudo-socialist chauvinist ideology found in the United States of America) as being opportunist and revisionist. However, certain members within ProleWiki were Patriotic Socialist, including then-administrator Jucheguevara, and a conflict would start between the (very few) Patriotic Socialist and non-Patriotic Socialist elements within ProleWiki.

This conflict would result in the non-Patriotic Socialist attaining ideological victory over the Patriotic Socialist elements, with the correct anti-Patriotic Socialist viewpoint of the article persisting and relative peace would remain in the ProleWiki community. A month after the initial conflict, in September, the aforementioned administrator with Patriotic Socialist views, Jucheguevara, would, particularly following the creation of the articles on MAGA Communism and on Infrared, which similar to the one on Patriotic Socialism, made clear that “MAGA Communism” was anti-Marxist and revisionist, and the Infrared collective were chauvinist, apparently experience escalating discontent with ProleWiki itself. Jucheguevara would conspire with the Infrared community to effectively infiltrate ProleWiki and force it to adopt Patriotic Socialist ideology, and to enforce a pro-Patriotic Socialist viewpoint onto the previously mentioned articles. Jucheguevara, would be banned on 27 September 2022 upon the discovery of his conspiracy by the other ProleWiki administrators. Jucheguevara was stripped of his powers as an administrator and his account banned from the project.

Banning of Wisconcom (28 September 2022 – 23 October 2022)

User Wisconcom, who self-identified as a Hoxhaist, would join ProleWiki in June 2022 and began to protest the encyclopedia's stance on China and market socialism in August of that year. After weeks of this incessant ideological conflict within the editorship, the administrators first warned Wisconcom about a possible ban from the project, as he was insulting others and being disrespectful to his comrades when debating China.

While this would permit some internal peace to develop within ProleWiki, ideological disputes would soon develop. After being warned multiple times about his behavior, user Wisconcom claimed he "retired" and left the project of his own accord, but returned three days later along with a petition demanding extended user rights over ProleWiki. The administration rejected this petition as they deemed Wisconcom had not earned such privileges through his mere 5 months of being with the project, and further believed him too unstable for such a position due to the combative behaviour he exhibited several times both on Lemmygrad and Prolewiki. Immediately following this, the ProleWiki administrators would proceed to ban editor Wisconcom from the project, citing his further insulting behavior in private messages to founder Forte when he learned that his petition was rejected.

Ideology

ProleWiki adheres to Marxism-Leninism. The site maintains at least "critical support" of actually existing socialism countries, and views China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and DPRK as dictatorships of the proletariat.

Structure

Administration

In its founding in 2020, ProleWiki functioned under the leadership of its founder and current administrator, Felipe Forte, but currently is also managed by CriticalResist. Since late 2022, the administrators represent an organ of decision making as well as of guidance towards the established goals of ProleWiki. The editors, once their account has been approved and as soon as they join the project, can request internal referenda and vote on them. Editors are often solicited to vote on new editor applications as well as get involved in the project.

For example, since February 2022 ProleWiki holds a book club that is entirely managed by an editor. This structure of "work groups" allows ProleWiki to rely on its 100% volunteer base (both in the editors and administrators) to help grow and maintain the project by letting them volunteer their time and effort in projects they enjoy. This eases the workload on the administration and lets it act more like a guide or auditor to make sure the principles of ProleWiki, as well as its mission statement, are still being followed.

Ties with external forums and communities

The ProleWiki administration has connections with ideologically-aligned communities on the internet, which most prominently include Lemmygrad (from which both of the two ProleWiki administrators, Forte and CriticalResist, hold moderatorship on that site). ProleWiki also maintains some links with communist content creators on Twitter.

Criticism

Stance towards Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Hoxhaism

ProleWiki, as a pro-AES (Actually Existing Socialism) encyclopedia, does not believe in the concept of social-imperialism, which is at odds with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Hoxhaism.

Disregard for the proletariat in AES countries

ProleWiki largely doesn't document the exploitation of the working class in the countries they deem as actually existing socialism. While documenting the economic exploitation of the workers in Western countries, they seldom do so of the East Asian countries of, for example, China. ProleWiki explains this by applying the theory of the Second Cold War, which believes that the USA is waging a second Cold War against China (as opposed to the USSR in the time of the first Cold War). Under this model and learning from the praxis of communists that lived through the first Cold War, ProleWiki holds that when communists publicly criticise socialist countries, they are not giving a nuanced analysis but are adding arguments to the arsenal of anti-communists.

Anti-psychiatry page

In 2021, an editor by the name of AmicChan joined the project and wrote about many topics, with much of those edits going into an anti-psychiatry page that they had made. This gave rise to a large debate between the editorship as well as the administration, as one side did not want ProleWiki to be seen as an anti-science outlet, while others were open to the idea that communists should question psychiatry as well as document its capitalist abuses.

Eventually, a productive dialogue was established and the page was split into two, with one documenting Psychiatry and another documenting the movement of anti-psychiatry. Furthermore, a notice was added on the Psychiatry page to explain that the article was undergoing "an ideological dispute over its content" and one should "establish a consensus with comrades before making edits". After these two resolutions, neutrality was brought back to the page and after which ProleWiki has not received any more criticism on this page.

See also

• Lemmygrad
• Friends of Socialist China