Update: they have ascertained that Parabola was Wisconcom lmao. In that light, if correct, it’s more of a wrecker doing what he does than the project failing. We still don’t have a lot of info though. They’ve written about it here: https://wiki.leftypol.org/wiki/Leftypedia:Community_hub
Earlier today, the new rendition of Leftypedia finally imploded. Going off the block list, it’s a real mess.
Leftypedia was brought back from its last incarnation in early 2023. If you remember (or not), it had issues with Wisconcom then who latched onto it. The problem is because they had no active admins and couldn’t find them, they couldn’t ban him indefinitely.
Eventually, they did find new admins who kicked the project back into gear, or at least they tried to.
Earlier today though, it seems there has been a split and one of the admins (Parabola) basically banned all the others as well as several other users. Where it gets weird is that another admin (Aussig) then banned Parabola, but didn’t undo the bans Parabola issued. Aussig also banned me and Forte’s account, which we used back when Wisconcom was on there, for “ideological deviations”, but Aussig calls themselves a Marxist-Leninist on their user page.
From what I understand there was a split between the different tendencies. So anyway that’s how the “left unity” wiki is going lol sorry but this is funny.
Wisconcom
This guy again, or rather still?
I wonder why he stopped posting to his Substack; maybe to focus on wrecking other people’s sites.
Edit to add that it looks like he’s active on Blogger: https://wisconsincommunist.blogspot.com/
I added an update, it seems Parabola was a Wisconcom alt – at least that’s what the leftypedia staff believes. I tried to warn them over a year ago about him but they didn’t seem to care, so to be honest I don’t really feel bad. But this is of course only my personal impression.
This however also shows two things:
- Wisconcom has made it clear his problem is not with ProleWiki specifically, he just has a weird fixation on hoxhaism, and has shown himself to be a wrecker to marxism and an enemy of marxists once and for all,
- He didn’t go away and will likely never go away, he just pivoted from ProleWiki and Lemmygrad to Leftypedia. We can never let our guard down around him, not as long as “Wisconcom” exists.
The specter of Wisconscom haunts the lemmyverse.
The man, the legend, the running gag of Lemmygrad, Wisconcom.
first article, near the top I made the mistake to read this shit
It is important to note that the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc, with the exception of Albania, beyond the year 1956 will not be accounted for, as that period contained the abandonment of the construction of Socialism, de-Stalinization, and other economic, political, and ideological deviations.
(https://wisconcom.substack.com/p/totalitarianism-truth-or-propaganda)
All I can say is
lets just ignore one of the most sucsesfull era of soviet communism (space, showing american hegemony can be challenged, eliminating the gender pay gap, rent being 2-3% of a workers wage etc)
Successful socialism is revisionist.
Ah, sounds like he just went back to doing what he loves…
Another win for the policy of unity among Marxists, not among liberals, opportunists, and distorters of Marxism (yes that includes especially ultras).
So anyway that’s how the “left unity” wiki is going lol sorry but this is funny.
I had a conversation with one of the members of the Leftypedia discord server before my ban yesterday (whom I will not reveal the identity of), and they stated that Parabola has stepped down as administrator.
I thought there would’ve been more chaos at the discord server, surprisingly it was the opposite. It seems everything happened at either the editor’s side or at the admin’s side.
What is clear is that Aussig states through paraphrasing their words that:
They said they don’t want Leftypedia to be for all Leftist peoples.
In other words, Aussig has directly stated that leftypedia does not want to be leftypedia. They have banned all “revisionist” tendencies including 3 prolewiki accounts that only existed to tackle the issue with Wisconcom existing on the server.
Leftypedia has become a failed experiment it seems. The split between the Hoxhaites and Maoists (Aussig was a maoist when she entered the server* and I know it from my days in that discord server) is real. I’m not surprised at the very least. Parabola kept shitting on anarchists, even banned an anarcho-egoist (or minarchist, doesn’t matter) because they were reactionary and espoused anti-marxist views.
In the short amount of time I’ve been on that server (which is a month I think, a few days after the server’s creation) it was clear that this server would break down. It’s a funny coincidence that breakdown happened the day after I was banned for being “hostile”.
EDIT: Made corrections, see points marked by a *.
For what its worth, the leftypedia staff have just removed the discord server from their site, as being “no longer affiliated with Leftypedia users”. I’m not sure what to make of that since I stay away from discord like plague.
This is because Parabola (Or Wisconcom perhaps) originally introduced the idea of a leftypedia discord server in the matrix server, and so Parabola was the official owner. That means that Parabola has all official access to the discord server since he is at the top.
In my month staying in there, it is a gold mine of bullshit, I have amassed a collection of screenshots which clearly show that leftypedia is a place where left unity cannot happen.
Also, you have posted that link about Harrystein linking it to Wisconcom. I think Parabola is actually Wisconcom, given he made sock puppet accounts after his ban, and I’m one of the few people who can judge his tone and voice in voice chats since I heard it before when I was a part of the study group.
Since Aussig and Parabola are banned, I doubt Leftypedia would stand up again.
Since Aussig and Parabola are banned, I doubt Leftypedia would stand up again.
Aussig, apart from whatever they did on the discord, was pretty irrelevant to the actual wiki. Account created April 30, made a dozen edits, then for whatever reason RedParabola promoted them. I don’t know if they’re a sockpuppet, or friends or negotiated something on discord, whatever, but they’re a “literally who?” before today.
As for Parabola, they made a bunch of contributions but the wiki won’t be much different without them, just a bit slower. It’s not like they were critical to the site. Like you and that admin said, probably Wisconcom anyway.
In my month staying in there, it is a gold mine of bullshit
I believe that. An archivism project I was in a while back was victim to petty discord drama causing two different coups and ending up getting the whole thing nuked. I can’t help but see it as a drama site for any project-based chat, attracting people who just want to climb to the top and become lords of tiny fiefs.
Aussig is irrelevant in general, but her contributions had lead to the Prolewiki accounts being banned. She just took advantage of the vandalism and used it for her own purpose. I can personally confirm that Aussig is not a sock puppet account, especially given she was participating in the discord server not in the same way as Parabola (Wisconcom). She was a part of the scandal but for different reasons.
I think Parabola made a larger dent into Leftypedia that will take harder to scrub off compared to Prolewiki. Especially given at the rate the articles are being changed (Literally productivity has been cut in half since Parabola is gone, only leaving Harrystein to edit the wiki), we won’t see Leftypedia recovered.
The reputational damage is a good point, its extent is kind of lost on me as I’m not very involved in the wiki circles but obviously this is gonna hurt it and isn’t easy to scrub off as the vandal banned ProleWiki users like you, Forte and OP, doing so as a supposed authority of Leftypedia.
I think they’ll recover from the reputation damage. I hope they learn from this that you can’t trust just anyone and you have to be careful about who you let in. They seem to have responded rapidly too and the vandalism and blocks have been undone. I hope now they can reorganize, because imo this is really what they were missing, especially for a project that wants to allow all/most leftist currents.
It was also unclear, in my opinion again, that Parabola was only an admin of the project since yesterday. From how active they were, you wouldn’t have thought so. This is why I think they need to first develop organizational methods, to be more effective down the line.
I’m neither of the stated. I was promoted first as the result of elections held by leftypedia and then as part of my plan to go out with a boom. Idk what parabola’s plan was for whatever he was doing but he was helpful lmao
What sense of “Maoist” do you mean here? Like Shining Path or just anti-Deng?
Aussig supports the Shining Path.But I don’t think the distinction matters much in this case. She claimed to be a maoist in the discord server.Edit: This statement is corrected because I’ve later learned that this isn’t true from Aussig. However as I stated earlier, the distinction doesn’t matter much. She’s still an ultra. Everything else is correct.
Aussig supports the Shining Path.
Disgusting, they should talk to socialists alive in Peru so they can slap the shit out of them for being so guilable.
I made an account just to reply to the “shining path Maoist” bs but it’s already gone
The in-fighting leftists of the west are a deeply unserious people.
I don’t follow this sort of drama and i am perfectly happy that way. But when I hear about this sort of stuff i do wonder how it is that i have never heard of these sorts of problems in or around Lemmygrad. It’s not as if we all agree on everything, i know there are definitely some ideological as well as tactical disagreements now and then, but for some reason it never devolves into this kind of sectarian drama.
I’ve noticed that, too. I think it’s thanks to the mods and us having an actual line, like a direction that is consistent, coherent and adjusts itself as events unfold. Because we’re not dogmatic. What is that line? What Comrade, darkcalling mentioned down here, the unity of Marxists. We’re clear on what we think, and new people either come in already clearheaded or they slowly see what we’re like, and join in. We have good people, and I mean that. I come here to learn and laugh everyday. I guess we’re just that cool, that we don’t start beefs with each other or with our Hexbear friends.
I think it is many factors:
- The actually existing project(s) that a community latches onto affect the community culture. Imagine us trying to be sectarian with each other when our supported factions are constantly making the news for making alliances between completely opposed ideologies. This also affects the liberals, which is why even they aren’t too sectarian.
- Any real project will be full of imperfections, and no faction will appeal to you 100%. If you can already tolerate this for the projects that actually impact the world, you can tolerate it for the random internet users.
- Ultras and Anarchists are united/defined mostly on the basis of hating AES and revisionists. This does not build any strong community unity, or even sensible theory. Instead, it builds the mentality of accusing the other members of being too much like their boogeymen.
There are no ultras or anarchists (that I know of) who are regulars on grad and in my xp that umbrella is the most drama-prone
i think its mainly dogmatism contrasted to pragmatism.
Scooby Doo but the villain under the mask is always Wisconsicom
Look at my leftists dawg we ain’t ever getting communism
No, not with “leftists” we’re not.
I’ve recently had a multitude of examples of reasons why the word “Left” is a completely useless descriptor. Many of the people that fall under its umbrella have zero reason to have anything to do with each other. People tell me that Joe Biden is “left”.
Indeed. For me “left” is just a relative term. It doesn’t make sense using it as an absolute, as in “The Left™”. But certain groups or tendencies can and do have left, center and right wings.
This is the problem. You can walk into a meeting of Hitler’s inner circle and pronounce half of them as “on the left”, meaning it as a “relative term”. Then someone else picks that up and uses it as an absolute term, and plans some unity with these leftists.
A wrecker couldn’t dream up a more useful use of language.
What is the “centre” to you?
Yeah, I’m not big on the term “left unity” unless it is specified exactly what is meant by “left”. It makes absolutely no sense for instance to lump Marxists together with what is considered “the left” in the mainstream of bourgeois democracy. That would be a complete absurdity, we have next to nothing in common.
What is the “centre” to you?
I guess “center” for me would be that position which at any given time reflects the broadest possible consensus position within a group.
Thanks. It’s something that keeps preying on my mind because I see so many confused discussions due to people not having agreed upon terms. Even in this thread people think it’s sad that this “left unity” didn’t work.
It’s been a while but I think Tariq Ali’s Extreme Centre: A Warning is a useful book. It’s quite short, too. Michael Rosen makes a similar point: the ‘centre’ isn’t so much in the middle of left and right; they are three points of a triangle. I’d add, in agreement with your conversation above, that this triangle is bourgeois.
I’m not sure if it makes sense to map communist politics in the same way. I’m inclined to say it wouldn’t make much sense.
Edit: wiki link – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extreme_Centre
Thanks for this! I really appreciate the recommendation because this particular topic keeps jumping out at me from around every second corner I turn. I know I must be missing something because everyone seems to accept it, even in ML spaces.
You’re welcome. I hope it’s as good as I remember! It was one of the books I read as I was beginning to read Marxist works and it helped me to mentally demolish the overton window that liberalism had built into my brain.
I think ‘centrist’ is used as a kind of shorthand, a lot of the time. Similar to ‘leftist’. And when they are used in this way, they’re practically meaningless. It seems to stem from lazy liberal thinking. Similar to ‘middle class’.
These terms that are bandied about in mainstream liberal discourse aren’t really backed by any kind of analysis. It serves the bourgeois to have us all arguing within this very narrow horizon. And it makes it difficult to have fruitful conversations.
For me “left” is just a relative term
Not just for you, it literally is a relative term. It means nothing without context.
The thermonuclear Hoxhaist returns
Looks like the site staff have banned Aussig and made an update post: https://wiki.leftypol.org/wiki/Leftypedia:Community_hub
edit: And disavowed the Discord server.
I hate to say this but I don’t know what any of this is. I tried reading this but I am still clueless. Sorry.
The admins and mods of a wiki type website basically all got into pointless arguments and everyone tried to ban everyone else from the website, leading to the website being basically useless as there is no one around to edit it anymore.
Leftypedia never worked because the ideological disagreements are so big that it’s only possible to make contradictory articles. That’s why I went away from the project but yknow might as well leave with a boom
T H E R M O N U C L E A R
lol, lmao
