This forum will be removed
Apr 16 2007 14:53
#2
I think it makes sense to just incorporate it back into the other forums like organise etc. Fighting fascism shouldn't be thought of as something seperate from fighting the class struggle, all the discussions can still happen but it would remove the idea of anti-fascism as a seperate struggle.
Apr 16 2007 15:30
#3
Yeah if people want to discuss anti-fascist issues they'll get more attention in the main organise forum anyway. First of October you've got 21 posts, suggesting that in the past year you've been registered you've not had a great need to use it. Also there are plenty of forums where you can discuss anti-fascist issues, including in our organise, thought and regional forums - there just aren't many that have a subforum devoted exclusively to anti-fascism, like we won't in a week.
Apr 17 2007 11:51
#4
Quote:
I think it makes sense to just incorporate it back into the other forums like organise etc. Fighting fascism shouldn't be thought of as something seperate from fighting the class struggle, all the discussions can still happen but it would remove the idea of anti-fascism as a seperate struggle.
I agree with that.
Apr 17 2007 12:19
#5
btw if the removal of this forum does go ahead, which it seems it will, what is the planned date for the removal?
rkn wrote:
Because of lack of traffic we think it would be best to remove this forum and relocate threads to local and organise forum. This will be done within the next week. If you have any serious objections please post here.
Apr 17 2007 14:52
#6
within about a week.
Apr 17 2007 17:09
#7
rkn wrote:
Because of lack of traffic we think it would be best to remove this forum and relocate threads to local and organise forum. This will be done within the next week. If you have any serious objections please post here.
I'd prefer to keep the antifa board separate, as it will be quite a pain to go looking for respective threads in the local forums plus organise. There were also topics discussed which were foreign news for which I yet have to see appropriate boards (about a Polish antifascist, or about the Antideutsche, just to name two examples). And before someone makes the number of my posts an argument, too: that number does give an info about how often a person reads the boards, which I do regularly.
Apr 17 2007 17:18
#8
But why have an antifa board except to contine its seperation and specialisation within anarchist communities? Antifascism shouldnt be a subcultural identity or pathology it should be part of our broader struggle against capital. If you have antifascist news put it in news, antifascist organising put it in organise and so on with thought and all the rest, I really think that's the best idea.
If you want a website for antifa posturing, which I'm sure you don't, you could try antifa-portal.net
Apr 17 2007 17:22
#9
aswad wrote:
I'd prefer to keep the antifa board separate, as it will be quite a pain to go looking for respective threads in the local forums plus organise. There were also topics discussed which were foreign news for which I yet have to see appropriate boards (about a Polish antifascist, or about the Antideutsche, just to name two examples).
We'd much rather set up new regional boards (like the new middle east one) than have lots of single-issue forums with low traffic. If enough people were to ask for a Europe or similar forum we'd set one up. Also once the search starts working it'll be easier to find things.
Quote:
And before someone makes the number of my posts an argument, too: that number does give an info about how often a person reads the boards, which I do regularly.
good! 
Apr 17 2007 19:13
#10
it's more of a query really. This forum (and Defy ID) are being removed because of low traffic? Does low traffic mean people who view the forum, post on it or threads started on it?
To resolve guydebord's concern, why not change it to an Antifa group forum, keeping it in line with the likes of Solfed and Freedom Press (as well as the newer group forums of Capital Terminus Collective, NEFAC, Workers Solidarity Alliance, Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol, libcom Wobblies, Anarcho-Syndicalism 101, Northampton Socialist Forum and Surrey Anarchist Group) who all fair a lot less better than this forum in terms of topics and posts?
Apr 17 2007 19:23
#11
cm has a good point here actually
Apr 17 2007 21:01
#12
For groups they often like to have a forum they can link to from their website, this is different from discussion forums around particular issues and we generally leave things going a bit longer even if there's little traffic. Having said that, the WAG forum was merged back into London last year after we couldn't contact them for ages, Northampton Socialist Forum would probably be next since the group's defunct afaik.
Fair question though, but there is some reasoning behind it even if we're not consistent all the tim.As far as I know, antifa have never asked us to host a forum for them - in fact I think we specifically didn't call this (or the content type or old features page) antifa to avoid confusion, and we rarely ask people if they want one because we've got serious peformance issues when the forum lists gets bigger that haven't been dealt with. So if we can get away with less we try to.
Apr 17 2007 21:21
#13
Quote:
why not change it to an Antifa group forum
because most of the discussion and debate that takes place in antifa groups would not be suitable for publishing on a public forum? I wouldnt of thought that antifa would be interested in any public forum here or elsewhere at this present moment in time.
Like GDID said there is no need for anti-fascist news/thoughts to be seperated from any other class struggle issues.
Apr 17 2007 21:32
#14
Vaneigemappreciationclub wrote:
because most of the discussion and debate that takes place in antifa groups would not be suitable for publishing on a public forum?
not if the uk antifa email list is anything to go by
Vaneigemappreciationclub wrote:
I wouldnt of thought that antifa would be interested in any public forum here or elsewhere at this present moment in time.
Maybe someone should have asked. Aren't at least 2 libcom owners also involved in antifa?
Apr 17 2007 22:30
#15
gdid wrote:
I think it makes sense to just incorporate it back into the other forums like organise etc. Fighting fascism shouldn't be thought of as something seperate from fighting the class struggle, all the discussions can still happen but it would remove the idea of anti-fascism as a seperate struggle.
I agree with this, and would suggest that this should be the basis for removing the forum rather than simply lack of traffic.
catch wrote:
Northampton Socialist Forum would probably be next since the group's defunct afaik.
The group's not defunct but it doesn't seem to be using the forum any more. Next time we meet up I'll ask people if they want to start using it or if we should ask you to let it go.
Apr 17 2007 23:54
#16
magnifico wrote:
gdid wrote:
I think it makes sense to just incorporate it back into the other forums like organise etc. Fighting fascism shouldn't be thought of as something seperate from fighting the class struggle, all the discussions can still happen but it would remove the idea of anti-fascism as a seperate struggle.I agree with this, and would suggest that this should be the basis for removing the forum rather than simply lack of traffic.
That could be another reason for the lack of traffic though - I know I personally rarely look in here because I'm not all that interested in "anti-fascism" per se.
Quote:
catch wrote:
Northampton Socialist Forum would probably be next since the group's defunct afaik.The group's not defunct but it doesn't seem to be using the forum any more. Next time we meet up I'll ask people if they want to start using it or if we should ask you to let it go.
Good to hear it's not defunct, can't remember why I thought this was the case. Let us know what people think and sorry I forgot you were in Northampton!
Apr 18 2007 11:07
#17
coffeemachine wrote:
Vaneigemappreciationclub wrote:
I wouldnt of thought that antifa would be interested in any public forum here or elsewhere at this present moment in time.Maybe someone should have asked. Aren't at least 2 libcom owners also involved in antifa?
Actually this forum was set up after discussion with some antifa people, but it was decided by both parties that for numerous reasons that it'd be best to have a "topic" forum rather than a forum for antifa as a group. I would've thought that with the departure of class war this'd be even less likely now.
That said, I do think anti-fascism is pretty separate from general stuff, and I do like it being in a separate forum. Not least because, like catch, i'm not particularly interested in it, so in here it's separate.
I think there's enough traffic and regular posters here to keep it going; i think it'd be troublesome having these threads elsewhere and I think they'd have a negative impact on the forums they went in. Organise for example could get pretty swamped with anti-fascist stuff, and this would be bad for the forum.
Apr 19 2007 10:46
#18
just seems an odd way of going about things.
Surely
Quote:
we're tidying up the forums, initially starting with 'single issues' section. The libcom group have decided both anti-fascist and defy id issues would be better served, and receive greater attention, being incorporated back into the main forums. etc etc etc
would have been a little closer to the truth, although i have no idea what you lot talk about, or how you organise yourselves, in the backroom of libcom towers. But putting the removal just down to lack of traffic is transparently untrue.
At the same time maybe it would've been useful for the libcom owners involved in antifa to email the list letting antifa as a group know the anti-fascist forum was being removed, and if it were possible would they want their own group forum on libcom? (Of course that relies on either group finding this idea appealing).
Bit of organisational foresight that's all.
Apr 19 2007 11:04
#19
I'm still not convinced that removing this forum has advantages, apart from making it one forum less to administrate. The initial argument was to close it down for low traffic, but apparently it happens to be the most frequented in this section 'groups and issues' with 233 postings....
Of course anti-fascism is a part of what we do - but if this was to serve as a valid argument for closing down forums, we should be closing them all then and have just one.
However, since catch suggested people should ask for a 'Europe' forum to be set up: I do. I think it should have been put up long ago in fact.
Since part of the threads in the anti-fascist forum are about stuff happening elsewhere but GB, or the world as far as it's represented in the way of forums..., it won't be an adequate strategy to re-route posters to the *local* and organise forums anyway; the organise forum also seems to get posts concerning GB mainly. The news forum on the other hand sees quite a lot of traffic already, and I assume antifa news will simply be drowned by the flood of other mails there.
Apr 20 2007 13:02
#20
Because antifa-portal.net is down for some time and it doesnt seem as if they are going to be online anymore, libcom was only place to post antifascist info on a forum read in big part by anarchists. Some people are interested in this topic more than in others, therefore this forum should stay in my opinion. Posting antifa news in other areas will simply make them dissapear between all other information...
Apr 20 2007 13:40
#21
But why can't it go into the other sections? Why should fighting fascism be any different to other struggles? In itself its not revolutionary, it's often necessary but I still have problems with it as a seperate struggle and an identity which some people adopt instead of real political stances.
Apr 20 2007 14:03
#22
Well, if you have a problem, then its your problem 
I explained why it shouldnt go into other sections but apparently you just keep forcing your opinion as only one that is valid here...
Wonder what revolutionary exactly are you doing apart from writing thousands of posts here btw..
Apr 20 2007 14:59
#23
EB -
you are missing GDID's point - what's the point of prioritising this forum/issue over others? Why is it more important than other issues?
Quote:
Wonder what revolutionary exactly are you doing apart from writing thousands of posts here btw..
Also this isn't an argument on a internet discussion forum. The whole point is to have posts.
Are there really no other discussion forums on the net for anti-fash stuff?
Aswad -
Quote:
The initial argument was to close it down for low traffic, but apparently it happens to be the most frequented in this section 'groups and issues' with 233 postings....
This is true, but the other forums are set up for groups and therefore are not seen as part of libcom as much as this one is. Where the issue would fit more into another forum we have already. Where the posts here would get more views.
Quote:
Of course anti-fascism is a part of what we do
For the people who run the site its not a priority.
Quote:
However, since catch suggested people should ask for a 'Europe' forum to be set up: I do. I think it should have been put up long ago in fact.
We will consider it in time, especially if we see an increasing demand.
Quote:
Since part of the threads in the anti-fascist forum are about stuff happening elsewhere but GB, or the world as far as it's represented in the way of forums..., it won't be an adequate strategy to re-route posters to the *local* and organise forums anyway; the organise forum also seems to get posts concerning GB mainly.
This is what forums such as 'World' are for.
Quote:
The news forum on the other hand sees quite a lot of traffic already, and I assume antifa news will simply be drowned by the flood of other mails there.
This would represent the priorities of people posting there.
CM -
Quote:
would have been a little closer to the truth, although i have no idea what you lot talk about, or how you organise yourselves, in the backroom of libcom towers. But putting the removal just down to lack of traffic is transparently untrue.
Yes the original post wasnt that great - i was in a rush and just stuck up a general post which hopefully would generate some feedback. It did.
Quote:
At the same time maybe it would've been useful for the libcom owners involved in antifa to email the list letting antifa as a group know the anti-fascist forum was being removed, and if it were possible would they want their own group forum on libcom?
If antifa were interested they would most likely contact us.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Apr 20 2007 15:09
#24
rkn wrote:
Quote:
At the same time maybe it would've been useful for the libcom owners involved in antifa to email the list letting antifa as a group know the anti-fascist forum was being removed, and if it were possible would they want their own group forum on libcom?If antifa were interested they would most likely contact us.
Yeah, as I said it was set up after discussions with antifa people, but they have either now left the site or never to my knowledge use the anti-fascist forum anyway.
the original post was hurried, but there is discussion now, which is good.
Apr 20 2007 17:25
#25
One argument that I can see for keeping this forum is that there are many people who are more than willing to involve themselves in militant anti-fascism, but otherwise don't have much interest in political activity. Just looking at this forum I can see a few people who, to my knowledge, have never posted in any of the other forums on this site. Closing the forum might drive them away.
On the other hand, I do largely think that GDID is right and that to truly fight a battle against fascism that we can win, we have to fight them on the basis of class, it's not just as simple as giving them the odd beating every now and then. Also, TBH I never really understood the point of this forum. I mean, it can't really be used for any serious organisational purposes as anti-fascism isn't something that can be talked about at length in the open.
Still, for what my opinion is worth, a couple of people seem to really like this forum so I reckon it should stay.
Apr 20 2007 17:55
#26
Quote:
One argument that I can see for keeping this forum is that there are many people who are more than willing to involve themselves in militant anti-fascism, but otherwise don't have much interest in political activity. Just looking at this forum I can see a few people who, to my knowledge, have never posted in any of the other forums on this site.
That's not something we're interested in encouraging though - since as you say yourself it's ineffective.
Apr 20 2007 18:09
#27
EasternBarbarian wrote:
Wonder what revolutionary exactly are you doing apart from writing thousands of posts here btw..
Comrade, having engaged and undermined my fascist counter-parts in real life I feel no need to obsess about them on the internet. If you want a revolutionary-activity martyr willy-waving contest I'm definitely your man.
Apr 23 2007 11:17
#28
rkn wrote:
CM -
Quote:
would have been a little closer to the truth, although i have no idea what you lot talk about, or how you organise yourselves, in the backroom of libcom towers. But putting the removal just down to lack of traffic is transparently untrue.Yes the original post wasnt that great - i was in a rush and just stuck up a general post which hopefully would generate some feedback. It did.
Quote:
At the same time maybe it would've been useful for the libcom owners involved in antifa to email the list letting antifa as a group know the anti-fascist forum was being removed, and if it were possible would they want their own group forum on libcom?If antifa were interested they would most likely contact us.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
valid points.
But surely there must have been prior discussion in your group about the removal of the forum? So there must have been an agreed reason to its removal, that reason obviously wasn't lack of traffic given the anti-fascist forums post count
Libcommunity
Thought
Organise
News
Feedback
North
History
South East
Ireland
North America
AF
Anti-fascism
Bin
West Midlands
Licom wobblies
Events
Oceania
Norwich
Solfed
Scotland
South west
Midlands
NEFAC
World
Middle east
Defy ID
Northampton
A/S 101
Freedom
WSA
Warwickshire
Japan
EKS
Surrey
Capital Terminus
in that respect whether your initial post was rushed or not isn't really the issue, but one of organisational clarity.
And whether antifa were interested would be surely be dependent on them knowing the anti-fascist forum was being removed? Ie there will be no anti-fascist forum does antifa want a group forum as replacement? (For the record they do now know and there seems little or no interest in whether the forum gets removed or not).
My point isn't whether the forum stays or not but how its removal is managed.
Apr 23 2007 11:44
#29
Like we said though, regional and group forums we treat differently to issue forums. Regions because they tie-in to how the rest of the site is organised (more or less, it's not perfect by any means and we re-organised the UK forums to slim them down a bit only a couple of months ago). Groups are essentially hosted, so unless we don't hear from the group for a very long time, or they ask us to close them down, they'll generally stay up longer.
FWIW this forum was originally requested by class war but was moved out of their 'folder' to give it more attention, so had it been left in there, it probably would have gone when they asked us to remove theirs.
We've also said on this thread that most of us in the admin team aren't that interested in anti-fascism, and don't see it as an issue by itself requiring it's own forum given we have regional and the main forums where posts could fit into (the same could be said for ID cards, although the removal thread there has had zero posts). If you look, you'll see these are the only two "issue" forums we have, and neither have enough traffic to justify keeping them when the posts could just go in organise/news/regional forums where they'd be equally relevant most of the time.
Apr 23 2007 22:44
#30
Do whatever you want, I dont care that much.
I am not interested in any willy-waving either, I simpley wanted to point that if you would live in Eastern Europe where in most places its very hard to carry on with any political activity without having to confront fash, you would understand need for more strict antifascist work (or perhaps you wouldnt?). Try to come here and tell anarchists about priorities when you have to fight on the street every fucking week and without group like antifa you wouldnt be able to carry on with much political activity because you would simply get shit kicked out of your every time you would appear in town... And hey, dont get me wrong- antifascism isnt only thing we do here...
Also whether to base our fight on class or not is not so relevant to here- in Poland class divisions are not so obvious like in UK, here its mostly "excluded vs. included" so whole class concept has quite different meaning...
so finally its up to you guys whatever you want to prioritise here... i will simply move somewhere else, because all other parts are either local things that I am not involved with or too pointless to be bothered...
This forum should absolutely stay: it is the only UK-based forum where one can discuss and post on anti-fascism issues, share ideas and information on fascists and meet like minded people.
It will be a great disservice to anti-fascism in the UK and represent a kind of victory to the fascist scum if this forum is taken down!!
Please don’t take unnecessary measures to remove the anti-fascist forum, it 100% needs to stay. Fight fascism!!!