Talk:Antifa (United States)/Archive 17

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Headline: "Armed white residents lined Idaho streets amid ‘antifa’ protest fears. The leftist incursion was an online myth."

[1] Doug Weller talk 17:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Headline: 'Instigator' with antifa flag still at large as Harrisburg police make protest arrests NedFausa (talk) 21:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's wait and see if the story gets any attention. Note that officials in Minneapolis said that protest violence was caused by outside agitators and the false claim was repeated by Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi.[2] See also the article in the Harrisburg ABC News affiliate, "False claims of antifa protesters plague small U.S. cities". So did the woman run away with the flag or did she leave it there? If so, where are the pictures? It's typical of political elites to find scapegoats.TFD (talk) 03:08, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Nation has got hold of an internal FBI document that says there is no evidence antifa were involved in violence at the protests.[3] The story has since been picked up by mainstream media. I doubt though that Trump and Pelosi will retract their misinformation. TFD (talk) 14:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Story in The Guardian today.[4] Doug Weller talk 14:23, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: Yes, but the Minnesota officials said the outsiders were right wing agitators similar to the ones who appeared to demonstrate menacingly the previous month to "open up" from the Coronavirus shutdown in Michigan and elsewhere. SPECIFICO talk 14:39, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I think they correctly pointed out that some far right posed as antifa on line, perhaps that some instigated violence, but not that 80% of the demonstrators came from the far right. TFD (talk) 21:55, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, just as well we're WP:NOTNEWS. Picking this shit-show apart in real time is an unenviable task. Guy (help!) 22:10, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Summary of lead sentence sources on antifa political affiliation

I think it may be useful at this stage to take stock of what our lede sources state regarding the political affiliaton of antifa.

This should set the WP basis for further edits to the section in case discrepancies arise.

1. Mic: "militant elements of the left"
2. WaPo: "far-left activists"
3. NBC: No statement on political leaning
4. Kiro 7: No statement on political leaning
5. Kansas City Star: "militant leftist activists"
6. CNN: "lean toward the left -- often the far left"
7. NYT: No statement on political leaning, but describes black bloc as anarchist subset among "broader left-wing protests".
8. Wired: "Far-left extremists"
9. NYT [NB-B]: "militancy on the left"
10. Atlantic: "leftist activists"
11. Time: [Interview] "antifascist resistance is based in the left" but can involve "response from a lot of different communities"
12. BBC: "far-left protesters"

Of note: The Time article is an interview of a comic book author who has no specialty background in politics or history, is not notable, and is not explicitly affiliated with antifa. It's questionable what value this source has in an encyclopedic text.

As of yet we have no statistical or quantitative sources to warrant claims such as 'predominantly' or 'majority' left. All WP:RS that do make a claim commit to a general description of the group as either "leftist" or "far-left". If a quantitative claim is to be made, then a WP:RS should be found to support it.

Watchman21 (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

WaPo "Although often referenced as a monolith, “antifa” is not one organization, but a loosely linked collection of groups, networks and individual people who support aggressive opposition to activists on the far right."July 2019 or "loose collection of hard-line anti-fascist protesters," August 2019.

NYT "on the left" July 2019 in an article called "What Is Antifa? Explaining the Movement to Confront the Far Right"[5]

But I agree, there is no way ever to get stats on this. But it clearly has supporters who are not far-left, so that's out, and we say it has liberal supporters. Black bloc doesn't = Antifa. The Time author is Lily Rothman[6] Doug Weller talk 17:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

On the quantitative aspect, if we can find a source that shows a substantive minority (beyond individual case studies or first party anecdotal accounts) are not left-wing, we should be able to justify 'predominantly left-wing' in the lead description. Otherwise we should probably refer to the existing consensus. I'll see if I can find a suitable one over the next few days. Watchman21 (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Having supporters that are not far-left does not mean they cannot be far-left. PackMecEng (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@PackMecEng: there is no "they" except the supporters, it's not an organisation. If they aren't far left they can't be far-left. Doug Weller talk 18:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. And many appear to be anarchists. I never thought of anarchists as leftists. No state versus big state, in simplistic terms. O3000 (talk) 18:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

When the majority of the supporters are far-left we call them far-left even if a small minority are only left. O3000 anarchism is often considered a far-left ideology. PackMecEng (talk) 18:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

But, who says the majority of supporters are far-left? These people don't seem to be great philosophers or pol-sci students. Horseshoe theory comes to mind. O3000 (talk) 00:50, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Is militant anarchism just standard left wing now? PackMecEng (talk) 01:16, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

It's circular reasoning: they are militant because they belong to antifa. TFD (talk) 03:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

No, they are militant because that is how RS describes them as well as the tactics they employ. PackMecEng (talk) 03:38, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, you are saying that antifa contains far left elements because by definition anyone who is on the left and belongs to antifa is far left. TFD (talk) 15:36, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Not at all. What I am saying is RS describe them as far-left and things like being militant and supporting anarchism are traits of the far-left. PackMecEng (talk) 15:44, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't object to "predominantly left-wing" but do object to "far left". My suspicion is that various editors inserted refs into the lede to justify "left" or "far left" rather than found a good selection of RSs and summarised their descriptions. Otherwise would NBC Bay Area, the Kansas City Star and KIRO7 local news really be your go-to sources on how to describe an emerging social movement? It is also striking that most of the sources cited there (I think CNN is the only exception) come from August-September 2017 when antifa emerged into mainstream attention, and reflect ill-informed news sources struggling to summarise what was to them a new phenomenon. That is why the person interviewed by Time, who has been an antifa activist since the 1990s, is actually a more reliable source for this particular use than a local radio station. (See my very long comment from 13 March 2020 in the Capitalisation RfC further up this talk page on why using sources that actually know about antifa are more appropriate than sources that would be generally seen as reliable but in this instance might not be well-informed. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I would avoid the term far left because unlike far right it does not have a clear meaning. Basically it means more left than I am. So to the average Fox News viewer, it means the New York Times. TFD (talk) 00:39, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

A quick update re. use of the term 'predominantly left-wing'. I've been unable to find:

1. A quantitative RS to demonstrate that there are a substantive minority of Antifa members who are not left-leaning or left-wing.
2. A case-study-type RS to demonstrate that there is even a single member of Antifa who identifies this way.
3. Even anecdotal examples in popular blogs, commentaries or grass-roots social media posts that don't qualify as WP:RS.

For further policy context, there are no exclusion criteria for left-wing ideology among the other axiological descriptions of Antifa in the article. Anarchism is not an exclusion criterion, as someone has already pointed out, given that ideologies such as anarcho-collectivism do exist.

Every RS that commits to a political description of the movement refers to them uniformly as left-wing.

I think we have conclusive criteria to refer to the prior consensus and describe them as just 'left-wing'. Any quantitative elaboration would fall foul of WP:NOR. I'll implement these changes shortly unless anyone can find a good source. Watchman21 (talk) 05:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with this line of argument completely. Antifa is ideologically diverse and not attached to any one movement. If any ideology predominates, it is anarchism. Although some anarchists consider themselves left-wing and some sources consider anarchism in general to be left-wing, most anarchists reject the association with the left and see themselves as neither left nor right. Therefore any source which notes anarchists among antifa by definition shows that calling it left-wing without qualification is problematic. "predominantly left-wing" is a consensual description that encompasses these different points of view, whereas "left-wing" is far more contested. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:53, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Those sources you reject as problematic are WP:RS. To disqualify them you'll need a RS with higher epistemic standing, like a quantitative source from a peer-reviewed journal. I couldn't find one, but perhaps you might have better success.

If you want to use anarchism as an exclusion criterion, you'll need epistemology rather than sociology. You need to show that the two are incompatible, and disprove the legitimacy of ideologies like anarcho-communism. Watchman21 (talk) 11:45, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• Question - Looking over the ref's above, it looks like most folks are talking about this guys as "far left" or "leftist". Why are we calling them "left wing"? Can someone point to previous discussions on this topic? NickCT (talk) 03:59, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I would have thought 'leftist' and 'left-wing' are synonymous. 'Leftist' may be more of a casual term. Watchman21 (talk) 06:59, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

See Talk:Antifa (United States)/Archive 15#Antifa far-left?, where I provided links to the five prior discussions to the last person who asked this question (as it pertains specifically to "far left"). – Arms & Hearts (talk) 10:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I have to say none of those are particularly impressive or came to any kind of resolution. What I did notice is many uninvolved editors all saying the same thing and the same small group of dedicated individuals stonewalling. Does an RFC have to be held to solidify what the sources and majority of people say? PackMecEng (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

If a discussion doesn't result in a consensus then the status quo remains—that's common sense. Though for what it's worth I think the August 2018 discussion was quite productive (surprisingly, considering it began with a load of nonsense posted by an editor who got themselves indef'd for legal threats the following day) and fairly clear-cut in its support for "left" and rejection of "far-left". Which isn't, of course, to say that we should be bound by it today, only that a new consensus would have to be arrived at to change that. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The issue with that is there was never consensus for just about anything. So yeah defaults to status quo but status quo here is basically meaningless. I was more making the comment so people do not get mislead into thinking there was an actual consensus for excluding far-left. PackMecEng (talk) 14:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I've reviewed the scholarly literature on (U.S.) antifa and found very little support for describing antifa as "far-left". Neither Mark Bray's Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook nor the introduction to Bill V. Mullen and Christopher Vials' US Antifascism Reader use "far-left" or "far left" at any point, with the exception of a reference to an interview with Swedish antifascists in Bray (p244). Likewise, none of the five articles in Society's symposium "What Is Antifa?" (Volume 5 Issue 3) use either phrase. Stanislav Vysotsky's American Antifa, as the first monograph on U.S. antifa narrowly construed, ought to be an invaluable source for this article, but unfortunately isn't published until July. Vysotsky's 2015 article "The Anarchy Police" also never uses "far(-)left"; the article is clearly in some sense about the subject of this article, but never names its subject "antifa", so probably can't be used in this article. The only scholarly source I was able to find that describes antifa as "Far Left" is Adam Klein's "From Twitter to Charlottesville" in the International Journal of Communication. One can make of these findings what one wishes: I'm of the view that articles and books by academics published by major publishers or in established journals are better sources than news articles and opinion pieces, but all of these sources have their drawbacks (neither Bray's book nor Mullen and Vials' is exclusively about the subject of this article; the Society articles are brief interventions; Klein is apparently out on a limb in the matter at hand). This is also not intended as a commentary whether "left" or "predominantly left" is preferable, though I might weigh in on that at a later date. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:14, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng raised concerns about the existing consensus, which I think does have some merit. The page did have something of a consensus but one that wasn't definitive. I'm open to reviewing it (perhaps with an RFC, if that's what's needed) given that it's predicated on a questionable premise.

One overlooked issue is that 'left' and 'far-left' are not mutually exclusive, the latter being a subset of the former. This means that sources describing antifa as 'leftist' cannot be used as evidence against the proposition that antifa are 'far-left'. Several quality sources describing the movement as 'far-left' may be all that's needed to justify a lede description to that effect. Watchman21 (talk) 18:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Watchman21 and PackMecEng: - Support RfC

Arms - re "I would have thought 'leftist' and 'left-wing' are synonymous." - I'm not sure about that. I think "leftist" is a more general term. If you told me someone was a "left-wing" politician, I'd assume they were center left or left. If you told me someone was "leftist", I'd assume they were anywhere from the center-left to the radical left. If you look for definitions of leftist sources will say anything from simply "left-wing" to "radical left". NickCT (talk) 00:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Wandering off-topic

That's just your personal ideolect. The terms are broadly synonymous; if you review a bunch of good dictionaries' definitions, you'll see that. When a degree needs to be indicated, that has the be done more explicitly: far-left, left-leaning, a bit left-of-center, etc., or one can't be certain the reader will walk away with the same interpretation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:40, 24 May 2020 (UTC) @SMcCandlish: - So, from the first 6 Google hits for "define leftist", there's Collins which says "Socialists and Communists are sometimes referred to as leftists" and Urban Dictionary (not necessarily a "good" dictionary) which says "A person belonging to the political left and usually identifying with the radical, anti capitalist, or revolutionary sectors of left politics". I don't think those definition a necessarily encapsulated in just the term "left wing". But more importantly, I think the main point is that in this case a degree does need to be indicated. So why not use "far-left"? NickCT (talk) 05:04, 24 May 2020 (UTC) Collins is a leading dictionary, but doesn't appear to contradict the idea that "left-wing" and "leftist" are synonymous. UrbanDictionary, though, is primarily a joke website written by teenagers. Anyway, I wasn't arguing against being specific about degree, just arguing against the idea that either "left-wing" or "leftist" reliably implies degree. We possibly should be degree-specific, but following the sources on that. I'm not sure I see a clear source agreement on this. It seems fair to me to say that various sources consider antifa a far-left faction, while others don't. We could quote some of the better sources directly. I just hope in the long run we are not conflating antifa as a specific movement or sub-movement (which seems to differ a lot from country to country), with anti-fascism generally. Libertarians, for example, are by definition anti-fascist but also by definition right-of-center on economic policy, even if also classic-liberal in some ways on socio-cultural matters. These things can also change over time; I learned a few years ago that the straight edge movement has a bunch to do with environmentalism and even vegetarianism these days, when those agendas were not connected with it at all in the 1980s when it originated (at that time, it was only about smoking, drugs, drinking, and casual sex). Social movements are a moving target, so source age may be a factor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC) @SMcCandlish: - "doesn't appear to contradict the idea that "left-wing" and "leftist" are synonymous" - So you think calling Communists simply "left-wing" is OK? Is it OK to call fascists simply "right-wing"? I don't think we're necessary disagree on definitions as much as the degree of specificity that's appropriate. I wouldn't call a fascist just "right-wing", in the same sense that I wouldn't call a serial killer just a "criminal". Sure fascist may be a subset of right-wing as serial killer is a subset of criminal, but it definitely seems a little misleading when you use terms which are so ambiguous and broad. "Libertarians, for example, are by definition anti-fascist but also by definition right-of-center on economic policy" - Well.... I guess it depends on the brand of libertarianism. For instance, civil libertarians might not hold right-of-center economic view points. Agree groups change with time, but that doesn't really impact what sources are calling this group today. NickCT (talk) 12:12, 24 May 2020 (UTC) It didn't say "communists", it said "socialists and communists", and "socialist" and "left-wing" and "leftist" are used interchangeably by many people, especially those right of center. You seemingly didn't bother to look at the same dictionary's entry for "left-wing" [7], which includes: "Synonyms: socialist, communist ....". See also the corresponding "More synonyms of left wing" list at the same site [8], giving "left-wing" and "leftist" as synonyms. So, I stand by what I said about Collins and their definitions. And it's just one dictionary; looking at other major ones shows comparable results. I don't know why we're arguing about this. It is not difficult to understand that "left-wing" and "leftist" both fail to automatically imply "far-left" to many readers. If you mean "far-left", then write "far-left". Next, civil libertarians are not, as a class, libertarians; this is a fallacy of equivocation, in which the compound "civil libertarian" has a different origin from the isolate "libertarian", and in which the fragment "libertarian" of the first has a different meaning that the stand-alone label "libertarian". (In the first, "civil liberties" is a specific and innately plural term of art with a unique and synergistic meaning; "civil libertarian" is simply the adjectival form of this, which in turn can be re-nouned as a person descriptor, and that is a backformation from the adjective, in turn from the original noun phrase. In the second, "libertarian[ism] is directly derived from a philosophical and singular concept of Liberty in a broader and rather Platonic or archetypal sense.) Most civil libertarians are not libertarians, though libertarians must be civil libertarians, since civil liberties are a subset of the general politico-philosophical approach to liberty espoused by libertarians. (On the other hand, Libertarian Party members might individually be neither libertarians nor civil libertarians, though most would be both. Some here and there are probably just confused kooks who have latched onto a third party just because it's a third party. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:41, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

To extract my on-topic points from the long digression above: We possibly should be degree-specific as to "leftiness", but must follow the sources on that, without engaging in WP:SYNTH to get at a "desired" answer that the sources don't actually agree on. I'm not sure I see a clear source agreement on the matter (only on the American antifa being left of center), and I don't agree that sources saying "leftist" or "left-wing" can be counted as supporting of "far-left", "left extremist", and other degree-qualifying descriptions. It seems fair to me to say that various sources consider the US antifa a far-left faction, while others don't. We could quote some of the better sources directly. I just hope in the long run we are not conflating American antifa, as a specific movement or sub-movement, with anti-fascism generally nor with other groups (characterized by rather different politics) who also go by "antifa". It is better encyclopedia writing for us to have a short paragraph on RS interpretations of how far left US antifa is, rather than just pick an interpretation that suits a present-majority editorial viewpoint and run with it as if it were the only RS view.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:41, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Well this article is on American Antifa so I would suspect that we would use the left-right definitions from America. Though I will note the source list above shows a clear majority going with far-left or a varient of that. Are there any sources that specifically say they are not far-left? I note some use left wing by itself but I do not think I have seen any that dispute far-left specifically. PackMecEng (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Why would there be any sources that specifically say they are not far-left? Would there be any sources that specifically state they aren't warlocks? O3000 (talk) 00:21, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

WaPo, CNN, and BBC do not call Antifa warlocks, so that's obviously beside the point. But WaPo, CNN, and BBC do all call Antifa "far-left". So we should certainly ask whether any sources say that they aren't "far left", since, if there aren't such sources, then we have a strong argument here that we should at the very least mention that they are sometimes described as "far left" in mainstream media. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:35, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Watchman21's bold initial post is misleading and even worse, unsourced. For instance, last year a Portland reporter for the BBC (in other words, someone close to the action) wrote "There is no one antifa organisation or political philosophy. They're a mixed bag of anarchists, socialists and communists."[9] I agree that it's unreasonable to insist on finding sources that say they "aren't far-left but are..." WaPo calls them leftists here.[10] Here CNN, in an article explaining Antifa, calls them "The term is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform."[11] Doug Weller talk 13:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Mark Bray, a credentialed academic expert on the subject—one of those rare birds which, reading the bulk of this discussion, one would think didn't exist—defines antifa thus: "It’s basically a politics or an activity of social revolutionary self defense. It’s a pan-left radical politics uniting communists, socialists, anarchists and various different radical leftists together for the shared purpose of combating the far right." One could take "pan-left" as a refutation of "far-left", i.e. as indicating that antifa includes people across the left (though of course I don't accept the premise that we have to find concrete refutation of "far-left" to not include it). – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @User:Doug Weller. Thanks for your feedback. Do you not agree that 'far-left' is a subset of 'left'? If so, then the idea that the two are not mutually contradictory follows necessarily. 'Antifa are left-wing' cannot be a counterposition to 'antifa are far-left' for that reason. If you dispute that, then your issue is with logical truisms like entailment for which we don't usually cite sources. Watchman21 (talk) 14:49, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

@User:Arms & Hearts. I think that's thinking roughly along the right lines.

I've just looked at your Bray source. 'Pan-left' here seems to be referring qualitatively to the political subgroups of the left (communism, socialism and anarchism) rather than a quantitative allusion to degrees of leftness, such as 'moderate-left' or 'far-left'. If 'pan-left' was referring to degrees of leftness, then the author would be contradicting himself by his use of the term 'radical' to describe the same group. ie. One can't be moderate-left and radical-left at the same time, unless one has a different understanding of radical to the textbook definition.

I think you've (inadvertently) found a further source supporting the idea that antifa are far-left. But I'm sure there are opposing views out there. I'll do a literature review if I have time and see if I have better luck. Watchman21 (talk) 15:07, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

1. You can certainly be on the left and not a socialist, communist, or anarchist.
2. Pan-left would seem to suggest varying degrees of leftist ideology cooperating; not a specific degree of the left.
3. I don’t think we should be labeling a movement with a greater degree of specificity. Indeed, pigeonholing folks should be avoided even with actual political parties..
4. The anarchists in the woods with AK-47’s waiting for a race war are rightists.
5. BTW, editing pings into a previous edit often doesn’t work. O3000 (talk) 15:33, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't dispute point 1. Your point 3 has some merit. I originally wanted 'far-left' in the lead sentence, but I think the lede now looks better overall with 'left-wing' (any reader can infer how 'far-left' antifa are from the rest of the opening paragraph) but this is just a personal preference. Like your own remarks here, all of this is ultimately subject to policy.

I'm not convinced by point 2, unless you can think of better arguments. Radicalism typically refers to the extremes, or even the fringes, of partisanship. If 'pan-left' refers to the degrees of leftist ideology (including moderates and nominal followers) then it would be a contradiction for the author to describe the movement as radical in the same phrase.

I think point 4 is true, but not very relevant here. Showing that some anarchists are right-wing doesn't disprove the proposition that anarchists can be left-wing as well. I think Bray himself implies this in the source we're talking about.

Thanks for point 5. I'll bear that in mind in future. Watchman21 (talk) 15:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

That Bray source isn't very clear, but I think the most reasonable interpretation is that by "pan-left radical" he means "across all radical left groups". In any case, I for one don't see why we need to pick one label. Why not just say that they've been variously described and list the most common descriptions (left, lefist, far-left, radical left, etc.). Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

That seems sound to me. However elaborations like that probably belong elsewhere than the WP:LEADSENTENCE. Watchman21 (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Yep, and it would grow starting with anarchist. O3000 (talk) 16:26, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

antifa is so very obviously Far-left that having an argument about it is astonishing in itself. How many “left-wing” people or organisations advocate violence? That’s right, none. Case closed. Please can the lede be *corrected* now. Thank you. Boscaswell talk 22:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Are there any academic sources about antifa's political position? Because if so, they should certainly be preferred over news sources. Furthermore, while the far-right is a defined topic with books and articles written about it, far-left seems to be more of an ambiguous term which basically means more left-wing than social democracy, so certainly left-wing, or even militant left-wing, would be more appropriate than far-left.--Davide King (talk) 09:37, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't have any peer-review type sources to the contrary, so there's no policy basis to exclude the sources you keep deleting.

Adding WP:RS doesn't require consensus. Deleting WP:RS (especially if deleting multiple sources in a controversial article) should be done after establishing some kind of talk page resolution, which you haven't done here. I prefer 'left-wing' from an aesthetic point of view, but if multiple RS corroborate the idea that antifa are 'far-left' then, in the absence of good evidence to the contrary, policy dictates the article text should represent the sources.

Your own arguments here, concerning the ambiguity of the term 'far-left' seem to be your own OR. You've provided no source in support of them, or an adequate exposition from an epistemological point of view, so I don't think they can be applied here. Watchman21 (talk) 16:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

There was no consensus to have them included in the first place, this discussion is still going on and others have disputed your edit, so it is not just me and what should be done is reverting to the status quo ante and leaving just left-wing while we discuss it here. I'm not opposed to have the main body talking about its far-leftism, but I think predominantly left-wing is just fine and does not exclude far-left nor its more moderate, admittedly centre-left minority. Furthermore, all the refs you cited were related to Trump's comments and they're contradicted in the main body which also describe the movement simply a left-wing, including some liberals and social democrats. That's no original research, but what the article's academic sources actually say and a point also made by The Four Deuces.--Davide King (talk) 16:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You don't usually need consensus for adding RS. That's rarely (if at all) controversial in even the most disputed articles.

You can try to dispute their status as RS, or question whether or not they are represented correctly in the article, but wholesale removal of RS, stating 'lack of consensus for inclusion', will just be reverted eventually because it isn't based in policy. I also recommend you actually read the RS you keep deleting. It's the authors describing antifa as far-left, not the authors reporting on Trump's views of antifa. Watchman21 (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

That may be true, but again, you have been reverted, we are discussing it here; why not simply wait for the discussion to be over and a broad consensus to be reached? I never implied to mean that the authors were reporting on Trump's views of antifa but that may fall under recentism. Either way, only three of your given 12 sources in the OP say far-left, so how does that support your edit?--Davide King (talk) 17:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

We now have many more than 3 sources describing antifa as 'far-left'. Two more were found during the course of the discussion above, which happen to be good quality RS. Even at that point, I think the polemic was starting to favor the 'far-left' crowd.

Where do you think they stand now, with the latest news cycle, with all the new RS supporting the 'far-left' camp?

But my contention here is not 'far-left' versus 'left-wing'. It's about your deletion of source material without adequate justification.

At no point, during the discussion above, was any requirement set for all RS to require consensus before we include them. That means there is no precedent or consensus in support of your argument here. One way or another, those sources are eventually going to find their way back into the article, and they happen to corroborate the 'far-left' description whether we like it or not. Watchman21 (talk) 17:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

We still have 5 (in the OP) and perhaps more that simply say left-wing or describe antifa as a broad left-wing movement, including both the far-left and more moderate-left viewpoints. The ones added in your edit still fall under recentism. Doug Weller disproved the rest.--Davide King (talk) 17:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

That was discussed above as well. A source describing antifa as 'left-wing' cannot be used as evidence against the proposition that antifa are 'far-left', because the latter is a subset of the former. That's actually a key premise in support of the 'far-left' camp.

I suppose you could try to argue that 'left-wing' can be inferred from context to mean 'moderate left', depending on the article, or that one is some kind of synecdoche (or metonym) for the other, but that would probably be pushing it. Watchman21 (talk) 18:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

The same could be argued for the reverse; after all, both the far-left and centre-left are still left-wing, which seems to be the only agreement between sources (antifa is left, but how far left? Far-left or still simply left?). Either way, I reiterate that, unlike far-right, far-left is an ambiguous term and the only thing the literature seems to agree is that it is to the left of social democracy, or to the left of the left. You cannot easily discount this in the discussion, nor I think it is something that can be underlooked or that should be easily underestimated.--Davide King (talk) 18:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't quite work the other way, unless you want to contrive meaning from context or figures of speech to make 'left-wing' imply something more specific than it actually is. Your argument regarding the ambiguity of 'far-left' probably needs a source.

Even then I think you'll need a consensus on where it fits in with policy. Watchman21 (talk) 18:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Left-wing doesn't exclude far-left while far-left may exclude many sources that refer to antifa as something broader. I think The Four Deuces can better explain you the ambiguity of far-left.--Davide King (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

That's probably too inductive. If you're going to argue knowledge theory in the setting of Wikipedia Policy, you'll need something that's either a truism or axiom, or something deductive. Watchman21 (talk) 19:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand what exactly you are implying, but why not simply say both? There seems to be no real overwhelmingly sourcing in favour of either (in the OP, they are more left-wing than far-left), so why not writing predominantly left-wing and far-left? If I had to choose only one, I would say left-wing, but I would be fine in mentioning both.--Davide King (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::::It's not even true. Read WP:UNDUE for instance. It's generally necessary but not sufficient for inclusion. There's also a lot of trivial detail one could add to almost any article on the basis of an RS. Then there's WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY, and WP:AGE MATTERS - the latter mainly deals with academic sources, but it's true for most. I've seen and removed outdated stuff in many articles that had reliable sources. Doug Weller talk 17:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi. We've gone over this above. If there is any question over whether or not a source qualifies as RS (for example, it trips WP:RSBREAKING) then you're obviously entitled to contend it. The issue is over deletion of sources, without a policy basis, citing 'no consensus'. Watchman21 (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

As argued by Doug Weller, WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS would still apply.--Davide King (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You'll need to read the sources, then read the policies, then explain why the sources fall foul of those policies. Watchman21 (talk) 19:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Please, stop acting like that or assuming I have not actually read them. We just have as many sources saying left-wing, so why not considering or counting them? Considering the controversial nature of the article and of what is happening, it would probably be better to wait and not rush. Again, you read WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS.--Davide King (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

To summarize where we stand, you haven't managed to defend any of your reasons for deleting this source material (other than the fact that they describe antifa as 'far-left'). When asked to explain how those sources are against policy, you refuse to carry any burden of proof.

So you'll need to explain, then, why it is you're otherwise justified in reverting other people's work. Watchman21 (talk) 05:03, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I literally told you it is because of WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS; and basically I completely agree with Arms & Hearts' comments below. You seem to ignore the whole discussion above and the other users who support simply left-wing, acting like it is only me opposing far-left. Also, if your issue is with predominantly, I have removed that and left simply left-wing. Finally, you may venture in original research and/or synthesis in claiming that pan-left actually supports far-left.--Davide King (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

So I just checked this article today and I noticed that “far-left” had been expunged from the lead, despite it being in the lead for as long as I can remember.

The fact that we are even having this conversation is laughable. There would be no opposition (and rightfully so) to labeling far-right groups as far-right, because we have multiple reliable sources reporting them as such. And as Watchman21 provided, there are multiple sources calling Antifa far-left. This has been part of the lead until now.

I’m going to call this out for what it is. Editors are just blatantly trying to whitewash this article now. Restore far-left to the lead. Larry Sanger is correct about his sentiments. At this point people aren’t even trying to hide their true intentions. In before I get multiple replies accusing me of being a Nazi or a far-right extremist. CatcherStorm ^talk 23:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

CatcherStormCan you move this comment up above my subsection to the main discourse since this is focused on a very specific item? Bastique ^{☎ call me!} 00:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

CatcherStrom, it's simply not true that far-left was being expunged from the lead; going back to August 2019 and as of May 2020 it was still left-wing. We literally have a FAQ at the top of this page linking to no consensus in using far-left. Far-left also has a different use and literature than the far-right which is much more clearly defined while far-left is more ambiguous and the only thing the literature agree is that far-left is more left than social democracy, or left of the left.--Davide King (talk) 00:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

To put this tortuous thread in summary:

1. Multiple WP:RELIABLE SOURCES now describe antifa as 'far-left'. Many more will likely arise with the present news cycle.
2. Those sources are being deleted arbitrarily. No-one has so far substantiated a good reason why they are against policy.
3. No quantitative sources, or other good evidence, have been found to the contrary.

When I started this thread, it was before the flood of new news stories on antifa, stemming from current events.

A consensus was needed at that time because the arguments for and against were much more ambiguous.

What is happening now is that good sources are being deleted because their inclusion in the text would render a consensus unnecessary. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog, and is just more evidence in support for a 'far-left' description in the lede. Watchman21 (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@Watchman21: How have you reached the conclusion that "No quantitative sources, or other good evidence, have been found to the contrary", when you replied to my two comments above (17:14, 23 May 2020 and 14:21, 25 May 2020) where I did exactly that? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Your first comment isn't evidence against the idea that antifa are far-left. Or to put it epistemically, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. You need positive evidence that antifa are something other than far-left, which none of your sources really fulfill and one of your sources actually refutes.

We've discussed your second comment (concerning the Bray source) above.

So far the most cogent interpretation of 'pan-left' is that it's describing the different types of leftism (communism, socialism etc) rather than degrees of leftism (moderate, far-left). Bray actually describes antifa as radicals in a general way, implying that he actually supports the 'far-left' position.

You've, inadvertently, been finding more evidence in favor of the 'far-left' description than against it. Watchman21 (talk) 11:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

What you're missing is that some sources are better than others. To be specific, works by established experts on the subject are more valuable than explainers rushed out by CNN and the like. Perhaps I haven't made that point explicitly here (as I have further down), but that's the reason I've emphasised above the need to consider accounts in scholarly work over news media accounts. If a term appears fairly often in the latter but seldom in the former, that's a very good reason not to use the term, and instead to formulate alternative wording based on the better sources. Given that, in your view, sources that refrain from calling antifa "far-left" cannot be taken as indications that antifa is not far left, should we read your #3 above as saying that no sources have been found which actively reject the idea that antifa is far-left? Don't you think that's an absurd requirement? We don't require sources saying "the moon is not made of cheese" to say the moon is made of silica, alumina, etc. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Arms & Hearts, thank you for your comments. I completely agree and you explained it better and more concise than I ever could.--Davide King (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Your moon analogy suggests to me you haven't understood the topic.

We've laid out from the beginning that, if a quantitative source to the contrary is found, then that would qualify as good evidence against the idea that antifa are far-left. None of your sources really qualify for that, which makes your moon analogy all the more strange.

Platinum standard sources won't help you if they don't actually support the propositions you need.

That support can be explicit ('antifa are not best described as far-left') or tacit ('antifa are predominantly moderate partisans'). That isn't in any way an unreasonable evidentiary standard. Otherwise your issue is with propositional logic, not me.

Simple tallies on the frequency of usage of terms won't really help you either. All the sources have qualitative differences in context, objectives, narrative, linguistic style, and so on, that need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis if you want to infer linguistic usage. You'll also need to run the gauntlet of explaining why this kind of systematic review isn't OR. Watchman21 (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Having to explain an analogy rather defeats the point of analogising in the first place, so perhaps better to forget that. Perhaps, taking a step back, the issue is that you believe that sources that do not describe antifa as "far left" are simply missing that information, that the absence of such claims isn't in itself meaningful, and that those sources aren't making qualitatively different claims from sources that do describe antifa as "far-left". In other words, you think that because "far-left" is a subset of "left" (which is probably too simplistic a picture, but that's mostly beside the point), that sources that use "far-left" are making the same argument as those that use "left", only to a greater degree of precision. In this context, what that would mean is that news organisations' introductory pieces for the general reader are for some reason going into greater depth on this issue than books by experts. This is very unlikely to be the case; what's much more likely is that news organisations' pieces prefer "far-left" out of some combination of sensationalism and poorer comprehension of the issues and terms. Arguments along the lines of "it's just logic, and if you disagree with me you're disagreeing with logic" miss the point – what's at issue isn't the reasoning but the presuppositions you're working with. I certainly agree though, for what it's worth, that "tallies on the frequency of usage of terms" are of no use (I don't think they're even possible); much better to identify the best sources we have and work from there. (This section is far too long and muddled, I've just spent almost as long looking for the comment I was trying to reply to as it's taken to write this. There was support for an RfC on this last week, then the discussion was overtaken by events. An RfC still seems like a sensible direction in which to head.) – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:01, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

After all that effort coming up with a rebuttal, you've probably realized by now, that, for your argument here to work, you need to assume that 'left' is figurative for something more specific than it actually is. That kind of defeats the point of the whole topic.

Non-specific terms don't magically become more cogent and precise by virtue of the fact they're spoken by academics.

If your academic sources are less linguistically precise than your news sources, then either your basic rule of thumb on source quality is wrong, or there are factors such as context, purpose, vernacular, and other idiosyncrasies within your sources that have to be examined on a case-by-case basis. Watchman21 (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it's becoming apparent that this discussion isn't leading anywhere, and, frankly, you're veering into WP:BATTLEGROUND territory, so perhaps we can leave it here. I had hoped you'd respond to the parenthetical process point, however. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd be happy to talk this over on my talk page if you want to discuss it further. Watchman21 (talk) 19:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@CatcherStorm: I see no reason to believe you're a nazi, but you do seem to have (1) a poor memory and (2) a preference for social media callout culture nonsense over assuming good faith, neither of which are conducive to collegial, collaborative work. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

accuracy of "militant" as a broad brush

From my own experiences, "militant" describes only a portion of Antifa activists so this is why I'm commenting here. The use of militant to describe the movement, despite the multiplicity of sources used to justify it, is deceptive. Many of those that claim affiliation do not engage in militant-like activities and nor are all their activities militant (food distribution, mutual aid for example). But however factual this anecdotal evidence is, it is not allowed on Wikipedia. (PS, I know a notable figure that died in 2018 but there were no notices. Is he still dead? I still can't figure out how to get this edited... True story)

But sources there are as someone in particular, probably in this discussion lumped together in a fine footnote.

However, in closer inspection, many of those sources used to justify "militant" actually use the word to describe the activities of particular members, not the group as a whole. Additionally, CNN describes their positions as follows: "Antifa positions can be hard to define, but many people espousing those beliefs support oppressed populations and protest the amassing of wealth by corporations and elites. Some employ radical or militant tactics to get out their messages." ( Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/tech/antifa-fake-twitter-account/index.html ) The use of "militant" in the lead is deceptive and should be removed entirely or changed to "sometimes militant". Bastique ^{☎ call me!} 22:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is a joke. We currently have “predominantly left-wing”. Which could be interpreted as including some right wing elements. So obviously that’s a ridiculous use of words. antifa’s logo has two flags, one representing anarchism, one representing communism. So by their self-identification as well as multiple RS’s it is both accurate and fair to describe them as militant far-left.

PROPOSAL for the reasons above, the words “militant far-left” should be used in the first sentence of the lede. Boscaswell talk 22:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Boscaswell, have you even read what Bastique just wrote above? I think that raised was a point worth discussing. I also don't see how that would imply including some right wing elements, for we literaly writes how [i]ndividuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist views[23] and subscribe to a range of left-wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism.[24][31]--Davide King (talk) 22:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I read that, Davide King But there are people who read the article who don’t actually read this discussion as well, and it’s those people that I’m thinking of. I’m not going to get bogged down in a silly argument where the nth degree is argued about until everyone is so fed up with it that the original ideas are long forgotten. It’s a brilliant way of shielding the real issue. That is precisely what has happened on this very thread. Boscaswell talk 02:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Boscaswell, I am sorry to break it on you but Wikipedia works by consensus and reliable sources. You may think that militant far-left is a fact but that may not be reflected by either consensus or reliable sources, especially academic ones which have more expertise about the movement; in other words, as succinctly put by Arms & Hearts, works by established experts on the subject are more valuable than explainers rushed out by CNN and the like. Your same argument that people who read the article do not actually read the discussion is valid for literally every other article and is not specifically tied to this; either way, I think the lead is pretty clear. As can be seen by Acalamari's comment below, not everyone agree with the militant wording in the first sentence and militant has been changed to militancy and added along with digital activism in this edit by Seddon.--Davide King (talk) 14:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

No, those words should not be used in the lead sentence and wanting to use Bastique's argument to support your non_NPOV change is staggeringly absurd. Acalamari 07:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

There are enough RS now to justify 'far-left' in the lede, so not only do I support this, it's likely inevitable in the long term.

For now though, the deleted RS in question need to be restored given that Davide King hasn't given any good policy reasons for why he's deleted them.

The wording of the lead should be set to the state it was before the latest news cycle ('left-wing' - no quantitative source has been found to justify 'predominantly left-wing'). Then we can take stock of all the new sources re. 'far-left.' In the absence of good arguments to the contrary, I will be implementing these changes shortly. Watchman21 (talk) 09:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Watchman21, you do know that one is supposed to be against fascism, right? Fascism is bad. We settled that last century. There was a war and everything. Guy (help!) 11:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Watchman21, Arms & Hearts just gave you some interesting responses, so please stop acting like it is only me opposed to far-left. I reiterate that all the sources you added were from news sources and all after what is happening which may violate WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS; not only that but the lead is supposed to be a summary of the main body and that does not overwhelmingly support far-left as you seem to imply. As argued by Arms & Hearts, some sources, specifically academic ones, are better than others. Finally, I already removed the predominantly wording and just left left-wing, even if I did not think that would have excluded far-left and I was open for it to read predominantly left-wing and far-left.--Davide King (talk) 14:14, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You'll need to explain how the sources are in breach of WP:RSBREAKING, WP:RSPRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS. Otherwise you're not really justified in reverting other users' edits on this topic. Watchman21 (talk) 14:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

They're all related or contigent to Floyd's death and protests as well as Trump and others' call for terrorist designation, i.e. from 31 March. Also in relation to this, as per talk page implies that consensus has been reached but that is not the case. You may argue that [t]here are enough RS now to justify 'far-left' in the lede but other users disagree and we are still discussing this.--Davide King (talk) 15:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It's specific details on recent events in those articles (eg. how many protesters in a protest as it unfolds) that are subject to WP:RSBREAKING, not general propositions such as the status of antifa being far-left. What about AGEMATTERS or RSPRIMARY?

Regarding your removal of 'against those whom they identify as'. The ADL source uses the same terminology, and describes how they target police, whom they consider as right-wing-by-proxy. I'll be reverting your changes unless you can raise good objections.Watchman21 (talk) 15:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Watchman21 you might want to see the discussion below. PackMecEng (talk) 15:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll send any further commentary there. Watchman21 (talk) 17:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

But don't you think that identification may be based mainly on that? And why should we use such sources rather than academic ones, even if more sparse? Or even, why can't we find a wording that include both? As for the rest, thanks PackMecEng for linking to the discussion.--Davide King (talk) 15:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@Watchman21: I'm rather concerned on your use of your 1RR quota to undo my change that was a perfectly fair edit and reflective of the original sources before we became a victim of circular referencing and nor taking the time to notify me of your reversion. Additional: Given my change wasn't a simple removal and was reflective of the sources my change seems aligned with both the concern of undue weight given to some of Antifa's tactics but recognises the presence of them, I've reinstated my change. Seddon ^talk 15:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

All I've seen are Bastique's comments above, re. use of the term 'militant. He seems to be aware his arguments rely on non-source inductions, implying the topic is likely to be controversial. I didn't see any feedback for it.

Feel free to revert it, but I don't think it's going to stay removed in the long run given how many RS use the 'militant' description summatively. ie. It'll resolve itself without need for an edit dispute. Watchman21 (talk) 16:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Now we just had "FBI report indicating "no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence", further indicating we need better sources than antifa's WP:RSBREAKING in relation to Floyd protests. That is why we need to be extra careful with this article.--Davide King (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That's still not relevant here. All it does is question whether antifa were involved in DC (presuming it's accurate and corroborated by other sources). It has no bearing on the general proposition that antifa are far-left. Watchman21 (talk) 17:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That does not change the fact that those sources are coming out with the protests, that news organisations' pieces prefer "far-left" out of some combination of sensationalism and poorer comprehension of the issues and terms, i.e. could it be that more sources are using far-left because of the protests escalation rather than an actual analysis? A few given sources talk equally or more about the protests and what is happening than antifa. Even then, one source states [t]he term is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform so it does not support the far-left label alone. One source also reads: Antifa groups resist far-right movements such as neo-Nazis and white supremacists. They monitor and track the activities of local fascists and expose them to their neighbours and employers. They also support migrants and refugees and pressure venues to cancel white power events. No mention of allegations or that those whom antifa is engaging with are not really far-right or racists.--Davide King (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

If you want to argue along those lines, you'd need to show that the authors' opinions of antifa, accrued over years of life experience, have been influenced sufficiently by a breaking event to render a source wholly unreliable, or more so than the margin of error (sensationalism, click-bait etc) already priced in to the probity of news sources in general.

That's either presumptive or an impossible burden of proof, and in either case likely to be shot down as OR.

Also, none of these sources are 'breaking news' (ie. stories being reported as they happen, or within minutes).

The ABC source doesn't contradict the proposition that 'antifa target those whom they consider far-right' but you need to direct your talking points on this topic to the correct section below. Watchman21 (talk) 18:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

For one, why using those sources in the first place rather than ones focused only on antifa and that specifically discuss its political position? Surely sources that discuss antifa's political position are preferable to news sources that simply mention far-left once in the text; and we could just as easily find a decent number of sources using left-wing as shown in the opening post. Furthermore, we write both in the lead and Ideology sections that antifa subrscribes to left-wing [not far-left] ideologies and the only statement that references its political position is that of the Anti-Defamation League (Most antifa come from the anarchist movement or from the far left, though since the 2016 presidential election, some people with more mainstream political backgrounds have also joined their ranks) which seems to support simply left-wing, or not only far-left in practice.--Davide King (talk) 19:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

If you can find those sources, feel free to include them. We've been looking for quantitative sources from the start of this thread. We've already covered your other talking points above, so I won't repeat them here. Watchman21 (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no need for me to find them, it is in the OP which already includes more sources in favour of left-wing than far-left, so why not using them? Why not simply state militant anti-fascist and discuss the political position in the main body? Why not including both left-wing and far-left? This is something you never answered. Nor did you answer to the fact the lead section needs to be a summary of the main body which seems to contradict the far-left claim.--Davide King (talk) 19:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Again we've already covered these points. At least three times, in fact, over the course of this extraordinarily long thread. It will end up even longer if we repeat dialectical points. Watchman21 (talk) 19:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I wish you good luck with what you’re trying to do, Watchman21. Davide King’s user page indicates that he is an anarchist. I’ve had disagreements with Guy before now. In my experience, there is little point in arguing anything with him. He is an Admin, but as indicated in his post several posts up, there is no question as to where his sympathies lie in this instance, and that is with antifa. So there are two there who will I imagine use every trick in the Wikibook to make antifa appear to be an organisation that merely opposes fascism in a warm and cuddly manner. Never mind that the two flags in its logo represent anarchism and communism - those flags are just incidental and don’t mean anything, because some irResponsible Source says that they’re warm and cuddly. Boscaswell talk 23:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

There was no need to for any of that and I think this comment may violate some rules whose name or link I cannot remember now. Either way, I have not been accused of what you are implying, not even by Watchman21, with whom I was simply respectfully discussing. Anyway, all of this is moot as I precisely put None in the Infobox as a joke and anarchism in parenthesis to match that of Religion (None: atheism) because of anarchism's opposition to authority and dogma, so it does not mean much. I do not even know why you are here; you do not seem to be here to build an encyclopedia. I guess an academic and expert source (Bray 2017) saying that [t]he vast majority of anti-fascist organizing is nonviolent while nothing that their willingness to physically defend themselves and others from white supremacist violence and preemptively shut down fascist organizing efforts before they turn deadly distinguishes them from liberal anti-racists is just yet another irResponsible Source, huh?--Davide King (talk) 00:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I just saw those comments by Nfitz and it basically sums up my points despite describing its views as generally centrist to centre-right, so clearly opposition to far-left does not steam from rabid leftists who do not want antifa to be associated with far-left. So no, Watchman21, there clearly is no consensus in favour of far-left and I did not violate any rules when I first removed the refs and far-left claim nor I did anything unilaterally as you implied; indeed, it seems to have been you who did that by reverting my edit, disregarding this discussion which does not actually support your view. How does consensus initially being for not even left-wing to cautionary using left-wing (as argued by Doug Weller) which was confirmed in all previously discussion suddenly goes for far-left. Since far-left was re-added in this edit by MeUser42 with the rationale to match the sources, then I believe the refs should be removed which is exactly what I did when I first removed far-left to reinstate the cautionary left-wing. We also have one source saying: However, as their name indicates, Antifa focuses more on fighting far-right ideology than encouraging pro-left policy. So maybe we should remove any position on the political spectrum from the first sentence and simply have this statement which appears in the second big paragraph: Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist views and subscribe to a range of left-wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism.--Davide King (talk) 10:58, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, one last point before I go, look way up to the top people and see Why don't we call Antifa far-left? with links to 5 earlier discussions. Doug Weller talk 11:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the "anti-facists" is supported by citations at all. The groups ideology is facsist. Just because they named themselves "anti-facists" doesn't mean that we should describe them as such 73.227.195.63 (talk) 00:40, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 June 2020

Add "self-proclaimed" before " anti-fascist political activist movement" in the opening line.

The citations and articles contents *do not* support this groups actions or ideology are anti-facists. 73.227.195.63 (talk) 00:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. Grayfell (talk) 02:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

IP, read this article and the parent article closely. The genesis of this movement was actually in combatting fascism in post-WW2 Italy and Germany. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk)

The sources don't support this. The etymology is combatting fascism in post-WW2, but that is not the origin of the movement as that would imply some sort of continuity. "By the early 2000s the antifa movement was mostly dormant"

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 June 2020

Hello,

I’d like to suggest some much needed clarity to the definition of Antifa in the first paragraph of this entry. The last sentence of the opening paragraph currently states: “Antifa activists engage in protest tactics such as digital activism and militancy, involving property damage, physical violence and harassment against fascists, racists and those on the far-right.”

The way this is written assumes that anyone who is the victim of Antifa’s militancy is a fascist, racist and far-right. If you’re a victim of Antifa, you must be one of these things, according to the logic of the entry, which of course is categorically false. The suggested edit removes this assumption as follows: “Antifa activists engage in protest tactics such as digital activism and militancy, involving property damage, physical violence and harassment against groups or individuals they deem as fascists, racists and whose views they define as far-right.”

As a political movement, their views are important. Their views, however, should not by default define others.

Thank you for taking the time to consider the above change.

Have a wonderful day! Corey. 216.180.77.102 (talk) 15:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Discussed at #"against those whom they identify as fascist, racist, or on the far-right", and there is currently no consensus for the change you suggest. FDW777 (talk) 16:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we know there are a few cases of mistaken identity, but that's already covered in the article. The sentence is correct though. Racists and the far-right are their targets. Guy (help!) 20:13, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Request new consensus to include June 2019 protest in Portland, Oregon

On June 6, 2020, Arms & Hearts removed content from subsection 5.1 Notable actions because "this has been discussed at least twice before and there's never been a consensus to include it; if we were going to include it we wouldn't use this flagrantly non-neutral language."

At a June 2019 protest in Portland, Oregon, an antifa mob assaulted conservative journalist Andy Ngo, whom Rolling Stone later described as a "provocateur" and Vox called a "far-right sympathizer". Ngo was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital, where he was treated for what his discharge paperwork confirmed was a subarachnoid hemorrhage (in popular parlance, "brain bleed").

References

I request a new discussion, separate from any other content to which Arms & Hearts objects, to reexamine the suitability of this content, with closer attention to WP:NPOV. NedFausa (talk) 22:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you'd respond to my question above: what's changed since the previous discussions, or, alternatively, why do you think the arguments made against including these incidents were flawed? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 23:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Arms & Hearts: Please specify which of the many arguments made in the past pertain in particular to your latest objections. It's unreasonable to expect editors to plow through years' worth of discursive banter to determine what applies here and now. NedFausa (talk) 23:35, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@NedFausa: I think it's not unreasonable to bring this up again, as consensus can change. But at the last discussion, I was persuaded that, although the Antifa attack on Ngo was widely reported, and although Antifa was identified as the attacker by (for example) WaPo and NBC News, the story is not DUE in this article because it is not the sort of story that would be mentioned in mainstream sources that were, for example, doing a profile on Antifa. There have been a few "profile" sort of articles recently about Antifa because of the news about classifying them as a terrorist group, and as far as I can tell none of those profiles have mentioned Antifa's attack on Ngo. Since we want our encyclopedia article about Ngo to be guided by these sorts of mainstream profiles, that means we probably shouldn't include it. And, from a more general commonsense perspective, I think that so far, Antifa's attack on this one journalist probably isn't going to end up being a big part of the overall story about Antifa. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Shinealittlelight: Please provide an example of a recent "profile" sort of article about Antifa. Since you put "profile" in scare quotes, I can't tell what you mean. NedFausa (talk) 00:24, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I mean articles like this: [12]. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:28, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight: The story to which you link quotes Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history at New York University: "Throwing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, but because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, any dissent against right-wing violence, backfires." Evidently readers of The New York Times, being assiduously well informed, may be counted on to recollect the most famous such incident without further prompting: the June 2019 protest in Portland when Antifa pelted Andy Ngo with milkshakes—the very event I am asking be included in Antifa (United States). In any case, since the Times story was published on May 31, 2020, I will use that as the start date and search for similar What Is Antifa? articles. Perhaps I can find one that mentions Andy Ngo by name, not just by erudite allusion. NedFausa (talk) 00:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight is correct, the reason for exclusion was DUE. I note that Arms & Hearts is requesting that other editors explain why it is undue, and basically repeat the previous discussion. But it's up to them to show why it is due. And could they please remove the reference from Reason. Not only do editorials fail rs, but the fact that you have to go to alternative media for a source argues against the event being DUE. There are lots of issues that receive attention in alternative media that are ignored in the mainstream. That's the reason alternative media was created. TFD (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Reason actually is reliable for attributed opinion, but I agree it isn't reliable for unattributed statements of fact. There was a massive amount of coverage of the assault of Ngo--it was covered by basically every major news outlet--so the problem isn't that it was not covered. The problem is that it wasn't clearly an important event in understanding the topic at hand, Antifa. Now to be fair there's plenty of other stuff in the current article that probably isn't any more important for understanding Antifa. Shinealittlelight (talk) 01:43, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight: In its June 2, 2020 profile of Antifa, Business Insider writes: In 2019, clashes between antifa members and far-right groups turned violent, leading to 13 arrests in August. In July, conservatives targeted the group after right-wing blogger Andy Ngo said he had been attacked by antifa members.

In its June 1, 2020 profile of Ngo, Fox News recounts the 2019 beatdown at length:

If anyone knows about the violence Antifa is capable of carrying out, it's Ngo.

In June 2019, he became a victim of Antifa himself, as he reported on a demonstration organized by the "Proud Boys" and the "#HimToo Movement." Antifa showed up to stage a counterprotest and things turned ugly.

Prior to the event, Ngo voiced his concern over a tweet sent by Rose City Antifa, which is recognized as the oldest Antifa group in the U.S. and identified him as a supposed right-wing sympathizer.

During the demonstration, Ngo documented a group of Antifa members who appeared to be shadowing his movements. Then in an instant, he became the focus of a violent crowd.

Ngo was beaten and his GoPro was stolen. As a result of his injuries, he was hospitalized for 30 hours, as doctors monitored a brain hemorrhage. He said he continues to receive physical, emotional and cognitive therapy as a result of the attack but hasn't stopped documenting the group and is working on a book titled, Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.

I don't think the June 2019 protest in Portland has faded into the past. Moreover, its historical significance to Antifa USA should not be judged on profiles published during the past 7 days, which raise the specter of Wikipedia:Recentism. NedFausa (talk) 01:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that we should look broadly at sources and not just at recent ones. That's not in dispute. But there's no consensus on the reliability of Business Insider, so it isn't currently RS. And while Fox News is generally a reliable source, I think it's pretty clear that it's not a strong source on this topic, especially if it is going to stand alone, since it's well known to have a conservative lean, and so it will be expected to be less than fully neutral on the topic of Antifa. I'd suggest trying to round up all the mainstream profiles of Antifa you can find, and see how many of them mention Ngo. If a strong majority of them did, I'd favor inclusion. By the way, if you're going to do the work of rounding this information up, it might be worth seeing what else should be cut from the article as undue. We should of course wield this criterion consistently. Shinealittlelight (talk) 02:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

And the Fox piece is a profile of Ngo, not a profile of antifa. What's due in an article about him is not necessarily due in an article about them. The NYT piece doesn't say antifa attacked him; it says conservatives attacked them after he made allegations. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Your opening sentence is already blatantly not neutral: "antifa mob" should be attributed, for starters, and then we can discuss whether it is DUE to give such prominence to a description from a libertarian magazine. (The answer is most likely NO.) Drmies (talk) 01:56, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Drmies: You have offered a sound argument for deleting Reason as a source and for changing "mob" to another, less inflammatory word—I suggest "activists". However, you haven't offered a sound argument for excluding both contested sentences, supported by citations to WP:RS, from subsection 5.1 Notable actions. NedFausa (talk) 02:06, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, indeed I haven't offered a sound argument for excluding etc.: you have not erred in reading! Drmies (talk) 15:06, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The significance of this to the antifa movement in the United States is not clearly explained in the removed paragraph. It is not enough to throw sources against the wall to argue for inclusion. We have to look at what these sources are saying and weight them accordingly. This was one incident, where one "provocateur" was injured and discharged. The specific details of this incident are not important merely because they can be sourced. The removed section failed to proportionately summarize this incident, and just as importantly, it failed to indicate to readers why this is significant. Tweaking the wording is not going to fix this problem. The cited sources are providing a lot of specific, important context. Ignoring that context would be misrepresenting sources. Including that content would be undue weight. Therefore, this is undue and can be safely removed from the article. Grayfell (talk) 02:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's BLP Andy Ngo explains the incident's historical significance, based on the attention it received from notable politicians.

* Texas Senator Ted Cruz called on federal authorities to investigate Ted Wheeler, Portland's mayor, who is also the city's police commissioner.

* Democratic Party presidential candidate Andrew Yang wished Ngo a speedy recovery.

* Former Vice President and Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and then-candidate Eric Swalwell also condemned the attack.

References

Additionally, Triad City Beat observed that "Ngo's profile rose exponentially" after he was "milkshaked and repeatedly punched in the face" by Antifa. Mr. Ngo went to Washington, where he posed for photo-ops with members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, including Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina and Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas.

On July 23, 2019, Senator Cruz wrote to Attorney General Barr and FBI Director Wray urging them "to open an organized crime investigation into Antifa." Cruz specifically mentioned the Portland beatdown, noting that Ngo "was attacked so severely that he was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage." On July 12, 2019, Ngo's attorney spoke at the White House social media summit, at which President Trump talked about Antifa's attack on Ngo.

I get the impression that the only people who don't understand the historical significance of this attack, which drove public discussion about Antifa at the highest levels of the U.S. government, are Wikipedia editors. NedFausa (talk) 03:28, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, Triad City Beat observed that "Ngo's profile rose exponentially" after he was "milkshaked and repeatedly punched in the face" (Antifa does not seem to be in quote as you did not use quotation marks for that, but I may well be wrong) is perhaps why it should be at Andy Ngo but not here.--Davide King (talk) 05:33, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The three sources establish that it is significant to Ngo's article, not that it is to antia's or to the articles about Cruz, Yang or Biden. Note that none of them actually mention antifa. Of course it's significant to any journalist's article if they are assaulted. But the ethnicity, gender, nationality, political affiliation, religion etc. of the assailant may not be significant to articles about whatever group they happen to belong to. TFD (talk) 11:30, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, yup. The thing we know with most confidence about Ngo is that he is, bluntly, a troll. Guy (help!) 18:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

And since Andy Ngo is a troll, Antifa thugs were justified in savagely beating him and inflicting a confirmed subarachnoid hemorrhage. Do I have that right? It's like men who say a woman deserved to be raped because her skirt was too short. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 18:33, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

While provocation can be a mitigating factor in physical assault, it is unacceptable as a defense in rape cases. While people are more likely to assault those who provoke them, the way a woman dresses has no bearing on whether someone sexually assaults her. But the fact that provocation is no defense in rape does not mean it cannot be used in ordinary assault cases. You can test this. Walk up to strangers and insult them and see if you find yourself being assaulted more than usual, even by people who do not belong to antifa. TFD (talk) 19:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

On the occasion in question, Andy Ngo did not do or say anything provocative. His reputation preceded him. Antifa's goon squad brutalized him just for being Andy Ngo. I'm sure Wikipedia editors will agree this is one of the great advantages of the age we live in. Internet notoriety is a scarlet letter identifying and certifying a target for socially acceptable violence. NedFausa (talk) 20:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, I'm sticking with sources in the green box on https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?v=402f03a963ba. It's not perfect, but there's pretty broad consensus around the sources in the green box at RSN. I did some searches. There are passing mentions but nothing like the torrents of drivel in unreliable sources. I did find one story that said Ngo was left "shaken" accompanied by a picture of him covered in what were reportedly vegan coconut shakes., That doesn't suggest they took it very seriously.

But let's see what you got. Nothing in any source scoring below 40 for reliability on the chart, nothing from any "reliable for opinion" biased sites, either site, from WP:RSP. No HuffPo, no Atlantic, no op-eds, no letters to the editor, just top quality sources - actual journalists not talking heads.

I've had it up to here with article spun out of crappy sources, left and right. Guy (help!) 20:28, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, OK, this [13] seems to be substantive coverage that does not pretend Ngo was not assaulted, and at the same time points out that he is a known provocateur, and the case is morally ambiguous to say the least. We could write at least a sentence or two from that, especially since it provides colour about how Ngo and his ilk have created the conservative narrative of Antifa as a massive threat - "even accounting for that, the amount of coverage Fox News devotes to them is preposterous. A search for “antifa” on Fox News’ website from November 2016 to the present returns 668 results, while “homelessness” returns 587, and “OxyContin,” 140. “Permafrost” returns 69. A decentralized, leaderless activist group with no record of lethal violence in this country, antifa has been skillfully transmogrified by the conservative media into one of the gravest threats facing Americans in 2019" That's a great quote, it perfectly describes how the right wing obsession with Antifa is so far out of line with objective fact. Guy (help!) 20:40, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

First you say "I'm sticking with sources in the green box." Then you deign to look at the source I cited, Buzzfeed News, which is grouped in the green box beneath The Washington Post and above CNN. Having done so, you allow as to how, since it "seems to be" substantive coverage, "We could write at least a sentence or two from that." Which is what I did and what this thread is about. Two sentences. I agree that some people in this discussion are far out of line with objective fact. But it's not me. NedFausa (talk) 20:52, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, Yes Buzzfeed is one of those sources that raises questions. You have to check in detail because they have changed their investment in reporting, and they have a lot of poor quality content. You actually have to check the background before you can say with confidence whether this is one of their pieces of properly invested reporting (which are excellent) rather than something else. And I did, and I agree that this is a good source.

So now it comes to what we say. Anything that portrays Ngo as an innocent victim or his concerns about Antifa as valid, is clearly contra-indicated by that source. Up there ↑ suggestions include Rolling Stone, Vox, Reason etc. You suggested Fox News, New York Post and The Hill. No thanks. Stick with solid, dispassionate and detailed reporting. Guy (help!) 11:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Add “sometimes” to assertion on their tactics

Just visited page and saw that first paragraph as some assertions that need modifiers.

First paragraph states: “Antifa activists engage in protest tactics such as digital activism and militancy, involving property damage, physical violence and harassment against fascists, racists and those on the far-right.”

Could someone here add the qualifier “sometimes” before “...involving.”

and “those perceived to be” in front of “...[facists], [racists], or on the [far right].”

Thanks! DrMel (talk) 20:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@DrMel: Please see the discussion above re adding "those perceived to be". Your other request has been fulfilled. NedFausa (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Boogaloos

Why does Wikipedia have a 5000 words breakdown of this right wing group? Yet Antifa is only 500 words and vaguely touches that they're extremely violent and destructive. TonyKasino (talk) 02:31, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that calls them "extremely violent and destructive"? What I've seen are sources that say that they do not shy away from physical violence if they consider it necessary - hardly the same thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

TonyKasino, this article is currently about three times the size of boogaloo movement. Guy (help!) 14:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Austin arrests

I think the sentence about the people recently arrested in Austin under #Response from law enforcement and government officials needs to be removed. Not only is it poorly sourced to local news articles (apparently the arrests didn't even receive any attention in the state-level media) which fail to indicate any significance within the history of antifa, it's also clearly contrary to WP:BLPCRIME, because it concerns low-profile figures who haven't been convicted of a crime. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:35, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

While some sources say they were antifa, others say they belonged to an antifa-like organization. in fact they live streamed their actions on a facebook page belonging to "Defend Our Hoodz", which fights gentrification. So it is extremely unlikely they have any links to antifa. The only significance is that conspiracy theorists are seeing antifa everywhere although there is no evidence any of them were present at any of the demonstrations. The specter of antifa is haunting America. TFD (talk) 16:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I revised the disputed content to address WP:BLPCRIME concerns. NedFausa (talk) 17:14, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't substantially address any of the concerns raised above. WP:BLPCRIME strongly suggests we avoid discussing low-profile individuals in relation to crimes for which they haven't been convicted; it doesn't suggest throwing in an "allegedly" to soften such claims. It's also still not clear that these events have been the subject of any attention in reliable sources published outside a ten-mile radius (or thereabouts) of where they occurred. From which we can conclude that these events do not constitute a significant event within the history of antifa, nor does mentioning them aid in understanding the topic. This can, of course, be re-evaluated if the arrests result in a conviction. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:34, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I revised the disputed content to include a reliable source published outside a ten-mile radius of Austin. As reported by CBS DFW, Texas Department of Public Safety director Col. Steve McCraw, a statewide law enforcement official, spoke at Dallas City Hall, which is 192 miles from the Capital Plaza Target store in Austin. NedFausa (talk) 21:59, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

You are taking the expression 10 mile radius too literally. One would expect a Dallas-Fort Worth station to report what is happening at the state capital. But the story has received no attention outside Texas and little attention inside. That's probably because the claim that the people arrested had any ties to antifa is dubious at best. TFD (talk) 16:11, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

According to an article in the Epoch Times, the DA claims that the three are known members of a group formerly called the Austin Red Guards. It's questionable the group, if it still exists, is part of antifa as it is best known for attacking left-wing groups. TFD (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

ICE attack

Recently Arms & Hearts removed the July 2019 attack on ICE citing per talk; doesn't seem as though anyone's interested in arguing in favour of this being mentioned.[14] I could not find mention of it here on talk though I could certainly of missed it in the mess of the page. It was first added a couple days ago by NedFausa here.

In July 2019, 69-year-old Willem van Spronsen staged a predawn lone-wolf attack on the ICE's Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. After hurling incendiary devices in an attempt to set fire to a commercial-size propane tank at the facility and aiming his homemade unregistered "ghost" AR-15 style rifle at first responders, he was shot dead by police. [15] The Tacoma Police Department said Van Spronsen's possible motives included his association with antifa and was reviewing his manifesto[16] in which he wrote "I am antifa".[17] Calling him a "good friend and comrade", Seattle Antifascist Action proclaimed Van Spronsen "a martyr who gave his life to the struggle against fascism".[18]

Should it stay or go? PackMecEng (talk) 23:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng: I took the liberty of restoring the final reference, which you omitted from the talk quote block. NedFausa (talk) 23:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Cool beans, thanks. PackMecEng (talk) 00:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe the historical significance of this incident is that it represents the only known instance of an individual giving his life for the cause of Antifa USA. In his manifesto, Van Spronsen self-identified as Antifa. Upon his death, he was proclaimed a martyr by his local comrades in Seattle Antifascist Action. This is a dramatic and noteworthy development that belongs in the article space. NedFausa (talk) 00:08, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing in our article 2019 Tacoma attack that indicates that he was a member of "Seattle Antifascist Action", and his friends described him as "anti-fascist", not as "antifa". I'm an anti-fascist, but I am not antifa. This material is not well-enough connected to the antifa movement to be included. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:50, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken: Thank you pointing out the omission of Willem van Spronsen's declaration "I am antifa" from 2019 Tacoma attack. I have added it to that page. NedFausa (talk) 01:04, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Since neither you nor I have read the "manifesto", this cannot be added to the article, because the people reporting "antifa" have a interest in characterizing it in that way. I have removed your edits. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree with BMK. There is zero evidence that this person had anything to do with antifa. This has been discussed before. O3000 (talk) 00:52, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

O3000: On July 19, 2019, The Washington Post reported: A man fatally shot by police Saturday after allegedly throwing "incendiary objects" at an immigration detention center in Washington state was an anarchist who claimed association with antifascists—known as antifa—according to new details released by police. (Emphasis added.) NedFausa (talk) 01:14, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we know what the police claimed he claimed. If he claimed association with the Illuminati or Boy Scouts, would we put it in those articles? We are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. When someone shows an actual association, we'll include it. O3000 (talk) 01:20, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

On July 16, 2019, BuzzFeed News reported: The man who died after being shot by Washington state police Saturday while tossing lit objects at vehicles and buildings outside an immigrant detention center self-identified as an anti-fascist, or "antifa," who was motivated by the recent immigration raids and deportations launched by the federal government. (Emphasis added.) BuzzFeed News also quoted a Facebook post in which Seattle Antifascist Action called the activist "a good friend" who "gave his life to the struggle against fascism." NedFausa (talk) 01:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Encyclopedia. O3000 (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Whitewashing. NedFausa (talk) 01:36, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Reading other articles, he seems to have been a solo operator, not part of even casually organized anti-fascism, and more of an anarchist than anything else.

There's no whitewashing here. He didn't identify as "antifa" he identified as "anti-fascist". Related, but not the same. The new outlets that called him "antifa" seemed to be relying on police sources, or are making the assuming that every anti-fascist is antifa. Not true. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Yellow journalism. Is anyone being investigated for this act? Have any authorities indicted anyone? Newspapers report everything. An encyclopedia takes the long term view. O3000 (talk) 02:02, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

O3000: Is anyone being investigated for this act? Say what! Are you suggesting that the Tacoma police officers who shot and killed Van Spronsen after he pointed his AR-15 at them murdered him à la the killing of George Floyd, and should now be investigated and indicted? You guys are too much. NedFausa (talk) 02:13, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, in some countries, every single time law enforcement kill or injure a civilian - suspect or not - it is investigated. Those countries have a lower rate of police shootings. This could, of course, be a coincidence. In this case it is clearly outrageous that the shooting of a 70-year-old engaged in criminal damage but probably unarmed, shoud be investigated. Oh no, wait: "The four officers involved were placed on paid administrative leave as the investigation continues, the department said."

Was he Antifa? Or Occupy? Or Alcoholics Anonymous? Or a lone wolf angry at privately run concentration camps on US soil? Or some combination of these? Was he radicalised by Facebook? That seems to be supported by the sources: he was actively involkved there, whereas Antifa don't have a central forum. It seems messy to me.

The Floyd protests are a response to excessive, disproportionate use of force. One very common refrain is that police are issued with guns but not trained in de-escalation, and when all you have is a hammer... Guy (help!) 14:13, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

If you had bothered to read The Washington Post story I cited, you'd know that The four officers—who had 20 years, 4 years, one year and 9 months of experience on the Tacoma police force, respectively—have been put on paid administrative leave, according to department policy. … An investigation into the incident continued throughout Saturday, police said, and authorities closed roads near the center as they gathered evidence. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 14:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, Ned, read back over your comments. I was responding to "Is anyone being investigated for this act?" Say what! Are you suggesting that the Tacoma police officers who shot and killed Van Spronsen after he pointed his AR-15 at them murdered him à la the killing of George Floyd, and should now be investigated and indicted? You guys are too much. As has happened before on this page, your own sources contradict your rhetoric. Yes, the police are being investigated. I this case, given the propane tank, they would likely be cleared, but just imagine if they'd had de-escalation training, eh? How would it have turned out, I wonder? Guy (help!) 14:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

You are asking questions to which any intelligent reader would already know the answers. Willem van Spronsen had been involved with Occupy and AA years before he firebombed the ICE facility in Tacoma. In his manifesto explaining his mission on that occasion, he declared "I am antifa." He did not declare "I am Occupy." He did not declare "I am Alcoholics Anonymous." But of course his own words don't matter to Wikipedia editors determined to scrub his historic sacrifice on behalf of Antifa USA from this and any other article in order to minimize Antifa's connection to deadly violence. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 14:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

While I think there are good arguments for excluding this on the basis of the tenuous connection to the subject, I think it's also important to ask, even if the connection were indubitable—if Van Spronsen had been wearing an antifa membership card on a lanyard and screamed "viva antifa", and this was reported in reliable sources—whether this event constitutes a significant enough event in the history of antifa in the U.S. to merit a mention in this article. Less than a year on, nobody is talking about this (except us and probably Stormfront). Here are five "what is antifa" explainer pieces published by reliable sources the last ten days or so, none of which see fit to mention the Tacoma attack: [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. The purpose of this article is to give a historical overview, not to list every event with which antifa may have been connected; the way we determine what's historically significant enough to be worth mentioning is by determining whether sustained coverage exists. The brief burst of attention this event received is not sufficient. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• If this was discussed before, and the consensu was not to include it, the consensus does not seem to have changed. The back-and-forth is therefore extraneous. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Was the consensus in favor of not including it, or was there merely no consensus either way? Those are two very different things. And why do you say If this was discussed before. Don't you know? NedFausa (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• The Buzzfeed and Seatle Times article make a pretty clear connection to Antifa, especially when they quote his own writings saying "I am antifa". Solo operator does not matter for Antifa, they are not a specific organization. Anyone who says they are Antifa, are Antifa. There does not seem to be a vetting process since, you know, they are semi autonomous etc. PackMecEng (talk) 03:00, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  PackMecEng, true, but there is some kind of group - a lone wolf attack is exactly that. I have no strong opinion either way here but this is not like incels, where to be one is to be one. Guy (help!) 14:11, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Granted they do generally employ a mob mentality. What would it take to be considered part of Antifa beyond just saying you are part? The Buzzfeed article does note that a lead organizer with Seattle Antifascist Action seems to of considered him active in it. What is a incels? PackMecEng (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  What is a incels? Oh man, that is a rabbit hole... suffice to say, the term stands for "involuntary celibates." These are folks who believe they have been wrongly denied sex, and incel communities usually devolve into hate speech (primarily against women). Several instances of gun violence and mass shootings have been perpetrated by self proclaimed incels. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah I was just reading up on it too. Well it all sounds terrible, just shockingly terrible. I think I am going to avoid the subject and try and pretend I do not know that they are a thing. PackMecEng (talk) 18:38, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Group added to terrorist list after attack on neo-Nazis.

A Chicago group said to be inspired by a powerful religious figure and considering themselves to be "on a mission from God" has been added to the terrorist list after an attack on a Nazi rally in Illinois left two missing, presumed dead, and a trail of destruction with over a hundred law enforcement vehicles damaged and several state troopers with broken watches. [24] Guy (help!) 12:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy, what does that have to do with Antifa? And isn’t that a satirical website? Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 13:50, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Symmachus Auxiliarus, fake news? I have it on good authority that the British National Party cited this publication in its campaign against Corbyn's "hug a jihadi" policy. And the relevance is obvious: they are anti-fascists. One of the leaders is quoted as saying "I hate Illinois Nazis". Guy (help!) 13:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

This section, which is one administrator's idea of a joke and has nothing to do with improving Antifa (United States), should be removed per WP:NOTFORUM. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 13:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Remember the 75 year old man shoved by the Buffalo police who lay bleeding from his ear on the ground? The president of the US just suggested he was an antifa provocateur. The point is that we must be careful about labeling acts as associated with antifa. O3000 (talk) 14:05, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

The point is that some Wikipedia admins and editors will go to any length—including posting utter nonsense—to distract from attempts by others to improve Antifa (United States) by including well sourced accounts of Antifa involvement in violent events and U.S. government officials' responses to Antifa involvement in those events. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 14:42, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Your continued refusal to WP:AGF is not useful. We do not agree that acceptable documentation of antifa involvement has been reliably sourced or that your proposed additions are improvements under WP policies and guidelines. We are allowed to disagree. O3000 (talk) 14:54, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

It's a challenge to assume good faith on the part of editors who, for example, post this: The Trump administration, ever since they've been in office, has repeatedly lied, misrepresented the truth, and presented their opinions and wishful thinking as facts. This means that we cannot take what they say at face value for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Reliable sources may reprt accurately what various Trump Administration people say, but there's are no grounds anymore for including their words in an article until they have been shown to be accurate by a third party. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 15:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

[25] Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Well... FDW777 (talk) 15:05, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, you are going to have to work on your inability to assume good faith as your repeated comments about other editors is not an effective means of producing a consensus. WP:FOC O3000 (talk) 15:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, you are acting too aggressively in this discussion. I've already warned you against this sort of conduct when you engaged in it in the IPA topic area. Well, the same applies to the AP2 topic area as well. At some point, you are going to exhaust these repeated warnings and will just be sanctioned outright. For the umpteenth time, you need to start doing better by conducting yourself with greater moderation. El_C 15:15, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Ned, what Beyond My Ken said isn’t inaccurate, and this has been illustrated by two editors citing the conspiracy theory Trump was just peddling today about Martin Gugino. The context of what they said is likewise true; we need reliable third party sourcing when the primary source makes unreliable statements. I’m not sure what exactly your point was in quoting that comment. On a completely unrelated note, I just noticed that a majority of your edits fall under WP:MEATBOT, as they’re clearly automated. But most of the recent ones are just removing the participle “down” from “slowed down”. Why exactly is that necessary? In some cases, it might be introducing variants that differ from sourcing or intended meaning. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 18:09, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, I’m not sure why you didn’t just simply reply here, as opposed to putting a notice on your user talk page, but regardless, thank you for the explanation. In response to that though, there is actually a difference, especially depending on the syntax. While “slowed” and “slowed down” are both simple past, “down” is used to show an action has been carried to completion. A better example of this is probably “boiled down” as opposed to just “boiled”. In the past tense, removing this can have the grammatical effect of introducing ambiguity, placing it in a state of indefinite duration. Some of these examples may even be removing a simple perfected state. It’s not a big deal, and I didn’t really know this until I learned Latin, as speaking Latin requires more precision than English. I’m not saying this simply to be pedantic, and I’m not going to check whether there were errors introduced by your changes; just be careful when editing at such a rapid pace. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 19:51, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

POV paragraph on Andy Ngo

This revert [26] restores a POV version of the paragraph about the attack on Andy Ngo. The restored material goes on at length about what Ngo had done. But the things Ngo had done were not justifications for a physical attack. Additionally, the revert calls the previous version a "POV edit", even though it was sourced more evenly than the version it had reverted too. Note in particular that prior to the revert, a source with a left-wing POV (Rolling Stone) was balanced by a source with a libertarian POV 9Reason Magazine). See WP:RSP. The revert removes this balance in the sourcing. Adoring nanny (talk) 06:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

While I agree that the those may not have been justifications for a physical attack, I believe they are worth mentioning to give a better context (Vox clearly states In the dominant narrative, pushed by the conservative and mainstream media alike, the attack on Ngo is evidence of a serious left-wing violence problem in America. [...] Ngo is not an innocent victim but a far-right sympathizer who has doxxed antifa members in the past, potentially facilitating their harassment, and provokes them so that he can broadcast the result. The outpouring of sympathy for Ngo, in this account, is actually evidence that the mainstream media is falling for Ngo's grift — funneling money to his Patreon and legitimizing a right-wing smear campaign against a group that's working to protect people from the threat of violence from groups like the Proud Boys. and are not original research or synthesis as it may have been this. Furthermore, we use alt-right, far-right, white supremacist or other qualifier when discussing those engaged by antifa which is what I believe should be done for Carlson too. For example, CNN reports They believe Carlson supports and promotes a white nationalist agenda on Fox News, hence why they targeted him, but I digress. I hope Beyond My Ken can reply to your objections as well.--Davide King (talk) 07:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, there is no consensus for including the Ngo incident (which we are still discussing; you should have waited for a consensus), so you should have been reverted for that (you changed the paragraph from the 2020 lawsuit to the 2019 incident), although I agree you should have been reverted also for removing right-wing "provocateur" [...] [and] "far-right sympathizer" which is also what Andy Ngo reads and has read for a while. Furthermore, that paragraph was about the lawsuit which may be due (unlike the Ngo incident which we are still discussing, there has not been opened any discussion on whether the lawsuit is due or not, so you removed the lawsuit which seems to be supported as due and reinstated the 2019 incident which we are still discussing), but which we ought to keep an eye on the situation – e.g. if the suit is thrown out very quickly it might not be significant enough to include, whereas if it continues to get coverage it probably ought to stay, at least per Arms & Hearts.--Davide King (talk) 08:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Adoring nanny, Ngo is a provocateur who views anti fascism as more of a problem than white supremacism or neo-Nazism. Once, he managed to provoke an assault. He uses that to support the pre-existing right-wing narrative of violent leftist extremism, when the evidence shows that the far right is an actual domestic terrorism threat in a way that anti-fascists are not. We're not going to pretend otherwise. Guy (help!) 10:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I am confused by the reference to "Carlson". This is about Andy Ngo. The incident itself has more coverage than the lawsuit. How can the lawsuit be worth including but the incident not? Lastly, descibing Ngo as a "provocateur" is contrary to WP:WikiVoice. Note that neither Reason nor Vox uses that word to describe him. Vox does say he is close to being a "gonzo journalist", for whatever that's worth. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:32, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

There is recent consensus that Andy Ngo is a troll and provocateur who, on that basis alone, deserved to be brutally beaten by Antifa's goon squad and, again on that basis alone, should not be mentioned anywhere in Antifa (United States). We must adhere to consensus. We must toe the line. Resistance is futile. Lower your standards and surrender your principles. You will be assimilated. NedFausa (talk) 14:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:CIV WP:AGF WP:NOTFORUM. Strawman arguments are not conducive to consensus. O3000 (talk) 14:44, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Did I touch a nerve? As a dutiful member of the collective, I'm simply pointing out that consensus expressed in an earlier section of this talk page may apply as well to this newer section. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. NedFausa (talk) 15:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

No idea what you are talking about. WP:FOC O3000 (talk) 15:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Vox does use that term. It says: "Ngo is a conservative provocateur sympathizer who has worked with militant right-wing groups; he seems to delight in antagonizing antifa members and broadcasting the results."[27] BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I would be comfortable using Vox for BLP labels. PackMecEng (talk) 15:15, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Rest easy! Vox is certified by Wikipedia as "liberal-leaning" and appears in the vaunted green box on Ad Fontes Media, Inc.'s Interactive Media Bias Chart® 5.0, as recommended on this very talk page specifically relating to Andy Ngo by administrator Guy, who advises: "It's not perfect, but there's pretty broad consensus around the sources in the green box at RSN." NedFausa (talk) 15:35, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, I still don't use Vox for controversial facts. I care about reliability and gravitas not political slant, and Vox is tabloidish. Guy (help!) 16:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Fortunately, there is nothing controversial about Andy Ngo's reputation. As you declared on this talk page yesterday, The thing we know with most confidence about Ngo is that he is, bluntly, a troll. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Your sarcastic banter in this section is producing more heat than illumination. Please stop. ValarianB (talk) 18:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.106.18.72 (talk) 13:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Eleanor Penny

Information relating to Eleanor Penny was recently moved claiming "not a scholar". I believe this edit should be reverted, with a slight modification to place her after Chomsky which she wasn't originally.

At present the Antifa (United States)#Reactions of others includes her in the first sub-section, stating Eleanor Penny, an author on fascism and the far-right, argues against Chomsky... But the inclusion here makes little sense, since Chomsky's point that she is the counter-point to doesn't appear until the third sub-section. FDW777 (talk) 07:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that Penny should go immediately after Chomsky. However, I'm dubious about Chomsky being listed among scholars. He is of course an academic, but a linguist - he has no expertise on antifa and is commenting here as an activist/commentator, not in his capacity as a linguist. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:16, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with removing both. Chomsky is not an expert in this area & his statements should be removed, which means we no longer need the rebuttal. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

She was included in the section /Academics and scholars/ whereas she is not a scholar. As noted above, Chomsky is a scholar, but not an expert (although he has been writing about politics for decades). Remove both. Alcaios (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

PS: Eleanor Penny defines herself as a "a writer, journalist, editor, poet, broadcaster and teacher" on here website. Whereas only a few academic, peer-reviewed studies have been done on the American Anfifa movement due to its recent emergence, we should be cautious regarding the sources we use to analyze the movement. It should be also clear that Mark Bray is a scholar AND an activist (he was one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street). That said, he is a scholar and an expert on the movement, so I see no reason to dismiss his study for his personal viewpoints. On the other side, what Laura Ingraham thinks is totally irrelevant. Please cite a real study about the link between terrorism and the Antifa. Alcaios (talk) 18:32, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

PS2: the tendency of some contributors to think that the analysis of a scholar and a journalist has the same intrinsic value is detrimental to the health of Wikipedia and epistemology in general (cf. a sub-section in /Reactions of others/). I have been contributing to Wikipedia for one year now, and you can't imagine the number of approximations/simplifications (sometimes blatant errors), that have been spotted in the so-called NEWS:RS (recently in ABC). Alcaios (talk) 18:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 June 2020

Antifa has been declared a terrorist organization. 2600:1006:B027:B625:E8A1:6528:719D:A069 (talk) 19:00, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done See the many sections at Talk:Antifa (United States)/Archive 16. FDW777 (talk) 19:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Laura Ingraham

Does the sentence on Laura Ingraham's 2017 call for antifa to be identified as a terrorist organisation need to be in the Political commentators and members of Congress section? It seems to me that, while it might have been newsworthy three years ago, it's now more or less standard fare for a Fox News commentator. We're not going to list every commentator who supports such a move, so I think we ought to remove that sentence and rename the section accordingly (Ingraham is the only non-politician mentioned). – Arms & Hearts (talk) 23:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

If anything, the fact that she ade the comment three years ago when n others were doing so, makes it more worthy of being in the article, not less. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:13, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair point. On the other hand, the source cited doesn't seem to treat it as that remarkable, and notes that a petition calling for antifa to be designated a terrorist group (mentioned under Trump administration) had already received 300,000 signatures by the time Ingraham made her remarks, so she wasn't exactly ahead of the curve. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

If reliable sources note that Ingraham's call was significant, e.g. in influencing Trump and others in this call, then we should include it. For us to claim it was significant without such reliable sources would be original research. If it was not significant in this way its inclusion is arbitary and against due weight policy. So, we should either find a source showing her call was noteworthy, or we should delete. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:58, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

"Wishful thinking on Barr's part" is now grounds for removal of reliably sourced content

This must be one of those Wikipedia policies they forgot to teach me at the Edit-a-Thon: Wishful thinking on Barr's part. Fascinating. NedFausa (talk) 02:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

We are not an outlet for Trump News. The Trump administration, ever since they've been in office, has repeatedly lied, misrepresented the truth, and presented their opinions and wishful thinking as facts. This means that we cannot take what they say at face value for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Reliable sources may reprt accurately what various Trump Administration people say, but there's are no grounds anymore for including their words in an article until they have been shown to be accurate by a third party. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey POV editor BMK, you know the article is under 1RR right? PackMecEng (talk) 02:42, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, are you talking to me, PoC editor PackMecEng? You must have to the wrong person, because I'm "Dedicated to neutrality editor BMK." And, no, I didn;t know it was under 1RR. Did I break that? Then I'll fix it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng (talk) 02:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken: So now you're expanding the prohibition from Attorney General Barr to the entire Trump Administration, presumably including the president himself. Unless a third party of which you approve shows what U.S. government officials say is accurate—not accurately reported, mind you, but factual according to your preferred source—we may not include that content. If we try, you will revert it, as you did with today's remarks by AG Barr. This just gets better and better. NedFausa (talk) 02:50, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes. If the Trump Administration was evaluated as we do news sources to determine if they are reliable or not and can be used in the encyclopediaq, there is no doubt that they'd be cooling their heels with Daily Mail right now. They are most definitely not a reliable source for facts. 02:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Should stay removed: this is an unsubstantiated claim by a gov official and is undue. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I had to revert myself because I was 90 minutes insides the 24 hour limit for a second revert, so anyone who feels as I do that it should not be in the article should do the right thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and do so quickly because Attorney General Barr's remarks represent a grave threat to the sanitized version of Antifa (United States) that involved editors now demand. NedFausa (talk) 03:03, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa and PackMecEng, please stop accusing other editors like that. Remember that bias goes both ways. I do not really have an opinion on this, but I found Beyond My Ken's comments persuasive. They also seem to blame more on anarchic and far left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics rather than antifa which they probably conflate with that. Note how antifa is usually not alone (anarchic and far left extremist groups, Antifa and other similar groups, antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions and anarchists like Antifa), basically acting like antifa is some organisation when it is not and conflating antifa and antifa groups with anarchists and anarchist groups.--Davide King (talk) 07:09, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Who did I accuse of what this time?! PackMecEng (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Did I dream when you called Beyond My Ken POV editor? It was unnecessary.--Davide King (talk) 14:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah kind of, it is our pet name for each other. Been calling each other that for a while. Kind of an in joke, which is why I did the winky face and left a message instead of going to 3RR. PackMecEng (talk) 15:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Davide: Thanks for putting in a word for me, but I did not take offense at PME's remark. PackMecEng: Are you familiar with the "FBDB" (Friendly Banter, Don't Block" template? Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, it should be used more. PackMecEng (talk) 18:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't necessarily object to including Barr's words (without direct quoting, if that's preferred, and of course without giving the impression that his views are objective fact), for reasons I outlined a few days ago, but I don't see how we can include this statement if the only source is Fox News. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:54, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, FOX News was determined by consensus to be generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG. … Some editors perceive FOX News to be a biased source whereas others do not; neither affects reliability of the source. NedFausa (talk) 13:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, that's an interview on Fox News Channel, which is very different from a story on Fox News. It's like the difference between NBC News and an interview with Maddow on MSNBC. Guy (help!) 14:04, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, Fox News Channel redirects to Fox News. And Wikipedia specifically mentions Special Report with Bret Baier in stating that FOX News was determined by consensus to be generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG. Yup. NedFausa (talk) 14:10, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, it's an interview. Those are primary sources, and Barr is the second least neutral source in America on anything related to Trump, after the president himself.

I can't help feeling you'd get more traction here if you proposed changes on Talk first rather than making slightly WP:POINTy edits and then sniping at everyone who challenges them. 14:30, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@NedFausa: There's an ongoing RfC on this matter. But the issue is (in my view) less one of reliability than one of noteworthiness: if Barr's remarks were significant or newsworthy, they'll be covered by other reliable sources, which thus far doesn't seem to be the case. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Well, there is evidence of organisation, by far-right groups (e.g. completely defeating Antifa in Klamath Falls, OR, because Antifa never turned up). But anyone who's ever tried to organise leftists has long ago given up and gone for the less challenging option of herding cats. Guy (help!) 12:50, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• It's a matter of weight. We cannot present a partisan view without explanation of the degree of its acceptance. The phrasing implies that Barr is correct and his statement generally accepted by experts, which is questionable at best. TFD (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• This is not a partisan view, but a view by someone who simply has no credibility in anything whatsoever, being accused of gross abuse of power, etc. [28]. Does not belong here. My very best wishes (talk) 15:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

FAQ

I've added the terrorist designation to the FAQ since the relevant sections have been archived from this page. If anyone wants to amend the wording, go ahead. FDW777 (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, The FAQ is outright incorrect- there is a mechanism by which the president of the United States could theoretically declare such a group a terrorist organization. Nothing in the law prohibits the president from using the executive order to accomplish this. 98.178.179.240 (talk) 17:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)