Talk:Dyer Lum

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Former good articleDyer Lum was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
November 9, 2007Good article nomineeListed
January 19, 2024Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Ideological identification[edit]

McElroy, "Debates of Liberty" says Lum was an anarcho-communist. The source being used in this article to say he was an individualist did not say that. It just said he was a contributor to "Liberty." That makes sense now, because the things in this article and his quotes didn't seem individualist to me. Operation Spooner 18:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, that was my mistake. The source said his relative worked for Gompers, an individualist anarchist, not that Lum was an individualist anarchist. Thanks for catching that. I have to question the appropriety of the "anarcho-communist" identification however — it seems to contradict his market-orientated philosophy as described in the Thought section. Can you provide the quote from McElroy? Skomorokh incite 18:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Here's one clue in his quote in this article: "The tradesman would find that production offered greater inducement than exchange..." Here's a quote from McElroy: "On the next page of Liberty, an article by Appleton entitled "The Boston Anarchists" spelled out the peaceful principles and policies of Individualist Anarchism, which stood in stark contrast to those of Communist Anarchism...In the same issue on the opposing page, The Communist Anarchist Dyer D. Lum complained that 'the ggrave situation in which the Chicago Communists' (if you will) are placed demands...more than dissertations or well-rounded and careful distinctions b 'X' [Appleton] between 'Boston Anarchists' and the 'savage Communists of Chicago." I'm reading that Tucker and Yarros were in disputes in Liberty. Tucker called the people at the Haymarket Incident fake anarchists, etc, and Lum didn't like that. Operation Spooner 18:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Lum was on cordial terms with Liberty...but he became severely critical of Tucker's stand on the Haymmarket Incident." That's McElroy too. Operation Spooner 19:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've reread Lum's essay in Parsons. Lum doesn't call himself either individualist or communist in the work, but his proposals are characteristically individualist and/or mutualist: pt 1:

It says to the financier: -Your function in society should not lie determined by monopoly, but under equal opportunities. Your privileges are our restriction; your charters our disenfranchisement. We demand freedom to co-operate in financial as in other matters; to co-operate for mutual banking is well as for mutual insurance; and when you are shorn of privileges we may co-operate to base credit upon all wealth as well as on that you would dictate. For equal opportunities would destroy your prerogative to fashion and control a medium of exchange. Justice would reign and interest cease, because it could not [?]. It says to the landlord; Equal opportunities give you no monopoly of the soil. Again, monopoly has conferred a chartered right and men are disinherited. Destroy this chartered privilege and strong wins [?] will labor with joy and find in mutual credit new avenues to invade the province of nature. Co-operation would enlarge production. extend consumption and equalize distribution. Overproduction and underconsumption would become myths, and demand would seek supply with unfailing regularity without other guarantee than absence of restriction.

To them all it says: gentlemen, we ask no privilege, -we propose no restriction; nor, on the other hand will we permit it. We have no new shackles to propose, -we seek emancipation from shackles. We ask no legislative sanction for co-operation asks only for "A free field and no favors; neither will we permit their interference."

It asserts that in freedom of the social unit [individual?] lies the freedom of the social state [collective?]. It asserts that in freedom to the capitalization of all acquired wealth lies social advancement and the death of interest.

pt 2:

To follow a given course, to advocate certain measures, there must be sufficient inducement therein to satisfy my mind that such is for my interest to do so.

Okay, that sums up my reasons for disputing McElroy's classification. Hang on, I'll look further, and read more of Lum and commentaries on Lum. Jacob Haller 19:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lum on rights[edit]

Lum discusses his view of rights in Liberty, vol. 6 no. 25, or #155. Jacob Haller 20:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He discusses some of the same issues in the Alarm, Nature of Rights, April 3rd, 1886:

The struggle of the age is for freedom to the individual, freedom of contract, freedom to compete, unfettered by the incubus of legalized privilege. It is not so much an assertion of "rights," as a demand for equality of opportunities. Our battle is to strike down legalized privilege, whether of the few or the many, of the monopolist or the mob. That battle won, natural rights will take care of themselves. And only when the natural rights of the individual are thus left free to assert themselves, will there complete accord with alleged "rights of society."

Again, this looks like classic individualist anarchism. Jacob Haller 20:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Descriptions of Lum's views[edit]

Presley, in Exquisite Rebel: Voltairine de Cleyre contrasts Lum's "mutualism" with Tucker's "individualism," and later describes Lum as an "anarchist without adjectives." Jacob Haller 21:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The journal Freedom, vol. 2, no. 17, February 1888, states that:

Accordingly we find Individualist Anarchism represented in Australia by the Melbourne "Honesty", and in America by four or five papers: "Liberty" in Boston, "Lucifer" and the "Sun" in Kansas and, since its revival by Dyer Lum, the "Alarm" in Chicago.

Crass, in Voltairine de Cleyre: A Biographical Sketch describes both (Lum and de Cleyre) as "anarchists without adjectives." Jacob Haller 21:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we really need to debate among ourselves with a source is correct or not. It doesn't matter if it's correct. If someone says he was a communist and another source says he was an individualist, you just say "According to X, he was a communist, but according to Y he was an individualist, and according to X he was an anarchist without adjectives." Wikipedia is not about truth but whether something can be found in a source. Operation Spooner 22:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
People's views change over time too. Someone can be a communist yesterday but an individulist today. Operation Spooner 23:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So we're all agreed the lede should state simply "anarchist" and the disagreeing sources should only be mentioned in the Thought section?Skomorokh incite 23:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, since it's so ambiguous. Operation Spooner 03:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lum's Alarm[edit]

Nearly the whole second volume of The Alarm, edited by Lum, is available online. Enjoy. Libertatia (talk) 06:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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GA Reassessment[edit]

Dyer Lum[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: There seems to be consensus that this is not GA standard, although there is not total agreement on why that is. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

After 17 years of being listed as a good article, I think it's more than time for a reassessment. The article hasn't received many changes in over a decade and its main contributor has been almost completely inactive since 2013. A pass of this article has revealed to me some issues that I think need to be addressed in order to keep it at GA. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Is it well written?
    A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
    Prose is clear and concise, grammar and spelling seems to all be good.
    B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
    It complies quite closely to the manual of style, for the most part. But somewhere it stands out is its use of quotations, with one displayed at the very beginning of his biography and some rather large blockquotes in the philosophy section, as well as some unattributed smaller quotes scattered around the rest of the article.
  2. Is it verifiable with no original research?
    A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
    Reference are mostly properly formatted, with only one exception of no formatting (Lum 1888) and a couple cases of duplicate information (i.e. Reviews in American History).
    B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):
    Every bit of information in the article has an inline citation, which is all good. However, I'm uncertain as to the reliability of many of the sources. Just under one-third of the citations are to primary sources with a direct connection to the subject (Tucker 1893; de Cleyre 2007; Lum 1888; Parsons 2002; Yarros 1890). There's also a few citations to self-published blog posts (Crass 2003; Carson 2005; McElroy 2007). The rest come from clearly reliable, secondary sources from academic publishers or journals. But this does mean that about half of the citations are coming from sources I would consider questionable at GA level.
    C. It contains no original research:
    No original research that I can see, everything seems to come from the cited sources and the spot checks I've done verify the information I see it cited to.
    D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
    Earwig flags some cases where it edges close to repeating Kevin Carson's words without attribution,[1] but this can easily be reworded.
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
    This is another place I think this article falls flat. There are quite noticeable gaps in the timeline, with zero information in the prose about Lum's birth and early life. It also completely glosses over quite important pieces of his biography that I feel could be served well by fleshing out.
    B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
    The "philosophy" section strikes me as rather unfocused. The first couple sentences are more about claiming him as part of various different ideologies, without really explaining what his philosophy actually is. It also just repeats the same information as what's already in the biography, to strange effect. This section really needs a go over to tighten it up.
  4. Is it neutral?
    It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
    No clearly identifiable problems with neutrality.
  5. Is it stable?
    It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
    It's only received a handful of minor edits over the past few years. No reversions since before its first GAN review in 2007.
  6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    Photograph seems to be tagged with the wrong PD license, based on incomplete information. But this photograph is almost certainly in the public domain.
    B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
    Only photograph is of the subject himself, although it could use a caption and alt text.
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    Overall, I think this article has some glaring problems that would hold me back from passing it today, although I'm sure standards may have been different back in 2007. Based on sections 2 and 3 of our good article criteria, I do not think this article meets the mark in its current state. It could certainly do with a rewrite, trimming the questionable sources and using other more clearly reliable sources to improve it. If other editors are interested in helping improve the article, I think it could get to meeting the good article criteria, but it would basically require a complete bottom-up redo. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I am skeptical of the comments above. I'm not saying that this qualifies as a GA, but...
    "zero information in the prose about Lum's birth and early life" - Do you have reason to think that this is notable? Is it covered in the sources or known at all?
    "It also completely glosses over quite important pieces of his biography" - Now this is a real problem, but you can't just say this and casually move on. What important pieces of his biography does it gloss over? What's missing?
    "(Tucker 1893; de Cleyre 2007; Lum 1888; Parsons 2002; Yarros 1890)" - Parsons 2002 is used to cite a quote from Lum, so citing Lum directly is perfectly accurate. Yarros 1890 is used to support a basic claim that Yarros criticized Lum. Lum 1888 is used a single time for a basic WP:ABOUTSELF for which political philosophy he described himself by; people can generally be trusted to describe their own personal beliefs. de Cleyre 2007 is used for another basic, uncontroversial claim that Lum edited an anarchist magazine - highly doubtful de Cleyre would inexplicably lie about that. Now, Tucker 1893 has something of a point - it's a contemporary source which is not great. However, it's mostly used for quotes and things like birth / death dates currently, with the prose even attributing it inline as "the anarchist press said..." in one part. That said, I agree that "ran for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts on the Labor Reform ticket of abolitionist Wendell Phillips in 1870" should be attributed to a stronger source ideally than Tucker.
    "Only photograph is of the subject himself, although it could use a caption and alt text." - It's just a picture of Lum. The documentation specifically says to only include a caption when needed, and if the caption were just to say "Dyer Lum", it's not. I guess the date the photograph was taken might be mildly useful info but it's not listed in the image description.
    "without really explaining what his philosophy actually is" - He isn't Wittgenstein. It's not like even elected politicians have perfectly consistent philosophies, and as someone on the outskirts of political life as an anarchist, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to decline to create some overarching philosophy. Sometimes all we have to go on are scattered statements and articles.
  • Per above, I'm not necessarily endorsing the article, but I suspect that the above suggestions would be counterproductive if anything. To get this closer to being a modern GA, then trimming some weakly sourced info is probably preferred to expanding the article with material that might not even exist or be relevant. But to know for sure I'd want to read that "Biographical Dictionary of the American Left" article, but it looks like it's not available for borrow at the moment. SnowFire (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    These are all fair and valid criticisms of my comments. But I would like to push back against the suggestions that more sources on him don't exist, that there isn't more to write about him and even that he isn't worth writing about in any depth. In particular, Frank Brooks has done a lot of research into Lum,[2][3] but his work is relegated to "further reading". Even within this article there are sources that go further in depth, but aren't cited much at all (see Avrich 1986; Schuster 1999 and McElroy 2003). -- Grnrchst (talk) 21:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for elaborating. I don't think that citing unpublished PhD dissertations should be required or expected even at the FA level (although it's cool if it's done and it's a relevant source), so Brooks 1988 is probably optional, but I do agree that Brooks 1993 and Carson 2018 (which did not exist at the time of GA nomination!) look like good sources to include if anyone wants to take a stab at updating the article. SnowFire (talk) 22:26, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Agreed on the broad strokes of what's needed to meet the GA criteria: replacing unreliable/primary sources, replacing quotes with paraphrase, and expanding from the named sources (but not the dissertation). Covering that breadth of sources helps justify the brevity of the article if there is indeed no major biographical detail to add. czar 20:36, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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