Return to Homepage

john gray website



Thinking of emailing us ? Have a look at our MAIL FAQ


What are we about ? Some guidelines

Since we've been on-line we've been asked some questions about the site and have received some requests - as a result we've had to discuss what was originally a relatively casual project and we've produced these notes as a rough guideline to what we want to do.

Our political views are diverse in many areas and we certainly don't intend to draw up any political 'aims and principles' let alone peddle any programme. However we make choices about what we link to or put on line.

Broadly -

We will link to any site or document which we feel relates, in whole or in part, to discussion about communism, or to discussion based on a 'communist perspective', taking 'communism' in the sense defined in the statement on the home page for the site.

We use the word 'communism' as shorthand - despite the likelihood that it will confuse some people who will think that we are talking about the so-called former 'communist' countries or the communist parties associated with or supporting those countries - because we don't have a better word. The political currents we feel a degree of affinity with have called themselves many sorts of things - libertarian-communists, anarchist-communists, left-communists, autonomists - what could broadly be described as the 'ultra-left'.

So for example the site is not a workerist site - we wouldn't link to straightforward accounts of workers struggles. (Such a site would be very useful - its just not what we want to do). However we would link to discussions of the relation of workers struggles to the need for and transition to a communist society. The same applies to all other areas of struggle against aspects of this society.

Nor are we a 'left-wing' or 'progressive' or 'socialist' site in the senses these are normally understood. So we wouldn't link to 'left-wing' or 'socialist' groupings unless some aspect of their politics or writings related to what we mean by communism. Since this clearly already confuses some people perhaps we should say that we don't believe that communism could be brought about by reforming this society or its institutions, or by employing the political and economic institutions of this society, from family to business to nation state.

The intention within these parameters however is to be pretty inclusive - we'd have to have pretty strong objections to something in the area we have defined for ourselves not to link to it at all (though we may add comments). We welcome suggestions for links.

We have discussed having a seperate links page to non-communist (in our sense) political resources. However we don't feel up to maintaining such a page until we've sorted out the existing links a bit better.

When it comes to stuff to put on-line at this site we will be a bit more selective than this - we will put stuff on line at this site because we like it or think it interesting or useful. One comment made to us was that it wasn't obvious what was on our site and what was links. To make it easier to see whats on line at this site we've produced a seperate list. This may give you a better idea of our likes and interests, and what we might put on-line.

We have received a couple of requests we hadn't anticipated - firstly one to give space to a group, and then as we were discussing these guidelines, one to put an issue of a journal on this site. Both of them projects which we would link to, but neither of them things which we have enormous sympathy with. This did have us scratching our heads a bit. What is the difference in hyper-space between linking to a page and hosting one ? As against this we ourselves judge other sites by what they publish and we expect to be so judged.

We don't belong to any groups ourselves and, for reasons of politics and geography, we probably wouldn't join the same groups. Accordingly we have decided that we will not host either groups or issues of journals as a general rule, and that where we decide to break that rule we will approach the group or journal concerned ourselves.

However we are more than happy to answer questions or offer advice, to any group or journal or individual who wants it, about setting up their own site. We're not great internet masterminds but we have some experience in the basics.

We would also like to co-operate as much as possible with other 'ultra-left' sites.

.

How can you help

The site is intended to steadily expand and improve. Your help would be appreciated in a number of ways.

If you have any suggestions, new links or texts in electronic form which you think might fit on the site, please get in touch.

We do try to check our links but as the site grows this becomes more of a job. If you spot any errors or broken links please let us know.

If we already link to you please keep us informed of changes. If you have any comments or suggestions about the links to you please let us know.

Keeping notified of changes

All changes to this site are listed on our Whats New Page. If you book mark this site thats probably the best page.

If you would like to be notified of changes to the site we recommend using Netmind's URL-minder. There is a form to register the Whats New page with this service at the bottom of that page.

8/6/97.


Return to Homepage