Various Authors
All of Steal This Wiki’s Controversially Published & Deleted Texts
A library enthusiast's introduction
Guides on killing and keeping animals captive
A library enthusiast's introduction
This text was created because we desire to be transparent about all controversial archiving decisions. Plus, we hope it will be interesting for anyone curious about various library crew’s archiving ethoses.
The internet, bookshops, and libraries are all swamped with more information than anyone could read in a lifetime, but when searching for reading on a particular subject, having the choice of a 100 texts on that subject isn’t necessarily valuable if the task of choosing between them is made more difficult by a library crew’s choice to archive 50 texts that showcase embarrassingly authoritarian ideas, or where the one text that would interest you most has been deleted from the catalog due to the library crew having a personal issue with the author.
Therefore, when browsing texts from these institutions it would be valuable to get a sense of what type of texts are likely included at a higher or lower rate. So, what type of texts it is better to go elsewhere to look for. A simple brochure or web page people could read would suffice, to see a list of some of the texts that were controversially included or excluded, and ideally the reasons why.
All this is to say, I think it would be good for various library crews to publicly post arguments and counter-arguments for why they think archiving various controversial authors and texts would or would not amount to this kind of embarrassing platforming.
Further reading:
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Some of The Anarchist Library’s Controversially Published, Deleted & Rejected Texts
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All of The Ted K Archive’s Controversially Published & Deleted Texts
Live Texts
Guides on killing and keeping animals captive
A readers argument for deleting: ...
A readers argument against deleting: ...
A librarians argument for deleting: People finding this obscure text on the internet likely aren't destitute people who need to hunt to meet their calorie/nutritional needs.
A librarians argument against deleting: We don't think it's so unlikely to happen that it's worth taking that risk of deleting. Plus, the text has historical interest to those wanting to read how the original book has been developed on for the wiki.
The pages could do with having some ethical warnings added, such as mentioning the potentially very cruel outcomes when using hunting methods like bow-hunting.
Read the texts here:
Deleted Texts
Fighting & Destroying Property
A reader's argument for deleting: ...
A reader's argument against deleting: ...
A librarian's argument for deleting: The original chapter of Steal This Book contained some instructions that were as harmless as ‘how to make stink bombs’. We don’t see any risk in hosting this book as it’s been published and has a fair bit of historical interest. However, the chapter was updated extensively for the wiki, so we’d rather just let the people who want to find this kind of information find it on their own. That way we’re not needlessly risking anyone drawing the attention of law enforcement for viewing this website.
One important goal we have is that the web pages and printable PDFs will be useful guides for surviving living a low yearly income existence. So, we don't want to risk people losing out on that also.
Some of the pages like 'DIY Defence' could be rewritten and published, but as they stand on web.archive.org we don't think they're worth the risk archiving.
A librarian's argument against deleting: Similar guides exist on other anarchist libraries with no known consequence.
List of the deleted texts:
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Peoples Chemistry
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Bombs
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Molotov Cocktail
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DIY Defense
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Knife Fighting
Censored Texts
Past Editions of Steal This Book Today
Same issue and arguments as above.
Read the texts here: