Talk:Sam Francis (writer)

Personal Life

Never married 57 year old Christian conservative who railed against pornography, sodomy and miscegenation...There has to be more information here. The man had no personal life? He never even dated? No parents? No church he attended? Where is the rest of the biography here? 173.117.169.78 (talk) 11:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

External Links

The second link in "external links," the one to samfrancis.net, no longer functions, as the domain name has expired (presumably, whoever owned it did not renew it). Does anyone have another link to his articles published in Chronicles? If so, could you add it, please? Godfrey Daniel (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well-mannered?

Does anyone, such as maybe the original anonymous author, have a citation for this quotation? It doesn't Google. -Willmcw 01:28, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC) The Anti-Defamation League branded Francis "an advocate of well mannered white supremacy",...

Go to this site and search for the word 'well-mannered' , it's there. --B Sveen

Thanks for finding it. Here it is: Another featured speaker at AR conferences has been Sam Francis, a former Washington Times columnist who was dismissed in September 1995 after his racial views were publicized by conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza. Francis has since become a writer, editor and lecturer for another outpost of well-mannered white supremacy, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), and an outspoken advocate of separation of the races. In a presentation at the 1994 AR convention, Francis stated that white Americans must reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites....The civilization we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowment of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people.

It seems to me that the CCC is the "outpost of well-mannered white supremacy," so it isn't a literal quote to say that Francis is their advocate, but a rather a logical surmise. We should leave the quote but drop the quotation marks. -Willmcw 02:09, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Too many blockq quotes

Let's cut back on the lengthy block quotes. This is an encyclopedia article, and sohold be succinct. -Will Beback 18:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is when dealing with a controversial figure like this, there's no real NPOV summary of what the guy says, so you have to let him speak for himself. Also, in the case of Francis, the quotes themselves become areas of contention, as in "he said X, therefore he is a racist/sexist/homophobe/whatever." Yakuman 19:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

His words are widely avaialbe for those who wish to read the original comments. Our job is to summarize. Where quotes aqre absolutely necessary they should be as short as possible. -Will Beback 20:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

There are seventeen quotes from hard copy sources, which aren't widely available. At the magic number of 32k, this is not terribly long. Don't worry about it. Yakuman 22:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Five quotes is the usual number, with the excess moved to Wikiquotes. -Will Beback 20:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"Machiavellian"

Could someone edit "Machiavellian" to link to Niccolo Machiavelli? "Machiavellian" is a term describing a ruthless schemer, deriving from a common misconception of the controversial and misunderstood principles Machiavelli actually believed in and advocated. The way it is makes it look like Francis was a nasty character rather who would to anything to get ahead rather than a student of Machiavelli. I'd change it myself, but my browser is too small and it would cut the page in half. 05:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there any truth to the story that Sam had a death bed conversion to catholicism?

Lead assumes too much

"Nationally syndicated" in where? Canada? Scotland? Australia? The lead needs to locate this man in history and geography, not just politics, to give the political details any context. 87.113.24.173 (talk) 23:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

RfC

BAn RfC: Which descriptor, if any, can be added in front of Southern Poverty Law Center when referenced in other articles? has been posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center talk page. Your participation is welcomed. – MrX 17:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Vox Day on YouTube 2018 mention of Samuel Francis

August 4 2018 Vox Day (Darkstream) live stream on YouTube was complaining that a fellow conservative columnist and commentator, Ben Shapiro, was far from an original thinking critic of the status quo narratives and presented Samuel Francis as an improved such intellect, writer, and speaker by stark comparison. However, a YouTube examination of Samuel Francis from 2000 or video recordings of a speech given so shows that he did not adequately balance his abstract political thinking with the practical health and appearance aspects of his life due to Francis' being a good deal overweight and in so doing being prone to its ill effects such as cardio vascular disease, etc. Can any of these two videos be referenced in the article? Oldspammer (talk) 20:40, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

• I don’t think that’s appropriate. It’s kind of strange that you think a columnist’s weight was more relevant than his actual opinions. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:121B (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Anarcho-tyranny

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a

Merge Proposal and / or Redirect. Please do not modify it.
The result of the request for the Proposed Merger of {requested article} into this talk page's article was:

Consensus reached per policy arguments – Awaiting Merge.

— — — — —

This neologism is not widely used outside of its original author. It would be sufficient to cover it there, where content has already been merged. It should only be split out in summary style when warranted by an overabundance of secondary, independent source coverage. czar 23:14, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

By now the term is almost three decades old. I expanded the article and added 8 more sources to it. Most of them are in Chronicles, but also some others. The term quite precisely describes a (real or perceived) state in a regime. The article in question will help any reader wanting to look into its meaning, origin and use. --Bensin (talk) 23:42, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Right, but I'm still not seeing how the term has currency outside its author. The entirety of its contents could fit within Francis's article without losing any fidelity. czar 10:07, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm thinking the currency here is at least 15 years of use of the term by other writers than its creator. Sure, use may be limited (as may be expected for a term describing such a specific state) but use is established by sources and the use is consistent. About half of the writers refer back to Francis and his definition. --Bensin (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

It could be 1000 years with 1000 other writers mentioning the term but if none go into any greater depth than its simple definition, then we have no substance with which to write an encyclopedia article. What fidelity would be lost from this stub if it were merged into Francis? czar 15:41, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow you. Your initial objection was that the term was "not widely used outside of its original author". Now that use has been demonstrated you're arguing that even 1000 writers' use would not suffice, but for different reasons. Note that currently only online sources are used. There may well be literary sources. The article may be short, but other than the definition, it also outlines the origin, history and examples of use. All of which may benefit a reader.

What do you mean by "greater depth than its simple definition"? Though the writers in the references do use the definition they also apply it and some follow up with examples.

Even if all text and all sources were kept at a merger to the article about Francis, what would be lost would be: 1) The article name "Anarcho-tyranny" would no longer show up as a separate entry in search engines. 2) Anyone wanting to link to the definition, within or from outside Wikipeida, would have to link to a section in the Francis article, and interwiki links would not be possible. 3) It would not be as immediately apparent that the concept is separate from, and used outside, its originator. 4) It would not be possible to more precisely categorize the concept itself (since it would have to share all the categories with the Francis-article).

How would you say Wikipedia would benefit from a merger in this case? --Bensin (talk) 21:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

In the cited sources, no, it is not widely used outside of its association with Francis. If the term has no independent currency to note, then all that needs to be said about the subject would fit within a summary style section in its parent article (on Francis). czar 03:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I would say that it is quite common to name the creator of an idea, term, phrase, quote when it is used. That does not diminish the term's independence from its creator. Once published, a creator can never control how an idea is being used and it is thus independent from its creator. Also, it is difficult to imagine an idea being more independent from its creator than when it survives its creator and is used after the creator's death, which is the case here. Given the four points I listed above, how would you say Wikipedia would benefit from a merger in this case? --Bensin (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I have to agree with @Czar: it's meaningless to argue about it without citing any source. Without an overabundance of secondary, independent source coverage, it doesn't warrant its own page. If you believe it's notable in its own way, then cite your sources and put your money where your mouth is. Either way, I hope other users can come in and state their thoughts.--79.19.28.124 (talk) 13:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Sources are cited in the article Anarcho-tyranny. After my last update the number of sources is currently 16, of which 14 support use of writers other than Francis. --Bensin (talk) 06:05, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, @Bensin: it's always the IP above. I have seen the sources, but they're mainly from LewRockwell.com, the Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and National Review. I would like others, more expert users to join this discussion because I'm not sure these sources are enough to support it as its own page rather than as a section of the main article.--79.52.17.197 (talk) 23:49, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello again. I have explained above why I think a merger is not a good idea. Also, the article has been updated since my post above and the number of sources is currently 22 and from a variety of authors and publications (of which National Review, Chronicles, Law & Liberty and Reason may be the most reputable.) That should be enough to establish notability. --Bensin (talk) 15:11, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Bensin: It's always the IP above, but from now on I will be using my account, now that I got it back, so as to avoid further and unneeded confusion. I believe you, but I'm not really an expert and I would like to wait for what @Czar: would say; and if that would be enough not to merge. Thank you; I appreciate your effort.--Davide King (talk) 19:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• For this term to warrant its own article, it would need to have significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent sources, not just a lot of footnotes. By the definition of significant, I could go individually through the "22 sources" mentioned above if needed, but last I checked, they would only use the phrase in passing, not developing the topic past relating the original neologism (always in reference to Francis) obliquely to some other topic. When two topics are closely related, the standard we use is called "summary style", meaning that when we have some overabundance of secondary source material to paraphrase on anarcho-tyranny such that it would be out-of-place to expand all of it within Francis's article, only then would we split it out to its own article. For comparison, this is how "social ecology" or "libertarian municipalism" works in Murray Bookchin—the terms are certainly used by others in many articles, but that doesn't mean there is enough actual content to warrant duplicating their sections within his biography as their own pages. czar 19:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

You seem to be moving the goalpost. When you say the term is "not widely used outside of its original author" and I provide plenty sources proving that it is used, cited and applied by prominent writers, scholars and reputable publications, you say this resulted in too many footnotes. You say that none of the writers "go into any greater depth than its simple definition", but many writers follow up the definition of the term and and supply examples. When you ask what would be lost by a merger, I provide several drawbacks such a merger would entail. When I in turn ask you how Wikipedia would benefit from a merger (given the significant drawbacks), you do not answer. You say that the use of anarcho-tyranny is "always in reference to Francis" (my italicization), but Francis is not even mentioned in the following sources [1][2][3][4][5], and in the sources he is mentioned, it is often in a passing attribution. I also explained here why I don't consider the attribution an issue. Anyway, I updated the article again. If you think it can be further improved, you are welcome to contribute. --Bensin (talk) 16:35, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Here is a breakdown of how the term is invoked in each of the listed 22 sources:

Passing mention, invoked only as a definition in relation to Francis (nothing to paraphrase for the purposes of writing an encyclopedia article apart from its invocation)

1. Lew Rockwell. "Anarcho-Tyranny in Baghdad", lewrockwell.com, 12 April 2003. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
2. Eugene Girin. "Witnessing Anarcho-Tyranny", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, 20 October 2014.
3. John Seiler. "Obama Imposes Anarcho-Tyranny on Ferguson", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, 25 November 2014.
4. Eric Peters. "The Tyranny of Traffic Enforcement", lewrockwell.com, 12 April 2011.
5. NR Staff. "The Week", National Review, 14 April 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
6. NR Staff. "The Week", National Review, 11 August 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
7. Kevin D. Williamson. "A Bit More on the Speech Police", National Review, 18 April 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
8. Jerry Salyer. "Paleoconservatives and Trump", The Catholic World Report, 10 November 2016.
9. Kevin D. Williamson. "The Left Embraces Political Violence", National Review, 15 June 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
10. Justin Raimondo. "Forget the Russian 'Threat': Mexico Is Our Real Problem", antiwar.com, 16 June 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2019.

Passing mention, not even invoked as a definition

1. Daniel McCarthy. "Empire Without End", lewrockwell.com, 23 April 2003. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
2. Brian Wilson. "'We're Doomed!'", lewrockwell.com, 24 July 2004. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
3. David Kopel. "Defenseless On the Bayou", Reason, 10 September 2005. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
4. Aurelian Craiutu. "Thinking with Tocqueville: Courage not Ambition, Moderation not Pessimism", Law & Liberty, 30 November 2012. (Craiutu is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.[6])
5. Mark Krikorian. "Legal Immigrants Go to the Back of the Line", National Review, 10 February 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
6. Kevin D. Williamson. "Meet the New Serfs: You", National Review, 23 October 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2019.

Unreliable or primary source (does not show external noteworthiness; not used for purposes of independent notability)

1. Jerry Pournelle. "Monday July 28, 2003, Anarcho-Tyranny", jerrypournelle.com, 28 July 2003. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
2. Samuel Francis. "Synthesizing Tyranny", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, April 2005 issue. At the Internet Archive.

Rockford Institute-affiliated magazine literally in eulogy to Francis

1. "April 2005—Anarcho-Tyranny: The Perpetual Revolution", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, April 2005 issue. At the Internet Archive.
2. (subarticle; paywalled) Srđa Trifković. "Global Anarcho-Tyranny", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, 1 March 2005.
3. (subarticle; paywalled) Thomas Fleming. "Synthesizing Tyranny", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, 1 March 2005.
4. (subarticle; this is the only available full text that appears to even grapple with the concept, but even still can be summarized in two sentences max for the purposes of an encyclopedia article) Chilton Williamson, Jr.. Synthetic Syntheses (Excerpt from What's Wrong With The World), chiltonwilliamson.com. "Synthetic Syntheses", Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, 3 October 2005.

No, it is not widely used outside of its association with Francis, outside of partisan sources, outside of being invoked as more than a dictionary definition. (Indeed, the list reads as if every Google hit for "anarcho-tyranny" was imported into the article.) The policy for such usage is to cover the topic within the context of how sources use it—that is, to take the few meaningfully sourced sentences we can feasibly write on the subject and merge them into Francis's article. This is no different than what I first said. If and when the concept's coverage expands to warrant paragraphs worth of text, no one would object to splitting out said section into its own article. But that isn't the case right now. czar 02:05, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

You seem to disqualify the first 10 sources because they do provide a definition, and the next 6 because they don't. When you classify David Kopel's text as a "Passing mention", you may have overlooked that the entire text is about what Kopel argues are examples of anarcho-tyranny. Which sources, according to you, are partisan with respect to the article subject, and how? And you still have not answered my question, which is central to this: Given the four points I listed above (here), how would you say Wikipedia would benefit from a merger in this case? --Bensin (talk) 21:29, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

? I think I've talked these points to death but at risk of repeating myself one last time: In all of these citations there is no fundamental content that can be expanded into a meaningful encyclopedia article. All we can write is that the term has been invoked a bunch of times (the above list's onus being on the "passing mention" part, not the "definition" part). The standard, when there is no substantive content, is to merge. Self-evidently, the questions of how best to link and categorize the term are secondary to whether we can write an encyclopedia article that supports the concept. I hope this answer is satisfactory as I'm not going to try to convince you further. Take care, czar 12:27, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The article may be short, but calling it not meaningful is a stretch. Categorizing and linking is secondary, and had the article been void of content I would agree with your proposal to merge. But that is not the case here, and i disagree when you say "All we can write is that the term has been invoked a bunch of times". Other than mere examples, the article contains information about end and means; lack of ideology; similarities and differences when compared to other terms. The sources used in the article establish notability. They prove that the use of the term (rather than "not widely used outside of its original author" as claimed) actually is quite wide spread. The vague claim of sources being partisan has not been precised nor substantiated. As I said before: If you think the article can be further improved, you are welcome to contribute. --Bensin (talk) 10:55, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

• MERGE per arguments and analysis above, esp those of User:czar. Term can easily fit into author article and fails self-notability. "Mentions" do not equal notability. A split is unwarranted at this time. Regards, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 20:08, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Plenty sources prove that it is used, cited and applied by prominent writers, scholars and reputable publications. Notability is established: The topic has received significant coverage ("more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material"). However, some sources do go into greather depth than others. Have you read them all? The drawbacks of a merger listed above have not been addressed. I don't know what "self-notability" means, and it is not listed in neither Wiktionary nor Merriam-Webster. One may also note that since this article was created on 19 May 2019, it has been read almost 2400 times. --Bensin (talk) 14:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Merge As I find Czar's assessment of applicable sources compelling. Simonm223 (talk) 13:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Your comments may carry more weight if you assess them yourself instead of relying on someone else's assessment. --Bensin (talk) 10:26, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a WP:PM.

Please do not modify it.
Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 16:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Samuel T. Francis.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:07, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 23 March 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 04:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

---

Sam Francis (writer) → Samuel T. Francis – Many of the more recent works use this name. Jfhutson (talk) 00:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 14:00, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Disagree I'm not seeing evidence that "Many of the more recent works use this name". Even a Google search for Samuel Francis, along with a few other words that he's associated with, returned recent articles that call him Sam Francis, every time. Fred Zepelin (talk) 19:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

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.

White supremacist

Reliable secondary sources establish that Francis was a white supremacist, and that's what was most notable about his writings. Any labels attempting to soften the image of this dead writer are just whitewashing. Note that "white nationalist" is just a marketing term that white supremacists have employed in recent years to distance themselves from the original description, so it's effectively the same thing. Fred Zepelin (talk) 19:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Lede tag

@Molochmeditates you described the lede as insufficiently neutral for a BLP only, one thing, this article is not a BLP. Francis died almost 20 years ago. Simonm223 (talk) 15:23, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Right, I'd think this would come under the "recently deceased" category. In any case, it is a biography and the lede is full of quotes from some individuals. My suggestion is to add a new section in the article body that can include such details and remove this from the lede. What do you think @Simonm223? --Molochmeditates (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

20 years is hardly recent. There are adults who are legal drinking age in Canada who never breathed the same air as this man. And, no, I don't think we should drop the notable thing about him (that he was a racist thought leader) to the body. Simonm223 (talk) 13:40, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, who said anything about dropping the notable thing from the lead? Perhaps you're referencing someone else's comment? The sticking point here is the lead being stocked full of quotes from not-very-notable people. That's not how we generally write ledes especially for biographies. Molochmeditates (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Why don't you demonstrate your proposed revision here in article talk and let's have a look at it and go from there? Simonm223 (talk) 13:54, 6 November 2024 (UTC)