Talk:List of paramilitary organizations

Colectivo and National Youth Service

Comments by blocked sock hidden --IamNotU (talk) 00:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Collectivo is not a government paramilitary organization .They are irregular, leftist Venezuelan community organizations that support Nicolás Maduro, the Bolivarian government, the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) political alliance and the party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). The National Youth Service was a programme of the Zimbabwean government for Zimbabweans of ages 10 to 30. It was introduced in 2000 by Border Gezi—then the Minister for Gender, Youth and Employment—and the first training camp was established at Mount Darwin in 2001.Its stated purpose was to "transform and empower youths for nation building through life skills training and leadership development." Both of them are not government paramilitary force. Sangheili spartan (talk) 14:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC) RS for Colectivo being paramilitary CNN - amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/24/americas/venezuela-colectivos-oppman-intl/index.html AlJazeera - www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2019/5/9/venezuela-who-are-the-colectivos BBC - www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-latin-america-47118139 Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/maduros-muscle-politically-backed-motorcycle-gangs-known-as-colectivos-are-the-enforcers-for-venezuelas-authoritarian-leader/2019/03/13/2242068c-4452-11e9-94ab-d2dda3c0df52_story.html Etc etc You're on slightly stronger ground with NYS but still Cambridge - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/creating-a-monster-the-national-youth-service-preuniversity-training-programme-student-activism-and-the-kenyan-state-197890/36B551FCCC315DB730B53F66B8B25EE5 Manchester uni - New York times - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/world/reports-of-rape-and-torture-inside-zimbabwean-militia.html Etc etc Pipsally (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/creating-a-monster-the-national-youth-service-preuniversity-training-programme-student-activism-and-the-kenyan-state-197890/36B551FCCC315DB730B53F66B8B25EE5 It is clearly rewritten in the article that National Youth Service was a programme of the Zimbabwean government in order to make student discipline. Collectivo get support from Maduro and his party not the government of Venezuela Do not confuse between paramiliary force led bypolitical party and paramiliary force led by government of a country. Take the example Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh get support from BJP who is big party in today's India.But they are not part of government institutions. they are simply branch of BJP Please check this article https://www.refworld.org/docid/4e4a34d32.html Sangheili spartan (talk) 04:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC) It is rewritten that Youth Militia is a private militia controlled by the ZANU-PF party. Sangheili spartan (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC) And about Avengers of blood it is led by House of Representatives (Libya). There is no proper government in libya if you read about second libya civil war. Sangheili spartan (talk) 05:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC) Well this is very easy to deal with. A paramilitary forces does not need to be sanctioned by the state to exist, but many of these are directly under the control of the govt or have been. Regardless the Libyan example is clearly a paramilitary group and should not be removed.Pipsally (talk) 07:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC) Ok understand — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sangheili spartan (talk • contribs) 13:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Non-governmental paramilitary units

Should there perhaps be some set criteria for this section? Something like "this section includes the Boy Scouts, paintballers and historical battle re-enactment groups, but also terrorist groups, drug cartels, neo-nazis, white supremacists, anarchists, slave traders, pirates, sex-traffickers, La Cosa Nostra, the Bloods & Crips, left-and-right-wing hate groups, people who rob gas stations and wiki-vandalizing-sock-puppets"...? Just a thought - wolf 03:13, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thewolfchild: Well, the Paramilitary article defines a paramilitary organization as a semi-militarized force whose organizational structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not formally part of a country's armed forces. The problem is that it's not Wikipedia's job to determine whether a certain group fits this description or not. So maybe it would be best to simply require that every entry in the list comes with at least one reliable source that describes the group as a paramilitary organization. Or rather, to enforce this requirement, which obviously already exists as one of Wikipedia's core policies. Lennart97 (talk) 12:22, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, obviously... we should ensure every entry is sourced. But more than that, it is our job to evaluate sources. Just because a source might denote a group a "paramilitary", doesn't mean that group fits the OED definition you noted above. So along with reliability of the source, we must ensure the entry as a whole (content + sourcing) complies with WP policies, since those take precedent.

Currently, there are about a dozen American groups listed, with only a single source attached; (an article about "anti-government" groups, which I'm not sure applies to all those groups.) Beyond that are another ≈3 dozen entries, all without a single source. All the entries, American and other, rely on linked WP articles, so scrutiny is needed. But ultimately, any challenged content requires consensus, and the wp:onus is on those seeking to include to achieve that consensus. - wolf 13:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. There's also List of paramilitary groups covering the same topic, by the way, which lists groups alphabetically regardless of whether they're governmental or not. I guess a merge is needed, but I don't know which way. Lennart97 (talk) 13:49, 25 February 2021 (UTC)