Talk:Vigilantism

Violating the law - this is the criterion for inclusion on the vigilante list

This article begins as: "A vigilante is a person who violates the law... " I have removed the Minutemen Project from the vigilante list as no evidence is provided that they violate the law in conducting their activities. Please restore them to the list only after providing citations that they violate applicable state or federal law in their conduct. kevinp2 (talk) 02:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I also removed Joe Horn from the list since he was cleared of wrongdoing by a Texas grand jury. Please see the Joe Horn page for more information.kevinp2 (talk) 02:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Current usage "vigilante" comes from the term for a member of a "vigilance committee", and that terms begins with the French Revolution when the National Convention set up subcommittees for the reign of terror, including a "Surveillance" committee which was also translated "Vigilance", see:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Chronological_Epitome_of_the_most_rema/JQMu45zLW-gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Committee+of+Surveillance+vigilance&pg=PA19&printsec=frontcover

The Surveillance committee was merged/renamed Committee of General Security

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_General_Security#Origins_and_evolution Enri999 (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Added DDS

I added the DDS because it is very prevalent in the city, although what should've been added is the counter-communist methods used by the Alsa Masa during the 1980s in the same city.

Original Research

According to who to does modern vigilantism descend from frankenpledge ? Traditions of community law and retaliation existed in nearly every society I'm sure... Did frontiersmen really invoke this directly ?

Some citation would be a reasonable start.

Provisional IRA

Why are the Provisional IRA on this list? It was my understanding that they only cleared out criminality in areas they controlled so that they could profit from illicit activity. They also collected "Revolutionary tax" or, as normal citizens refer to it, "protection money". Not to mention the sectarian violence and random car-bombings they committed. Hardly a "Vigilante group".--Crimzon2283 (talk) 19:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I cannot see the IRA factions as vigilante groups. Most accurate could be consider UDA, UVF, UFF, RHD and other protestant paramilitary self-defence Ulster associations as vigilante groups. Specially UDA in the starting years 1970-75 was exactly an union of vigilante groups. 31.4.215.130 (talk) 01:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

The IRA punished all criminals in their areas, especially drug-dealers, as many people mistrused or feared the 'legitimate' police the RUC, the people in these areas saw the IRA as their police force and were even supportive enough of their activities to ask them to continue 'policing' these areas even after the IRA announced there ceasefire.--PALESTINE1234 (talk) 14:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Not a single member of the PIRA or any other legit Republican organization has ever been charged with hangling drugs, or extorting money from drug dealers. Any claim alluding to the idea that this takes place in any form is basic British propaganda and should be handled as such. --Codu32 (talk) 00:34, 09 August 2011 (UTC)

Sea Shepherds Conservation Society

This was repeated. I delete the unnecessary second mention.

Mafia

The article mentions many precursors and parallels to what is typically referred to as vigilantism, and has a long list of examples. I'm surprised that organized crime organizations like the Sicilian Mafia are not mentioned. (I suppose some of the examples mentioned could be categorized as organized crime organizations, but then that is not made explicit in the article.) I suppose it is not only in movies that such organizations may violently maintain a form of extralegal justice or order, both internally, punishing members for various alleged transgressions, and externally, punishing transgressions allegedly committed against members of the community in which the organization exists, or against "clients" paying protecion@ money. (Actually, early in the lead to the article Protection racket there is this link "... protection outside the sanction of the law ..." to the present article.) Of course, a valid source would have to be found. Nø (talk) 09:26, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Superheroes

The article mentions a few examples of modern vigilantes who dress up or otherwise identify as superheroes. It's easy to understand why that comes to happen since several well-known superhero characters operate as vigilantes in their fictitious universes. I think it would be natural if this fact was stated more clearly - maybe in a brief section on "Vigilantism in fiction". Of course, proper sources would be needed. Nø (talk) 09:35, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

India section was inexplicably removed, along with a lot of other relevant content

A section about India was added to this article in 2017, when the page Vigilantism in India was blanked and redirected. However, it went missing during this edit on 3 January 2020 by an anonymous editor, which appears to have removed about a third of the article's content at the time. I am wondering how this unexplained removal of relevant content has gone unnoticed for so long, and if somebody could, or should, restore it. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 01:27, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

It's astonishing how much damage has been done by random vandals that goes unnoticed. But it happens. A diff of the article immediately preceding the vandal's edit against the article as it is today is rather huge, and folding the old content back into the article will require...more dedication of time than I can offer. There are a few wide swaths of content that went away and appear to have stayed that way, so those larger whole chunks might be able to be folded in without too much effort. But I can't commit to volunteering to work on it, not at the moment. Hopefully some sort of resolution can be found. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 03:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I am wondering if it is a lost cause, but thought other editors should know about the removal of content. I am wondering if perhaps the whole article needs a rethink, so that it becomes a global overview article, with separate country, or even state, articles to cover more local circumstances. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 03:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)