What does TOTW mean on anarchistnews.org?

Updated

TOTW stands for "Topic of the Week." On anarchistnews.org, it is a recurring discussion prompt posted by the user thecollective, and each post opens a themed conversation that readers join through the comment section. The label is worth knowing because it tells you what kind of post you are looking at: not a news item or an announcement, but an invitation to debate a specific idea.

How a TOTW post is structured

A TOTW entry follows a recognizable pattern:

  • A topic framed in the title. The example on the site is TOTW: Anarchist "Practicalism".
  • A short opening reflection by thecollective that sets up the problem and often includes a personal anecdote or a claim meant to be contested.
  • Tags that group the post with related themes, such as totw, practical, theory and practice, limitations, relationships, practical anarchy, and language.
  • A comment section where readers respond. The "Practicalism" post shows 18 comments, so the discussion is the main event rather than the post itself.

What the "Practicalism" example actually argues

The post is useful for understanding the format because it shows how a TOTW prompt works in practice. The author describes a Food Not Bombs meeting where someone called the group's work revolutionary. The author disagreed: "Well, feeding poor folks isn't really revolutionary." The point was not that the work should stop, but that calling it revolutionary misdescribes it. The author adds that the work is still good, especially when it leans more toward "aid" than "mutual" — a distinction the post flags as a larger conversation than it can hold.

That is the shape of a TOTW: a narrow, arguable claim, stated plainly, with the expectation that readers will push back in the comments.

How to use TOTW posts

If you are reading the site rather than posting:

  1. Open the TOTW post and read the opening section first — it is short.
  2. Check the tags to see which themes the post connects to, and use them to find related posts.
  3. Read the comments if you want the actual debate; on this post there are 18, and the disagreement is the content.
  4. Add a comment if you want to join. The site provides an "Add new comment" link on each post.

If you are trying to follow the series over time, the totw tag is the most direct way to find other entries, since each post carries it.

What TOTW is not

TOTW is not a news category, an editorial column, or a formal position statement from the site. It is a prompt. The "Practicalism" post makes this clear by ending on an unresolved distinction rather than a conclusion. Treating a TOTW post as the site's official view would misread the format — the comments are where the position gets tested.

One practical caveat: the site's own excerpt shows a commenter complaining about the events sidebar and asking for a more interesting podcast, which is a reminder that the comment sections mix substantive debate with site meta-complaints. You may need to skim past the latter to find the former.