Talk:Galerie Gmurzynska

Advertising tone and sourcing

This article is full of unsourced boastful material, and boastful material sourced solely to the Gallerie itself and its postings on ArtSy. It needs much culling and/or sourcing. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Import duty information

I am removing some of the recently added material, and want to give some summary explanations why here, so as to help guide editing in the future.

• Because some of the material here deals with specific, identifiable living people, it falls under our policies on biographies of living persons, which make some stringent sourcing requirements of material that may cast such persons in a negative light.
• The material on the import duty situation was sourced directly to a court ruling. While this may sound like a good source, it is actually what Wikipedia considers a primary source, which we lean against in general. Primary sources don't give context, and they also don't show the import of their information. If this matter got covered in the newspapers, particularly if it continued to get mentioned in later coverage of Galerie, that shows its significance.

While I'm doing some cursory editing for obvious concerns on some of the other added material, I do not have time at the moment to review the other sources; my failure to edit anything at this moment shouldn't be seen as my approval (and to be clear, I'm just another editor; the value of my approval doesn't go beyond that.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me add that WP:BLPPRIMARY specifically states "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring

If I had more time at the moment, I'd be posting both of the recent editors for sanctions at the edit warring notice board. Please stop just pingponging the article back and forth, and use the talk page to discuss differences. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

At the moment, the introduction section contains discussion of the article subject being under an investigation. This neither fits the introductory nature of the introduction nor the summary that it's supposed to serve. It also is of borderline WP:BLP concern, as the Galerie is revealed in the article as being owned by an identified living person, and we normally avoid mere accusations of crime or statements of suspicion when it comes to living persons. So I request that the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of the article be deleted. If the BLP concern is deemed invalid, please put a header ("Investigation") between the first and second paragraphs, so that material is not part of the introduction. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:37, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: The page's protection level and/or your user rights have changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Prot expired 18:27, 20 October 2014. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Edit request on 16 October 2014

It is requested to enable editing and to modify the page as it has a harassing character, intimidating living persons, by not surely verified facts and with the use of controversial sources as well as court ruling information that should not be used in an encyclopaedia. Thus, I would request, that an administrator modifies the introduction, with all the unverified statements that do not belong into it as well as the history, that contains mistakes (e.g. the gallery left Germany permanently in 2005, as one can see from previous sources I added before) removing also the legal case formation of the entire article. Art&Design3000 (talk) 09:07, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: The page's protection level and/or your user rights have changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Prot expired 18:27, 20 October 2014. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Stubifying

I would like to reduce this to a stub, a short simple couple of sentence describing the Gallery - locations, specialties - and then add other material only once consensus has been achieved for it on the talk page, rather than seeing this ongoing edit war. Any objections? --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that this would be for now a good solution as it seems quite unfair to delete a lot of non commercial and non-boastful facts, like the representation of certain estates as well as showcasing the first exhibitions of Russian avant-garde, replacing them with selected truth claims and unproven assertions that show the article in a completely legal case oriented and negative light. Thus, I would also suggest to reduce the page to a very simple explanation of what the gallery shows / represents and where it has its locations, at least for now till a further consensus can be reached as Nat Gertler (talk) has suggested. Art&Design3000 (talk) 10:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with this approach. Regarding recent edit warring on this page, Gmurzynska is using a third IP address in order to suppress public material it wishes to keep hidden - Andemw3 (see previous edits and undos of the reliably referenced material by this username). The latest edit is, to my mind, simply a continuation of the edit warring in this regard. Spurious grounds have been found for removing most of the (to them) undesirable material by misusing the WP:V and WP:BLP tags. Other material has simply been deleted without explanation.

The referencing by Art&Design3000 (and his other identities) is also highly dubious. The references to the promotional material don't seem to have any actual connection to Galerie Gmuzynska (if they do, this should be clearly identified) - see footnote 3, for example, a highly dubious claim and link to an article in which I cannot see any mention of the exhibition in question. There are also instances of willful misquotation of the published sources. For example, 'Antonina [Gmurzynska]appears to have sought out the artists' families in Russia and became adept at sneaking art out of the country' has been changed to 'Antonina 'sought out the artists' families in Russia and was moving this art out of the country, to Europe', so that a documented case of smuggling sounds like an act of charity.

As such, I am reediting again in what I believe to be a balanced way that reflects the published sources properly. I do not consider this 'edit warring', but a restoring of publicly available material, accurately sourced and cited. I welcome Administrators' views and am happy to engage with them in producing a satisfactory version of this page. I do not, however, wish to see a valuable reference resource used as a form of sanitized advertising board which suppresses publicly useful information taken from a range of reliable international publications. Grammophone (talk) 23:42, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

First, as a simple matter of terminology, Andemw3 is not an IP account. An IP account is one that does not have a user name, and is identified by basically a string of numbers.

Second, that you feel that you have reason for your edit warring does not make it not edit warring. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:32, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello together, any further comments on stubifying the article? Or to create a neutral version? The current one is still very legal case oriented basing the entire entry on mostly three incidents. Art&Design3000 (talk) 10:56, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits

This article continues to be problematic with consistent reverts to an excessive Quotefarm containing POV issues (see headings), with possible undue as well. Continuing to monitor reverts of edits by editor: Grammophone who has previously been warned on this talk page for these practices. As indicated, Grammophone, please address issues with edits on this page rather than wholesale reverts. Thank you. Jppcap (talk) 17:13, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank-you for your comments Jppcap. This article had achieved a settled form, but recently insiders have begun once again to try to hide shameful and embarrassing episodes in its history in favor of commercial/advertorial language, much of which is itself inaccurate and exaggerated. It is not even accurate regarding the gallery's main centre, which is in Zurich, not Zug, as a quick look at the gallery's own website will show you. It is not correct to say that the gallery "has been accused" of the Khardzhiev smuggling, or that it "denied involvement". The sources given quote the gallery owners themselves on the removal of this major archive from the Soviet Union, as a result of which it is no longer permitted to operate in Russia. Nor is it appropriate to use the title "Controversy" (singular) when, in fact, the gallery has been involved in numerous legal problems, many of which are not listed here only because of Wikipedia's aversion to primary legal records as a source or because they predate the internet.

Regarding the recent VAT fraud raid, the figure involved is unpaid VAT of 8% on artworks of estimated value 75M Swiss francs. It does not seem appropriate to trivialise the scale of this legal action by removing the figures. As requested, I am making edits rather than a full reversion. I should add further that insider edits are muddling the references, distorting documented records and contain numerous grammatical errors which tend to make the article hard to understand in places. Grammophone (talk) 20:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Grammophone please discuss here when before deleting facts that are documented with sources. I deleted the information you posted regarding Khardzhiev because nothing you mentioned was in the source you had linked to it. It is important to find sourcing for materials to confirm you are not posting opinions and or falsehoods as you are want to do. Thanks Jabba1212 (talk) 13:52, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out, Grammophone. I don't think we've spoken outside of Talk:Galerie Gmurzynska, but nice to hear from you. I haven't been around much today, so just now noticing all the edits you mentioned. It looks like you got to most of it, but I did find a promo paragraph added back to Hist. by this user and one of the longer quotes in Contro. added back too. I'll cut those and keep a close eye on this one too. Thanks. Jppcap (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Site rework

Hello,

I reworked the page for clarity, coherence and balance of tone, as some of the information contained on it seemed to violate NPOV requirements. As such, I removed parts of the text that were essentially clutter and hindered its flow. I think the page works better now, especially with the subsections making the text much clearer and with the legal cases moved to its own section at the end.

I tried to add sources where I could, but there isn't too much out there. In any case, always open for suggestions.

Cheers Count of Monte Wiki (talk) 17:19, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Request to Stubify the article in order to enable a proper rewrite and rectify BLP issues

Hi everyone, I cannot possibly declare my Conflict of Interest enough as will become apparent during my appeal here, but I believe I can still make my motion in good faith.

Declaration of COI / Disclosure of Interests involved

I work as a Librarian at Galerie Gmurzynska and have been asked to look into the Galerie’s Wikipedia page which is – I was told – just wrong. Now, I normally work in the blissfully ignorant world of Information Retrieval and Filing, so I don’t possess any Insider Knowledge but I was assured I also wouldn’t need any which turns out to be true. This will be a long one so I apologize to everyone who needs to deal with this as an unpaid volunteer, but I believe Quality Assurance makes this necessary as the article does indeed in its current form violate the spirit of Wikipedia. In order to make this all as painless and easily to reconstruct for all parties involved as possible I will make my case in sections so that concerned Wikipedians are able to look at the parts that interest them and decide on those merits. I realize that this will be met with extreme scrutiny and will therefore go into a lot of detail. First, I will merely present my Edit Request, Secondly I will present a case to make clear that a consensus in past edit requests had not been reached (and that this is unsatisfactory not only to my employers, but more importantly also to the Wikipedia-Community), Third I will make a case for why I think the current status of affairs is not maintainable at all given the normal standards of Wikipedia, for which I will rely on pointing out that the sources do not match the points they are trying to make, Finally I will give reasoning why I think the course of action I am proposing is the best course of action given the available ressources and the status quo of the article. So, first.

THE EDIT REQUEST

The edit request is to absolutely stubify the Article. As it stands it is half promotional billboard for the Galerie and half a smearjob and frankly neither of the two is a great use of an encyclopedia. Since I am absolutely unable to reformulate a proper article (the COI here is simply too unsurmountable, as this would require constant renegotiations with my employer AND the Wikipedia Community which puts undue stress on all involved parties) this seems to be the only viable option to deal with the at this point unacceptable state of the article.

I therefore motion to strike the entire text of the article for the time being and merely substitute it with:

"Galerie Gmurzynska is an international art gallery with locations in Zug, Zurich and New York. Founded by Antonina Gmurzynska in Cologne in 1965, Galerie Gmurzynska has a focus on 20th Century and contemporary art."

I realize that this is a very harsh step but I will justify it in the following sections. The reasoning is basically like this:

1. The sourcing of the article, as well and especially of controversial sections is abysmal (which I will show)
2. The article has remained for years unchanged even though these have been known issues and at the very least at odds if not in conflict of WP:BLP although other Wikipedians have repeatedly expressed that they are unhappy with the state of the article.
3. Neither me nor other Gallery employees can very well remedy the situation without external help by neutral editors as we are always per definition within a conflict of interest.
4. I believe an organic growth of the article is preferrable to this mix of boastful and slanderous content that is a net negative for both Wikipedia and the Galerie.

Other Wikipedians expressing discontent with the State of the Article

Other people have in the past already expressed that they hold the opinion that at the very least some do-overs are in order. Which brings me to my second point of order, the lacking consensus for the state of things. In 2015, in a discussion on DrMies Talkpage which is (somewhat appropriately as I am sure you all will agree by the end of this) titled “headache” User Xanthomelanoussprog reports that he is under the impression that the sources are given an anti-Galerie-Spin. Around the same time, Bbb23 responds to Grammophone (who seems to be the main editor against the Galerie) on his talk page: “I'm aware of the article's history, and although I know it has been subject to whitewashing, at the same time, even now there is material that is not neutral in the other direction, including slanted wording and poor sourcing. The article needs to strike a balance between its legitimate function as a gallery and the difficulties it has gotten into. That requires moderation by disinterested editors.» Up to this day, such disinterested editors have not been found, even though Count of Monte Wiki’s rewording was at least a commendable effort in the right direction – even though not sufficiently, as I will later try to show in the third section. Sometime earlier Bbb23 already conceded that the article was mostly an attack-page, even if operating under the assumption that it was well-sourced. (It mostly isn’t, again, I will get back to making that point in section 3.) It was also pointed out that the article was at the time subject to WP:Undue, which I would argue is still the case as well as WP:NotScandal and – unfortunately, I see how “my side” is at fault for this for this – also WP:NotPromo . And while the promotional material that has been added since at least removes part of the I would argue that adding more content that doesn’t belong here doesn’t make it a good article but rather adds to my suggestion to stubify. The point I have tried to make here is that there it is somewhat well established that the article is somewhat well documented to be written with a bias. (Or really, two biases.) And while I am aware that this in itself doesn’t justify to stubify the article, the fact that almost all of it has been sourced by people that are subject WP:BLPCOI (including me for obvious reasons) seems to suggest that a blank slate with possible organic growth of the article might be the best way to proceed. That the current state of the article is untenable shall be demonstrated in the next section, where I will go in detail over the quotations and the way material is sourced. I believe this will make it fairly clear that the material is by no means added by a disinterested source but rather with the specific goal to push a libelous POV, thus making the article subject to a whole number of problems that are covered in the Essay on Coatrack articles. . Specifically, I will try to make my case by demonstrating that the article is a result of WP:Cherry and WP:BITR, i.e. I will try to show that the Criticism section consists of Cherry-picked incidents meant to present the Galerie in a negative light that appears to a casual reader as “true” and therefore useful fact, whereas the actual matters at hand are more often than not misrepresented in order to paint an image that is as negative as possible. For obvious reasons (Again: My own COI) I will focus on the controversies section. That I also suggest to remove the rest is meant as a compromise and to try and as a show of good faith, especially in light of the sub-par handling of the article in the past and as I believe the encyclopedic purpose is served better with an organic growth of non-paid editors rather than a constant meddling of SPAs. (For what it’s worth: this account is at least not MEANT as an SPA and I hope it won’t be.) To address the sections:

Khardzhiev Controversy

Khardzhiev The article states: In 1993, Krystyna Gmurzynska and Mathias Rastorfer visited the Khardzhievs in Moscow, and signed agreements described by Rastorfer as “letters of intent” over $2.5 million in exchange for six works of Malevich art worth $30 million. When looking at the article given as the source however, things become somewhat more complicated. "It contained two revealing documents: a single paragraph agreement between Khardzhiev and Krystyna Gmurzynska in which she promised "material support" to the tune of $2.5 million after he reached Amsterdam, and a page containing sketches of six works by Malevich inscribed "I, Kh. N. I. [Nikolai Ivanovich Khardzhiev], give to K.G.B. [Krystyna Gmurzynska-Bscher] to keep for ever six works of Kaz. M. [Kazimir Malevich]". The first document was witnessed by Chaga, Willem Weststeijn and Krystyna's business partner, Mathias Rastorfer." "Rastorfer, however, insists that these documents were not contracts but merely "letters of intent". In fact, the gallery negotiated a tougher deal once the two old people were in Holland. He says that he rang the Hilton a couple of months after they arrived to sort things out and discovered that they were furious with the gallery.» So: The article speaks of not one, but two documents. One concerning material support, one concerning six works. Those are however meant “to keep for ever”. This is a relevant distinction and does not constitute a sale, as the article later goes on to explain when they expand on the “tougher deal”: “The negotiations between the gallery and the couple were bitter. In August 1994 a contract was negotiated covering the purchase of the original six paintings for $2.5 million and it was signed on September 2. While this was going on, Chaga wrote a sad account to a young friend in Moscow, Anna Gurevich, of how the collection was moved: "They got a deal that was very much to their advantage: they could choose the six best items in the collection on the understanding that we would sell two of them and give them the other four 'to keep for ever' - in other words, they would not have the right to sell them and would undertake to pass them on to a museum. In return they promised to guarantee the safe delivery of the archive and some less well-preserved paintings.” Note that there is a very clear distinction made _in_ the article between “sale”(i.e. exchange) and “keep for ever”. None of this carries over into the Wikipedia article. Neither the distinction, nor that the letters of intent were in fact not made out to be about the exchange at all but about “material support” in Amsterdam. While this misunderstanding on its own might be construed as a mere misreading of the sources, it will soon become apparent that the sources are constantly read in a biased manner. The next sentence reads: “The gallery arranged the packing and removal of the artworks, but then left the Khadzhievs in Amsterdam and cut off communications with them while retaining control of their collections.” Again, the Source doesn’t match the claim. The source here claims: “Relations between the critic and the dealers soon deteriorated. The Khardzhievs were put up at a Hilton hotel in Amsterdam and, they complained, abandoned.” Note that this is given as their account of events – an account which would on top of that be challenged by the other source that was used for the last paragraph, where Mr. Rastorfer is cited to have called them in Amsterdam and on top of this somewhat dubitable given the fact that later in the article cited HERE, Khardzhiev is reported to cut off communications with Nic Iljine, as he figured he would be working with or for Gmurzynska (Note that this is Khardzhiev cutting off a communicational channel, rather than the Galerie already having cut off all communication a year before). In any case, a feeling of abandonment is not the same as “cut off communications”, which is a claim that is nowhere to be found in the article. The same holds true for the claim that the Galerie “retained control of their collections”. In fact, the article goes on to point out that a huge part of it had been seized at the Moscow Airport and later points out that “Abarov” (apparently the heir of Khardzhiev as per his will) entered into negotiations with Galerie Gmurzynska over the sale of paintings – something which wouldn’t make sense if the Galerie had already had “retained control of the collection”. Again the point is a misquotation of the sources that only can be noticed if one gives them a close reading and that one can’t help but to think is purposeful. The paragraph ends with: “As reported in articles published in The New York Times and the New Left Review, the Khardzhievs were duped.» This sentence gives the impression that this would be at least an indirect quote of the two sources. It is not. Nor is it a disinterested reading of the sources. Seeing how this is put forward to make a character claim about Ms. Gmurzynska and Mr. Rastorfer, it is fairly obviously subject to WP:BLPSTYLE, particularly: “Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources.” So much for Khardzhiev. Which brings us to Edelman v. Gmurzynska.

Edelman-Controversy

2) Edelman v. Gmurzynska The article starts: "Between 2007 and 2009, Gmurzynska and Rastorfer were involved in a further dispute. Dealer Asher B. Edelman loaned a work to Gmurzynska that was returned damaged.[26]" The article cited as a source however (now defunct, accessible via Web-Archive here ) states: “The piece was returned to him in a crate, and only after it was sent to the New York dealer Vivian Horan Fine Art for another potential consignment was it noticed to have "a big gouge," according to Edelman, who asserts that this made the work, which had been included in a major Ryman exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1993, "a total loss." Please note how this explicitly DOESN’T state that it was returned damaged, but rather that the damage wasn’t found until after a subsequent transport which makes all following events all the more plausible. Concerning the alleged “ignoring” the article states: “Edelman says that Gmurzynska disputed the damage claim and instructed its insurer, the Berlin- and Zurich-based Kuhn & Bülow Versicherungsmakler, to refuse payment. Edelman’s insurer, New York-based XL Specialty Insurance, which had insured the Ryman picture for $750,000, then made Edelman its assignee and he took the gallery to federal court. Gmurzynska has a very different take on the events. "Gmurzynska at all times believed that the matter was in the hands of its insurer," which it never told to withhold payment, says Mathias Rastorfer, a partner in the Zurich-based firm.» Please note here that no matter whose side you are on it is certainly NOT the case that the claim was “ignored”, but rather that it was specifically addressed. In short: the text of the source here is SERIOUSLY distorted. (To the point of making the opposite case of what is given in the Wiki-article) Like in the paragraph above, this is a pattern that will be maintained. The last sentence of the paragraph states: “Edelman was awarded an additional $250,000 for what the judge described as the gallery's "wilful conduct" in the matter, i.e. their failure to respond to the lawsuit. Gmurzynska and Rastorfer disputed any wrongdoing, stating that "The gallery never received any notice that Mr. Edelman had applied for a default judgment". This is substantiated with Edelman v. Gmurzynska at Art Basel (Art Market Monitor) . However, while wiki at this point states that the judge was speaking of “wilful conduct” in the matter, the article states the following: “The suit claims an additional $250,000 for “willful conduct of defendant” and “reprehensible motives and such wanton dishonesty as to imply a criminal indifference to civil obligations.” The suit resulted in a default judgment for the plaintiff for about $765,000.” Please do note that this is explicitly THE SUIT (i.e. Edelman) claiming this, rather than the judge declaring this. Also note that not only does it not say that 250.000 Dollars were awarded but rather that the sum of 765.000 Dollars seems to imply that it was NOT awarded. (with the 15.000 Dollar on top presumably being the legal fees and the likes) While I do believe that this is more than sufficient to prove that this is all not necessarily made in good faith, let me just quickly address the last remaining sentence in the paragraph… and take this with a grain of salt, as I am a layperson and not entirely sure about this part. The sentence states: “In 2009, a U.S. district court judge awarded Edelman a default judgment of $765,000 to which Gmurzynska and Rastorfer failed to respond, leading four of the Gmurzynska's paintings to be seized at the Miami Beach Art Fair and held for two days until the gallery paid the judgment.[26][27]” Now. Again, IANAL, but merely looking at the sources ( Art Market Article ) and Seized the Day at Blouin via Webarchive the picture seems different to me than from merely reading the Wikipedia Article. A default judgment – which I had to look up – seems to be a judgment that is awarded for failure to respond. So it wasn’t that the default judgment was IGNORED which “lead to” the seizing of the four paintings but rather that the judgment prior had not been addressed. The second of those sources given quotes Edelman’s own lawyer as saying that Edelman chose to wait until Gmurzynska came to Art Basel in Miami. This makes the sentence misleading in the sense as it portrays Galerie Gmurzynska as now willfully ignoring two court decisions (rather than just one that they assumed their insurance was handling) and further omits a crucial part of the matter, namely that Asher Edelman as per his own lawyer chose to wait to make the default judgment known in order to be able to have the raid. The line reads “Aaron Richard Golub, Edelman’s New York attorney, has a simple explanation: He wanted to get his money. After receiving the default judgment in October, "we figured, let’s wait for the Art Basel Miami Beach fair. . . . Gmurzynska didn’t have any assets in this country, and they came to this fair with all this art," says Golub, a self-described seasoned "seizurer" who adds: "If anybody is thinking about coming to an art fair, they had better make sure there are no judgments against them." I feel like the differences and omissions here speak for themselves.

Remarks concerning the Other Controversies

3) Further remarks While the sources aren’t misrepresented in the same way in the cases of the VAT (Dolder) and the Gennochio case, they should still be seen within the grand narrative of adverse actors that have edited the page in order to portray the Gallery as negatively as possible. Especially the Gennochio-case should be considered in light of WP:notscandal , considering that the claim that the “Gallery drew attention” is at the very least dubitable given the fact that this attention consists in one of three notes in a newsticker for Art market intelligence that refers back to a now defunct art world magazine, mostly in order to highlight the salacious nature of said report. The only other report that seems now findable concerning this “attention” is a part of a local Zurich Gossip-Blog that directly quotes Wikipedia, thereby documenting that the smear campaign is indeed working.

Conclusion and Suggestion to Move Forward

Concluding remarks and suggestion: So, to get to my final plea and my reasoning why I believe the article would be best served by stubifying it. I believe I have shown that at least three out of four items in the controversies section have no business being in an encyclopedic article. Two for systematic misrepresentation of the sources, one for lack of notability and I would suggest that the fourth is inextricably linked with the rest of the smear campaign. However, I also recognize that my own COI here is clearly playing a role in this, which is why I also motion to remove the promotional content that makes up most of the “History” paragraph and the lists in order to even this out and not make this a “let’s whitewash this” proposal. The resulting stub would then give the option to give actually disinterested editors (that also haven’t had to go through the headaches that all people working on prior versions of this article had) the option to add relevant content organically. I refer back to the suggestion that NatGertler already made ten years back: “I would like to reduce this to a stub, a short simple couple of sentence describing the Gallery - locations, specialties - and then add other material only once consensus has been achieved for it on the talk page, rather than seeing this ongoing edit war. Any objections? --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2014 (UTC)» The Controversies Section already covered at the time much of what is at stake now and I believe that Nat is a much more reliable source than I am for this suggestion which was presumably not followed up because there was EditWarring between SockPuppet Accounts on both sides. And since the status quo is untenable and my (or any Gallery employees for this matter) COI makes me unsuitable to do a proper rewrite, since finally this untenable Status Quo has been maintained for more or less ten years now – which is I believe also neither in the Spirit of Wikipedia NOR in the interest of its community – it seems that nobody else is going to do it anytime soon, which is why for the time being stubifying the article seems to be the best and kind of only option. This is to be considered especially in light of WP:BLP and its position on Eventualism. (I take the cue that this is a WP:BLP issue from Nat and others that I believe justifiedly have raised the issue). There it clarifies: “The idea expressed in Eventualism—that every Wikipedia article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced because it will eventually be brought into shape—does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times.” I know this was excruciatingly long and I thank everyone who has taken the time to read the entire case. I hope I have made it clear that I am trying as good as I can to balance the intentions of my employer and those of Wikipedia here and that I am suggesting those edits – while interested – still in good faith that the suggestions I make are in the spirit of this project.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to work through this woefully long request , it is much appreciated. I hope we can find a solution to this issue GGLibrarian (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2023 (UTC)GGLibrarian GGLibrarian (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

You are correct when you say that this request is the textbook definition of WP:TLDR. Im afraid you'll have to find a way around that if we're to have any movement on this type of request. There is a requirement that reasons be given for the changes that are requested to be made, but there is no reason why those reasons should be an insurmountable wall of text. Changes also need to be proposed in a 'change x to y' type format. I think you'll find it much easier if the changes you request are made piecemeal and not all at once. Rome wasn't built in a day. If your requests are made in that manner, I assure you they will be met with editors eager to help you. Regards,  Spintendo  00:53, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey there, @Spintendo.

First of all, thanks for even looking into it and the guidance. Yeah, I had been worried that this would be an issue.

If I may follow up, before possibly reformatting the entire issue into a piecemeal:

Seeing how there _is_ a procedure as Wikipedia:STUBIFY , I would assume that this as such would call for another procedure as just suggesting a change for every single item? The thing is, the article as it stands doesn't only fulfill ONE of the example reasons that are given as reasons to Stubify, but literally all of them.

My question here would be then:

What's the appropriate way to go about this? The Stub-Page refers to the VRT procedure, should such a request on principle be done through them?

Or is stubifying articles anyway a de-facto retired procedure? Is there another way that I am not aware of?

I would appreciate some Input on this question before moving forward, as stubifying was at least in the past pitched as an option by some more experienced editors, but I take your reaction as an indication that it will be very hard to almost impossible to reach a consensus on this one? Thank you and have a great weekend, with kind regardsGGLibrarian (talk) 03:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)GGLibrarian (talk) 03:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Request to Stubify / Solve BLP problems

Hey again. Following @Spintendos Suggestion I wanted to renew the request.

Declaration of Conflict of Interest: I am writing here as the Librarian of Galerie Gmurzynska. I motion to stubify the article.

• Specific text to be added or removed:

Removal: Entire mainline text, just keeping the address box.

Addition: Instead of current main text:

"Galerie Gmurzynska is an international art gallery with locations in Zug, Zurich and New York. Founded by Antonina Gmurzynska in Cologne in 1965, Galerie Gmurzynska has a focus on 20th Century and contemporary art."

• Reason for the change:

The article has remained in an indefensible state for years. It is half an advertorial with partly directory function, partly an attack page. Especially the Controversies section is slanderous and not supported by the sources. For a detailed reasoning in this regard see the WP:TLDR edit above. Since the attacks are not only misrepresenting the sources but also concerning living persons I believe that according to WP:BLP stubifying would be the best course of action. While the History part is not as problematic it would probably be best to still stubify it as the advertising tone has been rightly criticised in the part and is not entirely suitable for an encyclopedia. There should be the chance for this article to organically grow instead of being torn apart in fruitless edit wars.

• References supporting change:

Since the request is to stubify I feel like a reference to the history on the homepage is sufficient: [1]https://www.gmurzynska.com/gallery/ I think the part given here is not disputed. References supporting the claim that the «controversies» section is misrepresenting sources: cf. on this talk page, section «Request to Stubify the article in order to enable a proper rewrite and rectify BLP issues», especially subsections «Khardzhiev Controversy, Edelman Controversy, Further controversy.» Especially Khardzhiev and Edelman are clearly subject to WP:BLPSOURCE and should be removed immediately. That the main article would also profit from stubification according to common wikipedia standards is due to it being almost exclusively WP:Promo or WP:NOTSCANDAL.

Thanks for considering this again and helping out. Have a good day, everyone. GGLibrarian (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Thank you for your reply it's much appreciated. Just a gentle reminder that the BLP guidelines largely cover articles about living people, not galleries—which are covered by WP:ORG. In any event, BLP and ORG are largely notability guidelines. The COI edit request review process concerns content guidelines, which are covered by WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:NOT and WP:NPOV. Sorry to mansplain for a moment there, just wanted to make those points clear. With regards to your request, input from other local editors on this would be beneficial. Anyone please feel free to chime in. Regards,  Spintendo  13:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC) and 15:29, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't take this as mansplaining at all, I am fairly inexperienced as a Wikipedia Editor as you surely noticed, so I appreciate the input:

To clarify, I took the cue from previous discussions where this was brought up and has been treated with some sympathy from more experienced editors. Regardless of my professional COI my understanding was that besides the question of Notability there is also the question of urgency, but maybe my misunderstanding here is that this should have technically been handled by a quick-deletion request?

In any case, I appreciate your patience in helping out here (especially considering the unfortunate edit history of the article) and will wait for replies from local editors. Best, GGLibrarian (talk) 14:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

First off, I recommended stubbification on this page almost a decade ago, and the reasons still stand, so I agree.

Secondly, no, WP:BLP does not apply largely to articles about living people; as the first sentence of WP:BLP notes, the concerns apply to any (emphasis theirs) Wikipedia page. The strong majority of that page deals with any page that includes information on specific living persons (there is a section on style concerns when the article is specifically a biography, but that's just one section.) And the page makes it clear that BLP standards can be applied to small groups, and a gallery would seem to fit rather easily into that category. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that recommendation back in the day @NatGertler, I think a lot of headaches (especially internally here) could have been avoided if people had taken the time to properly engage with that suggestion. It is really much appreciated.

Secondly, I suppose that the spirit of the BLP guideline in any case is to prevent to make Wikipedia a battlefield to conduct personal vendettas. I am not entirely sure what the background of the current state of the page was or rather is, but after screening the sources this seems to have been at least partly a factor that motivated the controversies section and where the promotional material came from is also fairly obvious (even though with inverse intention).

Since I want to neither spam here nor let this fall asleep like it happened a decade ago, would one of you two be willing to quickly advice me what the appropriate procedure here is? I suppose to wait an adequate time (which is...?) for further input? Something else?

Sorry for the partly clueless questions, I really tried to figure these things out on my own but I have the feeling that a lot of these questions are mostly a moving communal consensus which is why asking is probably most appropriate.

Kind regards, GGLibrarian (talk) 15:28, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler I agree with Nat, in that the issue here—if it has anything to do with BLP—would fall under WP:BLPGROUP. The controversy section does not involve accusations against any single person, rather, they involve, at the minimum, a pair of people. That being said, whether the information remains in the article would depend on the references used and what form that information takes (e.g., the claim from two of the individuals who said "they were duped" feels inappropriate as it's their words, no matter the reliability of what those words were published in.) Has the COI editor identified problematic sources that can be eliminated quickly? As we whittle down the sources, we'll know whether or not the claims stay in the article.  Spintendo  16:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure I understand the question correctly.

If I may proceed to maybe ask a concrete question based on your example, because I do not understand what is at stake here. What you say is, if I get that correctly, that the two individuals said they were duped.

But that is not a quote, not even in the Wikipedia Article. The Wikipedia Article states that they were duped "as reported in" NYT and NLR, but neither of the two sources states that Chaga OR Khardzhiev said that. Neither does any source claim that.

It is EXCLUSIVELY a statement of the Wikipedia Editor that did this in the day (Presumably Grammophone, but I don't entirely know.)

But also, if I understood you correctly, the idea here is that even if that was a verbatim quote of Chaga it still (or especially) wouldn't hold water, as those persons also clearly hold a COI?

Is that what you are saying?

So, I guess, in short my question is: Would it be helpful if I provided a bullet point list that stated what sources and correlating claims should be kicked out and on what grounds?

All the best GGLibrarian (talk) 16:33, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

No, you're not agreeing with me, as I am in no way saying that individual BLP does not apply. WP:BLPGROUP is for when something it attributed to a group rather than named individuals. If I were to say "the 1986 Yankees included three unrepentant philatelists", that would be a matter for WP:BLPGROUP... but if I'm saying "three members of the 1986 Yankees, including pitcher Roy Hobbs and shortstop Joe Shlabotnik, were...", then I've named names and it's very direct BLP. While we do attribute some things here to the Gallerie, in which case WP:BLPGROUP applies, there are cleaar instances where we are naming individuals and the full force of WP:BLP applies (assuming those people are still alive.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:40, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

These are essentially non notable individuals whose work is intimately associated with the gallery. If it weren't for the gallery none of this would have happened. As far as "naming individuals", the Khardzhievs described them by barely using their last names... Even this lady Gmurzynska was carrying very heavy valises, Mr. Khardzhiev told a Russian journalist. I was impressed by her womanly strength. If by naming names you mean "this woman Gmurzynska", then sure, they were naming names, but that's hardly akin to naming a Yankee by last name Christian name and position played.  Spintendo  17:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't care what other people do, I care about what this article is doing, and it is specifically referring to specific, named people, such as Krystyna Gmurzynska and Mathias Rastorfer. Really. (Not that BLP wouldn't apply if it were to refer to "this woman Gmurzynska", as that is still an identifiable specific person.)

You should probably reread WP:BLP to gain a better understanding, and maybe spend some time at WP:BLPN to understand how it is applied. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:34, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler Yes, those people are very much still alive and *do* feel misrepresented… and I would contra @Spintendo claim that, again, given my limited understanding, this is specifically what BLP is trying to prevent. That Wikipedia is used as a main referral for negative references… at one point Rastorfer‘s name had been changed to „Mathias Criminal“ and while this has been reverted immediately I believe it shows that at the very least some of these are far from disinterested edits.

I think there are points of relevance to be made about the gallery, but also I do not think I should be the one to push this, as I think this would be contraproductive to what Wikipedia is trying to be. And while I was paid to have a look at this I genuinely believe that „my“ side has also pertinent points about why this is indefensible. And given all this COI and how long something indefensible was up now I would wholeheartedly hope that Nat‘s suggestion from a decade ago to just stubify would be followed.

Best, GGLibrarian (talk) 19:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the language which talked about "being duped" since those words don't appear in either of the two stories. I've substituted that information for direct quotations from the New York Times piece, giving claims from the Kardzhievs as well as the responses from the two gallery workers supervising the moving of items. I think that's the best that can be done here. Regards,  Spintendo  04:46, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this, Spintendo, but this is at best a partial addressing of the issue. I have asked the Volunteer Team for advice on this and how to proceed, and they referred me back to here with the rationale that so far no consensus had been reached. I take your minor edit as a de facto vote that from your POV a stubifying of the article is not warranted, which I do not agree with, but which I will take as a vote from the community unless another editor decides to chip in. However, that doesn't solve the issue of the remaining sourcing. I asked the VRT this as well, but they just referred me back to here: should I reopen this request with point by point edits according to the COI template and going through the problems on this level or is there another procedure warranted? I am very sorry to be so stubborn with this, but I sincerely believe that the article for now remains in an indefensible condition and I do not wish to spam or just keep blocking the COI category, but I have faith that it is possible to find a consensus that is acceptable to all sides. Kind regards,GGLibrarian (talk) 13:38, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@GGLibrarian it's no problem, I don't mind at all you reopening the request. We want to make sure that all your concerns are addressed. Perhaps it would be best if you could refresh what the main argument was here, as in what issues you see specifically with the sources that are being used, in particular, the New York Times source. If your goal is to remove the claims made by the New York Times, then what you need to do is impeach the New York Times coverage of this story. BLP claims can be removed when there's faulty sourcing, but that's not the case here. As far other claims, it would be helpful if you could identify them in particular, each one, as well as describing the issue with each claim's referencing. Regards,  Spintendo  15:02, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

There are many sources beyond the New York Times source in here, and some of them are problematic. For example, there are repeated uses of Art Market Monitor, including as the only source in a BLP-relevant section, and that appears to be a self-published source (all of its entries have a single author), and that violates WP:BLPSPS. Other material is sourced to dead links, or to a site with no visible editorial credits. The New Left Review is a scholarly journal seemingly being used outside its expertise. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:12, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Problematic sourcing

Existing source	Claim	Proposed replacement
http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/276117/seized-the-day	Zurich hotel raid	https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/zollfahndung-ermittelt-gegen-dolder-grand-ld.853338?reduced=true
https://www.zurich4you.ch/hotel_dolder_grand_and_galerie_gmurzynska_raided.html?directlink=hotel_dolder_grand_and_galerie_gmurzynska_raided	Zurich hotel raid	https://www.welt.de/kultur/kunst-und-architektur/article123277175/Kunst-Keine-schoene-Bescherung-in-Zuerich.html
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii26/articles/tony-wood-a-futurist-ark	Khardzhiev acquisitions	https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/wens-chardzjijev-lijkt-te-worden-vervuld~b1ace70f/

I began a table above where we can insert the problematic URLs, in order to clarify and then find new ones to replace them. Please feel free to list any problematic URLs above, and we'll find suitable replacements. Thank you everyone for your help!  Spintendo  01:23, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I have stubbified the article,. If you want to build something around reliable sources you find, you can, but as it was, the article had both bad WP:BLP problems and, on the more promotional material, WP:DUE problems. The BLP problems in particular should not be sitting around unaddressed. If you wish to build the article from reliable sources, move forward! -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler I have reverted that decision because there are proposed URL replacements on the talk page to consider. I'd like you to take a look at those URLs and see if they're acceptable. If not then I'll revert my reversion.  Spintendo  01:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

You just reinserted negative BLP material sourced to a source that violated WP:BLPSPS. If you do not understand the BLP policies, I suggest that you stay away from articles that contain BLP material. You seem set to dafaulting to including the material that is already on the page, regardless of who put it there and why, which seems ill-advised, given the history of this page. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler I apologize if you were unsure of where we were at in the discussion. You had mentioned three sources as being problematic. In reply, I proposed three replacement sources for each of the sources you mentioned. Before addressing those proposals, you moved to make the article a stub. I just thought you might appreciate having the opportunity to look at those three proposals (and for me to address any other problematic sources you see in the article now that you have not yet mentioned) before concluding the discussion. Please advise on the proposals shown above. Thank you! Regards,  Spintendo  04:23, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler Please feel free to address the proposed URL replacements at your earliest convenience. Unless we hear otherwise, I'll assume that you have no issue with them, and will be reinserting the content. I look forward to your feedback. Regards,  Spintendo  04:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I was not "unsure of where we were at in the discussion". I was, instead, taking care of some base problems while you were here dithering and ignoring some sizable BLP concerns on a page that you had already incorrectly concluded didn't need addressing. You are not the boss of this discussion or this page. You have proposed three sources in languages that I cannot read with competency -- can you? If not, how can you claim that they are reliable sources for the statements being made. Are you relying on a machine translation? Machine translations that have not been vetted by a human editor are not reliable. So barring any indication to the contrary, I have an issue with those as reliable sources for the statements being covered. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Spintendo: Okay, so I take it that was all a lie, it was not "Unless I hear otherwise, I'll assume you had no issue", it was "I don't care about issues, I'm going to do whatever I want." You are not paying attention to the other people in this discussion, who have been telling you that there is a general problem with this article because of its history, and are instead acting like all it needs is inserting references in languages that I expect you do not read well enough to rely on. You seem not to be looking at the general picture about the material you are inserting, or perhaps you're simply not aware that a WP:FORBESCON article is not a reliable source for WP:BLP material. On your talk page, you claim to be trying to match my request to build an article from reliable sources, but you're not trying to build an article, you are trying to patch an old one, which is not the same thing, it is merely embracing the troubled history of this article. (By the way, that warning about not templating your talk page doesn't work, as such templating is a needed step beore taking you to the proper board.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you stated in your edit summary If you wish to build the article from reliable sources, move forward! That was my intention. As far as Forbes, if that source is in the revision, then it was there before I came along. I'm most interested in hearing your opinions on the reliability of the four (4) new sources I specifically added. Hearing that would be much appreciated. I'm sorry that you don't have the privilege of Dutch or Swiss colleagues able to assist you with your translation, there is always WP:TRLA As far as templating, this is not the forum to discuss this. But that being said, you know as well as I do that no threshold was passed so the warning you gave was purely optional. Regards,  Spintendo  20:39, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, first of all, thanks again to all involved and sorry that I was... and partly still am... checked out, I was struck down with a fever and thus couldn't reply in due time. It is really much appreciated, even though of course I lean heavily towards @NatGertler side in this dispute, but the patience with this is on all sides is admirable and really speaks for the project.

Anyway, as for the topical discussion, I would like to reiterate the following point before I go into comments re: sourcing.

The point is not _just_ (but also) that Sources have been misused. The point is what Nat called "the troubled history of this article". In the past people have been adding content to this page in the attempt to create a negative light. This inevitably skews the balancing of the article and I have a genuine COI here in the sense that I acknowledge that I feel that I cannot possibly see what an appropriate weighting here would be. (As opposed to my COI as somebody who was asked to look into this as part of his job and where I _can_ argue a certain case and distinguish this from my personal feelings on the matter).

Let me use an analogy to make this point.

If we take the Philosopher Max Horkheimer, part of the Frankfurt School we have a person who has certainly the notability to be on Wikipedia. Let's further assume that Horkheimer (had he lived) made his own wikipedia article with a list of his notable publications. Then, an adversarial party shows up and repurposes the article to point out that he was instrumental in dubious activities surrounding the creation of the OSS and therefore involved with the secret service, then creates a controversies section of racist remarks, finally goes on to document his history of sexism.

All of the points I have noted here are true as such, but they are certainly providing an entirely wrong image of the case. While it IS possible to properly source them, they obscure the issue that Horkheimer is - if anything - instrumental in the academic sphere in arguing against sexism or racism and that the creation of the OSS, while certainly deep in all the vile things that secret services are engaged in, happened against the backdrop of the Nazi threat.

Mutatis mutandis we have a similar issue here. I don't think that sourcing the Dolder issue is any problem, there was widespread media coverage at the time. The question is whether the information of a VAT evasion in its full extent is really the appropriate information to include here in the first place. Because if you provide the complete picture to this, I feel like the take-away might appear somewhat different: yet, if the entire story were to be documented, the entire thing would gain undue weight.

After those throat-clearing remarks, let me go into the specific issues.

A) Re: Edelman v. Gmurzynska insurance dispute

The claim that the work was returned damaged is not in the NBC source. NBC claims (correctly) that the default judgment was obtained over a damaged painting. This is a difference. The since removed source pointed out that the work was _not_ inspected after its return and that the damage had only later been found out. (I refer to my points made in my tl;dr wall of text - sorry again - in the box Edelman v. Gmurzynska)

In total, I sincerely do not think that this dispute has any business being in here. The issue is an insurance dispute that lead to a default judgment because Gmurzynska thought their insurer was handling the case. The entire paragraph was inserted by a COI party which should be fairly obvious when you consider that in one of the edits Rastorfer's name was even changed to 'Mathias Criminal'. This is one of the above mentioned cases where I think I can confidently say that I sincerely believe this entire thing should just be taken out.

B) Re: Dolder

I do think the issue is a bit more complicated here as a properly written article of sufficient length would probably still mention this as it was such a high profile case.

Yet, I still think this is taking up an undue weight here and the sourcing is still off. The issue with the Sourcing is not that Die Welt wasn't a reputable source.

The issue is that "The evidence made available to journalists indicated that a false company issuing fake bills was used to import the works via a bonded warehouse, enabling Schwarzenbach to avoid paying the required import duty" this is not what is reported in the article. There is neither a mention of a false company nor of fake bills. The Welt instead reports the following:

"Im Gegensatz zur Privatperson Schwarzenbach verfügt die Galerie Gmurzynska über die Berechtigung, Kunstwerke im Verlagerungsverfahren steuerfrei zu importieren – vorausgesetzt, die Werke bleiben im Eigentum oder der Verfügungsgewalt der Galerie. Sind die Werke verkauft, muss der neue Besitzer die Steuern nachbezahlen. Doch Schwarzenbach hat nie überwiesen." (Read: Gmurzynska was, unlike the private person Schwarzenbach, allowed to import sans VAT, as long as the works are still owned or held by the Gallery. If they are sold, the new owner has to pay VAT and Schwarzenbach never paid.)

And a bit later: "Es gilt derweil weiterhin die Unschuldsvermutung. Schwarzenbach gab unlängst zu Protokoll, dass die gezeigten Bilder im Dolder ausgestellt seien und zum Verkauf stünden." (The presumption of Innocence still counts, Schwarzenbach reported that the shown artworks are being exhibited in the Dolder and for sale.)

The issue at stake here was that the Gallery's claim was that they used the luxury hotel to showcase the artworks and that they could be bought, while the Zoll claimed that they sold too little and thus had to be presumed as not even trying to sell but rather having them made available to Schwarzenbach.

I feel this is significantly different from fake companies issuing fake bills.

C) Khardzhiev

Once again, a case that would reasonably be expected to have some mention, but where I think the weighting is off. The Khardzhiev-Collection is absolutely indubitably historically noteworthy and warrants being discussed, however, to have Rastorfer and Gmurzynska deny that they were involved in smuggling still is a bit too much mention of smuggling considering the fact that not only have none of them been trialed or sentenced for it but that furthermore Krystyna Gmurzynska was awarded honorary titles by the Russian Federation for her advancement of the arts, indicating that this party too surely doesn't consider the issue as clear-cut and that it wasn't just an issue of "couldn't be trialed in absentia" or anything along the lines. Also, regarding the six works and their assessment: the Rottenberg article doesn't report the ten times number (which is reported in other sources), but as I pointed out before, the notion of "giving them" again evokes a wrong picture if you then bring up that number. At first the six works were given to be placed in Museum collections, two of them should be sold at arrival as per https://web.archive.org/web/20100407185142/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4713862/A-tragic-flight-to-freedom.html .

Since we don't know (at least I don't) which pieces WERE sold and only have the evaluation of the total set of six, it is impossible to tell at how much the disparity between sales price and evaluation was. I can only presume that the four Malevich paintings that were later renegotiated by the Foundation (as per Tim Golden's NYT article) were the remaining four ones, but frankly I also don't know that for sure. In any case I feel that this also conveys a faulty picture. (And since it isn't in the source given at the moment it would also remain kind of moot.)

So, to summarize, I still lean heavily towards Nats approach of stubifying entirely for systematic reasons but I also honestly appreciate the work that is being put in here and would like to - I do this probably too often - express my gratitude for the patience of all involved, and think that should this not be possible the weighting of the former controversies should still be tweaked and possibly parts of the History rewritten to read less than a listicle, which I could get back to eventually since this is way less of an issue. (And I am technically on vacation but considering all the work other people are putting in here I didn't want to leave this lying around for so long.) Best, GGLibrarian (talk) 10:54, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

As far as Forbes, if that source is in the revision, then it was there before I came along. IF? You don't even know what you're inserting. You're not listening to literally everyone else in this conversation, who are telling you that this article has a general problem. You apparently inserted sources without checking that they said. That's ap problem.

Building an article from reliable sources is not a matter of taking an existing article and slamming some different source links onto it, whether or not they say the information you're putting them next to (as GGL has noted problems there.) In this case, ti would take doing the research starting from the angle of "what do reliable sources have to say about the topic of the article", not "what source can I find that is kinda related to this one incident a conflicted editor wanted to highlight." Because of the history of this page, we are in a WP:TNT situation.

Anyway, since you apparently didn't bother to check the sources you were adding, the sources you were readding, or consensus, I am undoing your edit. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

BLPCRIME concerns

In addition to the general these-things-were-chosen-to-build-an-attack-page problem of much of the recently removed material, there are BLP concerns. When we're talking about folks denying smuggling or about about the Gallerie being raided as part of a tax investigation, we are in the realm of suggesting crimes without a charge or conviction. Per WP:BLPCRIME, For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. While there is, I suppose, a case to be made that putting one's own name on a public-facing business is a form of making one's self a public figure, that is not the only person involved in this small, identifiable group. None of the names involved are public figures to the extent that we've seen the need to give them their own article. The need to include this material is dubious. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:48, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

As to whether BLP matters apply to the Gallery, the Gallery is depicted as being basically two people. WP:BLPGROUP tell us A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group, and that seems appropriately applied here, as a group of two is as small as a group can be and still be discussed as a group. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:29, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Nat, I am reading your remarks on the edit history. I agree that the details about the Khardziev collection is of undoubted historical importance and I therefore find it odd that this article has been censored to show the insurance dispute with Edelman - a relatively minor episode - but not the major smuggling operation which was the foundation of this institution, including the very important article by Tony Wood and other sources which quote the gallery's current owners. I am therefore restoring that part of the history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vantongern959 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I think that the Edelman material should be gone as well, until there is a serious attempt to build this as a proper page rather than either a promo or attack page. However, the Edelman piece does not try to link living persons to a crime of which they have not been committed, but rather a civil matter which has been concluded. In contrast, the coverage of the Khardziev matter attempts to link living people to a crime of which they have not been convicted, which is a problem under WP:BLPCRIME. (It is also, I should note, full of claims not in the one source you provided.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

With respect, I think you need to look further back in the history where there are a number of sources for the Khardziev smuggling. There was the major piece in New Left Review as well as a major article in The New York Times: (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/arts/for-collector-russian-art-end-dream-murky-trail-behind-rediscovered-works.html). Perhaps those too have been removed by insiders. All of the "claims" come from the sources, I have no personal knowledge of the incidents, but if they were untrue then without doubt the publishers would have been sued for libel and forced to retract those pieces. I don't see that incidents reported in multiple, reputable outlets across the world, gathered under the heading "controversies", constitutes an "attack" page. If all of that interesting material is simply deleted then the article constitutes a free advertisement. Certainly, the Khardziev controversy and the works involved (esp. Malevich) is of vastly greater historical importance than anything else on the article as it stands. Readers should be guided to those sources and make their own minds up, not have all the relevant material airbrushed out. Vantongern959 (talk) 00:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

3O Response: This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Third opinion and I am commenting in response to that request. I have never edited this article before and am here as a third-party to try to provide additional input to resolve the disagreement. The dispute appears to be over this content, particularly the "1993 Smuggling of Nikolai Khardzhiev collection" section. While I understand the argument that reliable sources have covered the event (thereby potentially meeting WP:V if correctly attributed), WP:BLPCRIME is part of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, a policy that must be followed. That something has been reported on by a news organization does not mean it is necessarily suitable for inclusion on this encyclopedia, and in the case of non-public figures being accused of criminal activity where there is no conviction, such content does not belong on Wikipedia. - Aoidh (talk) 04:46, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Find this absurd. Hitler was never convicted of any crimes apart from his Putsch attempt - does all of the Holocaust material on Wikipedia need to be whitewashed too then? Do you think a country like Switzerland publishes a list of criminal convictions and fines paid on the internet?! Vantongern959 (talk) 09:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

That is very much an apples-to-oranges comparison. WP:BLPCRIME applies to non-public figures, and ignoring the fact that Hitler is not a living person, he in no way meets WP:NPF. - Aoidh (talk) 09:54, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok, agreed. However, WP:NPF also says that biographies of relatively unknown figures should be 'focusing on high-quality secondary sources.' Are the New York Times and New Left Review not considered high-quality?! What about if I summarise the Tony Wood article differently, change "smuggle" to "import", albeit anyone who knows anything about the art world knows work of the kind this gallery is based upon could not be legally removed from the Soviet Union at the time it was... Not to have Khardziev mentioned at all in connection with this gallery is like a history of Christianity with no mention of the Bible. Vantongern959 (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with the New Left Review to say definitively if it meets the definition of a high quality source but the NYT does. However, meeting WP:NPF's sourcing doesn't supersede WP:BLPCRIME's considerations. I don't know if it could be reworded in a way to make it meet WP:BLP's criteria even if some or even most of the words were substituted. I don't know if it can be rewritten in a way that is BLP compliant, but if you were going to do so I would suggest that you propose your rewrite here on the talk page before inserting it into the article, also are there other sources that discuss this event? It might help if you can show that this is something that was widely covered and might also provide additional sources to draw upon that might make it so something can be mentioned that doesn't suggest any crime took place, but from what I've seen I feel it would be hard to discuss it without running afoul of BLPCRIME. - Aoidh (talk) 10:20, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

What you request is precisely the point of why I am arguing this one. The article as edited by me some decade ago was full of authoritative sources, it is just that these have been systematically erased and suppressed by insiders very obviously working for the insitution - you can read their spurious reasons for making big cuts in the talk pages. Both the Khardzhiev smuggling and other criminal activities have been widely covered in the mainstream press by highly authoritative sources. I would revert to my earlier article to show you, but Nat Gertler considers this to be "edit warring". For your information you might want to look at the website of New Left Review . Its writers are among the most eminent intellectuals in the world, it is a highly-esteemed, very highbrow journal and I would consider it a better source than almost any newspaper in the world. Perhaps you would yourself have a quick scan of Tony Wood's 'The Futurist Ark' from that publication. If Wikipedia considers even that to be something that has to be censored then I don't think there is any point in my trying to rewrite this article. There are, as I say, other reputable sources that corroborate what Wood has to say, including Gerlandine Norman, a leading American curator who has intimate knowledge of the subject area. All this you can read on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Khardzhiev. Perhaps I can incorporate some material from that page onto Galerie Gmurzynska's, but that was also something they immediately began deleting in the past.

Perhaps the case of Donald Trump is a better analogy. Trump is accused of a whole range of crimes but, as far as I am aware, has always in the past managed to bribe his way out of conviction. I don't see Wikipedia censoring all the controversies surrounding Trump, even though they do not (yet) amount to criminal convictions, so why does the long list of controversies attached to Galerie Gmurzynska have to be whitewashed? Vantongern959 (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

You can point to old revisions by pulling them up using the page's history and then citing the URL. You do not have to put things back on the current page in order to show the history of this page. Checking the history of the page now, it appears that no revisions are unavailable in this way (although the editor's IP for one edit has been removed.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:28, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Donald Trump is incontestably a "public figure", for which we have different rules. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The internet has totally blurred the boundaries of public and private and Wikipedia is a significant part of that. I really don't see the point in allowing entries on "private" individuals at all if information that is clearly in the public interest has to be stripped from them. I presume that the "pedia" part of Wikipedia means that it is supposed to function like an encylopedia, to gather known information about a given entry under one heading. I don't see that it fulfils this useful function if it cannot include material that is already in the public domain, not even reputable printed matter. All public figures were once private figures. Some private figures have sinister reasons for wishing to remain private. Wikipedia should not go out of its way to facilitate that. Vantongern959 (talk) 19:47, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Not everything "in the public domain" belongs on an encyclopedia (Public domain has a specific meaning that nothing here applies to; the NYT article for example is not in the public domain). There are a lot of things that Wikipedia is not, and some information does not belong on the encyclopedia, including WP:NOTWHOSWHO. As far as The internet has totally blurred the boundaries of public and private that may or may not be true, but this isn't an issue of public or private information, but whether the individual is a public figure since legally different rules apply to public figures and that is not just a Wikipedia matter, but a legal distinction. Non-public figures have certain protections and rights and it is absolutely critical that Wikipedia not run afoul of those, that is why BLPCRIME is so important; the fact that an individual should not be accused of criminal activity without a conviction far supersedes the idea that these accusations are clearly in the public interest (though this matter seems far from a public interest issue). Regarding Some private figures have sinister reasons for wishing to remain private. Wikipedia should not go out of its way to facilitate that. That's not how being a non-public figure works. - Aoidh (talk) 23:34, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Also a large part of this discussions seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what a public figure is and how that factors into WP:BLPCRIME. Regardless, this discussion seems to have run its course, so I'm going to take the page off my watchlist now. However, I will say that after reviewing the page history and this discussion, it is clear that these accusations falls squarely into WP:BLPCRIME territory and so cannot be placed in this or any other Wikipedia article, which is why the content was likely removed rather than for any sinister reason; I would also have removed it and can assure you it would have been for no sinister reason whatsoever. Not everything suitable for a news article is suitable for a Wikipedia article, and I think it's time to move on to more productive things. - Aoidh (talk) 23:49, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for this explanation, all understood. It still seems unfortunate that all of the previous textual history has been axed completely because of the WP:BLPCRIME concerns. If I rewrite and censor all of the stuff about investigations by authorities, then it can stand? For example, the Khardzhiev collection which formed the foundation of this gallery, is a major collection of far greater historical importance than the gallery itself, and so ought properly to be linked again. I would just have to whitewash the smuggling of that collection, even though that has been well documented and even commented on by the gallery's owners in published, reputable sources? Vantongern959 (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)