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Archive 1Archive 2

Shortening Intro Paragraphs

Heya! I really feel that though there's a lot of information here, the intro will be troubling for the casual reader who wants to get an overview of the article (I know I was totally overwhelmed). I took a stab at refocusing it, and I think something more like the following would hit the high points. Though I usually feel comfortable making these kinds of edits, this article packs too much for me to be reasonably confident that I have done this accurately—or that I could move the "remainder" into the right place in the body of the article! But here goes for anyone who wants to think about it and hack away:

The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 began with Nazi German forces being driven from Poland by the Soviet Red Army. In the aftermath of World War II, the nation became the People's Republic of Poland, and was strongly shaped by Soviet Communism. This led to periods of relative prosperity, followed by instability that culminated in the suppression of those who spoke against existing policies. Yet in 1988, summits which became known as the "Round Table Talks" radically altered the structure of Polish government and society, facilitating peaceful transitions away from Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe.
Economic problems contributed heavily to the diminishing of the Communist party's political power. In December 1970 the government suddenly announced massive increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs—leading to dissatisfaction, especially among city-dwellers. Demonstrations against the price hikes broke out in the coastal cities of the Gdańsk region, which was addressed by some basic reforms and the importing of a capitalist economic system. Despite an immediate rise in living standards and expectations, worldwide recession and the 1973 oil crisis led to another price hiken—causing another wave of public protests.
Opposition to Communism in Poland was further catalyzed by the election of Polish Pope (John Paul II) in 1978. With protesters now supported by the Roman Catholic Church, a wave of strikes reached the politically sensitive Baltic coast in early August 1980. An independent trade union, "Solidarity" (Polish Solidarność) was formed by a strike leader named Lech Wałęsa, and had nine million members by the end of 1981. This was a quarter of Poland's population and three times the membership of the Polish Communist Party, who became concerned and outlawed of Solidarity. The legalization of the party in April 1989 sparked off a succession of major victories for Solidarity in limited elections.

I'd be thrilled if something more like this were used...fitting my quest to make all articles adhere to the three-paragraph-intro guideline and the "lost art of the topic sentence" :) Metaeducation 23:51, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with that shortening the intro paragraphs is probably a good idea; I'll look over your edits in-depth and try to establish a good compromise between the two versions. -Silence 00:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
The length of the introduction has gone from far too long to ludicriously long. Could someone please cut it down by 50-80%? →Raul654 00:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
There. I've cut down on all the paragraphs substantially, removing all but the most significant details. I think you will probably be much happier with the paragraphs' accessibility , though I encourage you to make any further fixes you see necessary—though not "50%-80%" removals. Such massive cut-downs would be a disservice rather than a help to this article. The "three paragraphs" guideline is just, and I quote, a "general guideline", not a policy or rule or even a specific guideline, and is intended solely as a very basic and overarching suggestion at how to handle intro paragraphs. If you actually read individual Wikipedia articles, you'll find that even a very large number of featured articles have more than 3 paragraphs in their intro, and this is perfectly fine; every individual article has its own needs and unique formatting requirements in order to best get the specific information to the reader, and these should not be sacrificed for the sake of rulemongering (or guidelinemongering, in this case). This is a long article, and requires an introduction of about the length we have now in order to properly summarize the events below so that people who don't read the entire article (i.e., the vast majority of people who will be visiting this page at all) gain a decent understanding of the events that occurred, though without any unnecessary repetition or redundancies; just a nice, solid overview.
Also keep in mind that the opening section looks much longer than it really is due to the very large image, fairly large infobox, and other medium-sized image in the text, all making the text look longer than it actually is: try reading it and you'll be done much quicker than you might think. Although my current edit looks just as long at first glance as the one before my last few edits because I added a few more paragraph breaks into especially long paragraphs (to make them a lot easier to read, and to better denote changes in topic): I actually trimmed the 5,658-character opening into a 4,735-character one—including my additions to the opening paragraph to make it a better very brief overview of the whole page's topic; if you ignore the opening paragraph, the change is from a 5,430-character opening to a 4,109-character one. I welcome debate on how best to handle the opening paras if people still aren't happy with them, but all I ask is that demands be based on the needs of this specific page and the best possible way to effectively convey its specific information, not on general, abstract suggestions for Wikipedia articles in general. Er, not that I'm accusing you of doing that; just a general tip. -Silence 01:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Your changes are a drop in the bucket. It needed to be cut down A LOT and (at least 50%, preferably more around 80-90%);, you trimmed it a modest 17%. →Raul654 03:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I've finished my own pruning of it. It's still quite a bit longer than I'd prefer, but it's a big improvement. I took out the Lech Walesa/Pope picture beacuse after pruning down the text, there were too many pics at the top, and the article is already congested with them. →Raul654 03:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Not bad, actually. I still disagree that any large-scale removals are necessary, including the one you just did, but at least you implemented it very nicely; I particularly like your trimming of the paragraph on Gierek, because it managed to preserve almost all of the information conveyed while shortening the delivery substantially. However, the placement of the first image on the page no longer works, as it fits awkwardly next to the table of contents and overruns slightly into the next section. A definite aesthetic thumbs-down; lemme do some more image fiddling to compensate for this big new change in the layout. -Silence 04:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I reintroduced the picture to the article, corrected one glaring error (Soviet Union didn't collapes in the 1980s!) and added notes on martial law and Roundtable to the lead, they are very important. While I can appreciate the need for lead treaming, I am not sure if it is a good idea to be doing so now - the previous version, if on the long side, was carefuly NPOVed and reviewed in the context of key information. Still, if nobody else objects, I guess we can stick with the current one. PS. The Party image doesn't interfere with my thumbs down, but it was much more impressive in its previous, larger version. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's not true that "nobody else objects", because you and I both object (though my objection has nothing to do with NPOV whatsoever, unlike yours). Not only was the previous version more informative, but it was also much more compelling, dynamic, and well-laid out, providing an excellent combination of elements that would shame any professional textbook. The new layout, by contrast, is dull, dead, obvious, academic, an exact mirror of all the other Polish History pages, with a few big blocks of soulless text and a plain infobox beside it.
So, sorry to have to rant, but... here I go.
There's no way to re-add the images and have it work nearly as well with the new format, because this amount and distribution of text aligns much better with just the infobox: that's the one plus, I always like it when text and infobox manage to end at about the same point, it's pleasing to the eye. However, it's not compelling, like the previous version was. To illustrate, compare the current page to the layout we used to have: User:Silence/Poland. Which one of those two are you more likely to read? I also don't see the great, pressing need to shorten the section so terribly. If it's well-written and short enough that it does its job of introducing the article, who cares that it doesn't follow a strict formula of exactly what every page on Wikipedia has to look like in your view?
It was a good way to start the section, and I'd be happier if we still had the old layout, with only a few more of the especially unnecessary lines trimmed, at most. It just made the entire page work better; the Partia image worked perfectly near the top, where it was a unique and compelling image that would immediately draw anyone into checking out the rest of the page. Now that's not possible to include there without it looking terrible, withered and small. Likewise, the John Paul/Wałęsa photo fit perfectly into the context of the text, vastly better than it could anywhere else in the article (its current spot, where it was originally), but now moving it back to the top would be a bad idea without at least one other image to accompany it, because it doesn't capture the feel of most of the article as a whole (unlike the propaganda poster does), just an important later aspect of it as Poland changed dramatically from what it was in most of the article. Without that sense of change in the images, best to keep it in the article text, even though it doesn't work well anywhere in the article because it doesn't fit into any of the text's context (trying to add text to put it in context would just add redundancy anyway, most likely) and the best place on the page it does fit now is directly after the photos of both of the people who are in the picture, making the image painfully redundant where it is now! But the only better alternative was the old intro paras layout, which would work poorly with the new, three-to-four-bulky-ugly-paragraphs style. No good, man. -Silence 05:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe we can move a pic back if we move the template down, for example, to the ToC line? Anyway, I am off to sleep. Silence, I agrew with your rant and pass the torch and my vote (for what's it worth) to you until I am back. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Naw, the table of contents is far too short. And even if it wasn't, the current spot for the template is ideal; it's the stuff around it that needs to be returned to the old style to be as effective. At least while this is Featured Article, I think we should go with this sort of layout; it will get the article much more attention because it's so much more unusual, striking, and compelling than a typical article (i.e. what Raul wants it to be), and thus will get more activity and more of the edits that will help it grow. We'll have plenty of time to discuss all sorts of major layout changes afterwards, but for just one day, I think we should stick with the opening layout that helped get it featured in the first place. Re-adding oldstyle opening paragraphs, with more text cut out in a bunch of places to attempt a bit of a compromise.. -Silence 05:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, to be clear: the pretty version is 3768 characters long, the plain version is 3,380 characters long. So there's actually not a significant difference between the two at all: only about 400 letters, spaces, and punctuation marks betwixt the two. I don't think that's enough of an improvement in shortening the passage to merit tossing aside a great layout. I could probably even get the pretty version even shorter if we really needed to, by greatly compacting/tossing out the middle chunk of the third paragraph (though too much willy-nilly shortening will make the two images too close and cripply the layout, and everything we've currently got is rather important anyway). Then they'd be pretty much even. But that's not really necessary at this point; we have yet to get a single complaint that the paragraphs are too long from a reader's rather than an editor's standpoint. :) -Silence 05:40, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
And I have to say, though I never noticed this before, looking at the layout again, I love the subconscious symbolic value of the intro, the way the meaning and layout interweave with each other. Consider how the text is always bound on one side or the other, or both, by images and boxes that prevent it from reaching its natural limits, the edge of the page, as we describe the years of Communist Poland. And then, in the last paragraph of the intro, finally, this changes: the text is freed from its barriers and allowed to spread itself out onto the full page, exactly coinciding with when the text is describing Poland's liberation from Communism and its first free election in over 50 years. I'm a terribly silly person, aren't I. -Silence 05:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Bet you this version of the opening paras will get three times as many people to actually read this page. And those who would have any will get more out of it. (version comment by Silence)

Ummm...well, I'm sorry, but I don't like the version, and the people I've sent it to don't like it either. I support →Raul654's version far more, though I'm preferential to something even more "bird's eye" as with my intro at the head of this section. After all, what reader trying to get a simple overview of this article actually cares what precise shipyard the Solidarity leader had worked at? He's got his own article to click through anyway.
To be fair, most of the people who side with my opinions on "introduction brevity" are not really that interested in the subject matter of the article. I've surveyed my thoughts on the larger question of "what audience do you target" and being experimental with layout in my notes on featured article form. I have also made some comments about my dislike of the use of a sidebar as the main picture in this essay on avoiding "See Also" templates in introductions.
Anyway, it's great that you are so passionate about the subject and want to get people excited with some details. But I'm just concerned that sidestepping the rules of writing tight paragraphs and a good WP:LEAD is going to turn off the casual reader—not intrigue them as you suggest. There's a whole article body for the people who are really interested... Metaeducation 08:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
If you've talked to people who prefer the image-less version to the current one, then I welcome those people to post here and explain their reasoning. If you don't think mentioning the Gdank Shipyards in the opening paragraphs is a good idea, then why not remove "from the Gdańsk Shipyards,"? There, one problem down. I have no problem with trimming down a few details like that which aren't especially significant or necessary to summarize the article. But to cut it down by 50-90%, as has been suggested, would be to sacrifice usefulness for the sake of blind rule-following, in my view.
Also, I agree with you entirely that often it's much more important to include a good image or two in the intro than an infobox. I wish you were involved in the discussion in Algerian Civil War, where I've had to fight against the notion that every article in a series has to have that series' infobox right in the upper-left corner, even when it would mean sacrificing a great top image and worsening the layout. In this case, though, my preference does not apply, because we have the best of both worlds: an infobox to satisfy those who are obsessed with putting it in the upper-right corner, and images for those who understand the importance of opening with some good-quality illustrations of the text to draw the readers in. So while I definitely agree with you in principle, in this specific situation, I think the typical infobox placement works unusually well. If you can find another good layout, though, try it out on this page or a test page so we can compare—I'm open to new suggestions; if I wasn't, I wouldn't have spent some time trying to figure out how to best work Raul's image-less opening paragraphs before finally reverting the layout.
And, again, there are not "rules" of intros, there are general guidelines. And even if there were rules, don't make me invoke IAR. Give me some better justification for bringing the intro paras down to the extreme smallness you requested, based on the specific needs of the page, not on general, flexible, Wikipedia-wide tips or on a few people saying "I like this one" or "I like that one"; more reasoning!
Also note for a moment that while our current intro might have a few more paragraphs more than those recommended as ideal by Wikipedia:Lead Section, take a glance at the text requirements: the chart there says that up to around 30,000 characters in an intro is perfectly acceptable! Thus, the disagreement here is not really on the length of the opening: the page confirms that our current length is more than reasonable, at a mere 3,768 characters in length, much shorter than the 15,000-character limit at which it is recommended that more than one paragraph be used. So the dispute between the theoretical suggestions of WP:LEAD and the practical realities of this specific page is not over the length of the opening, but rather over the number of paragraphs the opening consists of. If we strictly followed WP:LEAD's advice on articles, we'd still have the same amount of text we do now (heck, we could have ten times as much text if we wanted!), but it would all be in a single paragraph. Does that sound like a good idea to you? All that would do would be to provide the same information, but make it enormously more difficult to read. Very few actual articles follow all the recommendations given on that page to the letter, and this one should most certainly not become one of them, even if we do end up changing the layout. -Silence 12:40, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Doi. Of course it's referring to the number of characters in the article as a whole, not in the intro alone. Smart am I. I'm going to do some more research on this now, comparing the other featured articles' average lengths to come to a better conclusion. -Silence 18:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Too many images.

History Portal Selected Article

Hello History of Poland writers! I'm a random guy who is volunteering to help with the terribly outdated History Portal.

I was very impressed with this article when looking for stuff for the History Portal selected article. It is a very good article. Way to go! However, I went with Italian Renaissance this time, because I feel this article is on the cusp of greatness, but needs a little more help.

Particularly it badly needs to be pruned back (it is eye-bleedingly long) especially in the overview section where a lot of stuff needs to be moved to the Solidarity section near the bottom.

I believe in this article and hope to put it on the front of the History Portal in a matter of weeks.

Also, the only thing I've done so far for the History Portal is make Italian Renaissance the selected article. Please hop on over to the History Portal and help me bring all of it up to date if you can. It's been so neglected it's tragic.

Peace,

NickDupree 14:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


Interesting article

On damages made by Soviet Occupation inflicted on Poland: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/biuletyn/4/biuletyn4_51.html In Polish. Perhaps I shall translate and create article on that. Meanwhile Polish users and editors working on the article are welcome to use the information. --Molobo 15:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

1947 Election

This article lies about how Poland had its first free parliamentary elections in 1991 since 1928. This shows how the 1947 elections were completely free:

Brittanica states the following: In the first free elections since 1947, Polish voters overwhelmingly gave Solidarity candidates their vote and thoroughly defeated the Communist government's list.

http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-206727

This data demonstrates this fact:

http://www.elisanet.fi/daglarsson/dokumentit/polval1.htm#19.1.1947

Results of 1947 election:

Polska Partia Robotnicza - 114 seats (led by Wladyslaw Gomulka)

Polska Partia Socjalistyczna - 116 seats

Stronnictwo Ludowe - 109 seats

Stronnitctwo Demokratyczne - 41 seats

bezpartyjni - 10 seats

Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe - 27 seats

Stronnitctwo Pracy - 15 seats

Polskie Stronnitctwo Ludowe-Nowe Wyzwolenie - 7 seats

Grupy katolicko - 5 seats

444 total seats

Dear anon, thank you for pointing out another mistake in Britannica. The page with reults of Polish elections [1] is quite useful and thank you for brining it to my attention, nonetheless it doesn't prove anything but the fact that there were the elections - it certainly makes no claims about them being free or not. We don't yet have the article about Polish legislative election, 1947, but you may find the following article of interest: Polish people's referendum, 1946. Certainly in 1947 the communist grip on the country was much stronger, and the elections were much less free then the '46. If you don't agree, please find credible academic references which state that the '47 elections were free.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Update. Dear anon, I assume you refer to the following fragment of our article: By 1946, rightist parties had been outlawed. A pro-government "Democratic Bloc" formed in 1947 that included the forerunner of the communist Polish United Workers' Party and its leftist allies. By January 1947, the first parliamentary election allowed only opposition candidates of the Polish Peasant Party, which was nearly powerless due to government controls. Results were adjusted by Stalin himself to suit the Communists, and under these conditions, the regime's candidates gained 417 of 434 seats in parliament (Sejm), effectively ending the role of genuine opposition parties. I think I now understand the source of your confusion, and it is possible some minor changes may need to be made (various sources I checked seem to have varying estimates of seats in the parliament - between 390 and 450), but most of the above information is certainly correct. Please read the above fragment more closely - especially the parts I bolded. The "Democratic Bloc" was composed (source) of PPR, PPS, SL and SD, which gained (according to official, fabricated results) ~80% of the vote. PSL received <~10% of the votes, and most of the parties outside the Block (the ones you listed above which got a few votes each) were also controled by the communists. The article I listed above notes that according to a report from the Russian colonel Pałkin to Stalin, communists in reality gained about ~50% of the vote. If you read Polish, the following books should prove a worthwile read:
  • Janusz Wrona (ed.), Kampania wyborcza i wybory do Sejmu Ustawodawczego 19 stycznia 1947, Wydawnictwo Sejmowe (Piotrus note: official publisher of the Polish Sejm), 1999 ISBN: 83-7059-322-4;
  • Michał Skoczylas, Wybory do Sejmu Ustawodawczego z 19 stycznia 1947 roku w świetle skarg ludności, TRIO, 2003, ISBN 8388542435
The first of those publications has a quite interesting blurb [2] - I think I'll create a stub on the elections soon. For now, as you may not be able to read Polish, here is a selection of some comments about the '47 elections in English sources via Google Print:
  • Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy the History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000: "In January 1947, manifestly rigged Polish elections gave Communists 80.1% of the vote..."[3]
  • Stephen Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, "On January 19, 1947, the first Polish elections were held. They were widely seen as fraudulent." [4]
  • Alexander Cockburn, The Golden Age Is in Us: Journeys and Encounters, 1987-1994: "By January [1947...] the fixed Polish election that sent the Peasant Party leader Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who probably should have won, into exile."[5]
  • Tom Buchanan, Europe's Troubled Peace, 1945-2000: 1945-2000, "...the elections of January 1947 [...] were clearly rigged."[6]
I hope the avoive is enough to convince you that Wikipedia is not lying and that it is Britannica who is mistaken.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I have created the article on Polish legislative election, 1947. Enjoy!--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but there simply is no credibility to any of these allegations. The Polish Workers' Party received only 25% of the seats which was below what the the Communists of France received in 1946. The results of the elections I posted exclusively contain those elections which were free and fair.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.36.57 (talk • contribs)

Dear anon, first of all those allegation are made by credible academics and so it is your revisionism which can be called allegation and/or original research. Second, you base your statement on an glaring mistake in the analysis of the statistics above: PWP might have gained only 25% of the seats, but the Polish communists controlled most of the parties and they so they gained a vast majority in the elections.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

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error in chronological consequence

warsaw pact in 55 to appease moscow following nomination of gomulka in 56??

the PZPR chose Gomułka [...] as First Secretary in October 1956, despite Moscow's threats to take action against Poland if the PZPR picked Gomułka; the Soviet Union did not intend to allow its influence on Eastern Europe to diminish. After some tough bargaining with Khrushchev, who came to Warsaw to oversee the transfer of power, the Soviets grudgingly decided not to resist Gomułka's rise to power. Even so, Poland's relations with the Soviet Union were not nearly as strained as Yugoslavia's. As a further sign that the end of Soviet influence in Poland was nowhere in sight, the Warsaw Pact was signed in the Polish capital of Warsaw on May 14, 1955, to counteract the establishment of the Western NATO. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.150.132.150 (talk) 04:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

citation needed

The page states that it is "hotly debated" among historians whether there was a risk of Soviet intervention in 1981. I personally would like to look up a reference to this debate; I worked in Swedish intelligence (at a later date, but I had access to earlier records), and there was massive Soviet troop movements along the Polish border. (And a Czech friend of mine was sitting in a tank by the Czech border, waiting for the order to attack, which never came.) The Poles themselves are in no doubt: rumour at the time said that an entire border village was held hostage by Soviet troops. I think we need citations for both sides; I realize my statements above don't count as substantiation :) 81.226.53.31 14:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The dabate about the "risk of Soviet intervention in 1981" is not only a factual debate it is also a political debate, if you consider that the risk of the invasion was high then you also have to consider the implementation of Martial Law in Poland as a right decision. So people who do not like general Jaruzelski will stick to the version that there was no "real" threat of a soviet invasion hence the "hot debate" :) Mieciu K 01:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Is the Swedish intlligance happy that you reveal clasified informations? Don't they use killers to stop talkative people?

And the Czech historians haven't interviewed your friend, they must be unprofessional.Xx236 10:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

An interesting academic paper debating "did Moscow seriously contemplate a military intervention in Poland at any time in 1980-81, and if so, why did it not take place?" is here. Basically it concludes that the Soviet didn't want to go on and most likely wouldn't, and interestingly it notes that Jaruzelski himself for a time asked for Soviet troops to move in - and the Soviets disagreed. Eventually Jaruzelski was forced to move with his own (Polish) troops, to prevent Solidarity from totally eroding the communist regime.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Split

  • The statement "...the first workers' councils to voice opinions on industrial policy, based on the "Polish October" of 1956, marked a fundamental change in the social status of Polish workers" needs citation, because this is a conclusion that would be original research if not attributed to a reliable source who has already reached this conclusion in print. The same rationale applies to "...led to the formidable labor and professional organizations that would gradually come to threaten the socialist order": they are 'formidable' according to who? Has this type of adjective been used by the literature to describe these organizations, and their influence? We really shouldn't use these sorts of adjectives without citations to reliable sources -- otherwise there are NPOV and original research concerns. "Although eyesores to Western observers, and often lampooned by the Poles themselves due to the sometimes dubious construction quality, this was a massive improvement to the population's quality of life." Which 'Western observers' described the housing this way? Who describes the construction as being of 'dubious quality', and says the increased availability was a 'massive improvement'? Conventional wisdom/the rhetorical image cannot suffice here; each statement needs a cited source. --Fsotrain09 23:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
The entire 'Changes in Polish society' section was added after the article became a FA. Since FARC comments (see top) are to trim the article, I think we should split off this section - I am just not sure what a good title would be?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
How about Polish society (1945-1989)? --Fsotrain09 00:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, sounds like part of a cycle, which is not bad in itself. I wonder if we could put this in the Polish culture series, though... The entire communist period is now supposedly covered by Socialist realism in Poland, which it seems didn't actually last beyond 1950s.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I split the section to Culture in modern Poland, I don't think the title nor that subarticle is in anyway final.

Służba Bezpieczeństwa

SB was created after the UB was dissolved. Xx236 07:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Pacification of Wujek

Just started an article. --HanzoHattori (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Creation of an ethnically homogeneous Polish nation (1944-1950s)

While I supposed the first blanking of the section to be an accident by user:Piotrus, the immediate second blanking by user:Tymek cannot be explained that way anymore. What's going on here? Skäpperöd (talk) 18:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

This new section which appeared in my watchlist has several problems. First: fewer references than standard for the FA article. Second: repeats parts of the article found in other sections. Three: seems too detailed for this article. Thank you, hope you get my point now. Tymek (talk) 19:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
For the record: my first blanking was not an accident, I saw the same problems as Tymek did, and I agree with his analysis above. This section has no place in this article (however do note that I've incorporated some of what was added in it in other sections of the article - which does mention border shifts, population changes, and creation of a homogeneous Poland). On the other hand, I'd suggest moving most of your section to relevant sections of historical demography of Poland.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
reply to (1): If you are concerned about the FA-status of the article, you need to be more worried with the section missing if you want the article be a comprehensive, stable and neutral one. Post-war Poland saw large scale expulsions and resettlements of various ethnicities that went on 5+ years, she was central playground of the largest ethnic cleansings in modern European history. So far, I doubt you possibly disagree this issue being included properly (according to its notability) in the detailed subarticle Polish history 1945-1989. For your concerns about the sources: I used two sources to add inlinerefs to possibly disputed facts within the three paragraphs I added. If this really is below standard, the gap cannot be that deep, tell me how many sources per sqm would please you and don't just blank. Additionally, I linked the main articles, of which the section is more or less an abstract. These main articles are not unsourced either.
reply to (2):repeats what parts?
reply to (3):Not at all, rather most details are spared here, the reader can use the linked main articles to get these infos. What details do you think are given an undue weight? Skäpperöd (talk) 19:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Note: hadn't seen your recent additions while writing the above Skäpperöd (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Re 1&2: the info is not missing, it is presented in due weight. If you disagree, please present here in detail your arguments as to what info is missing and why it should be included. Again: demographic and territorial changes are discussed and at least two paragraphs, in chronological order. And your version had a lot of unreferenced claims. Each sentence should be referenced, if possible.
Re 3: the current article has a chronological structure. We have no sections dedicated to territorial changes, population changes, culture changes and so on - those have their own, separate articles (Territorial changes of Poland after World War II or Culture in People's Republic of Poland, for example). Again, I invite you to expand the historical demography of Poland with detailed info on Poland's demographical changes.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
The article (without the section) states: After WWI, the minorities were all but gone, referenced by Zayas, now this reference just slipped behind that sentence because you deleted the sentence that formerly was after this "FA-style information" (?!). Chronological and included? The "wartime devastation" paragraph says nothing except the ridiculous statement mentioned above. The next, "Communist power (1945-1948)" paragraph - nothing.
Within the "Bierut (1948-1956) finally one half paragraph. "Millions of Poles transferred from the Kresy territories east of the Curzon line annexed by the Soviet Union into the new Western and Northern Territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, which the Soviets transferred from Germany to Poland after the Potsdam Agreement. By 1950, 5 million Poles had been settled in what the government called the Regained Territories and the former German population was expelled. When the 1947 Operation Wisła dispersed the remaining Ukrainian minority, and with the former Jewish minority exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Shoa, Poland for the first time became an ethnically homogenous nation state.". No sources at all, wrong section, and really not containing the information one would expect. That is no better "FA quality" then the section I created with sources at the right chronological place from this very half paragraph. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I see nothing ridiculous in the "wartime devastation" paragraph. Can you be more precise?
Perhaps the second para should be moved from Bierut to Communist power, but it seems to contain all the relevant info: it mentions the repatriation of Poles, Ukrainians and Germans, and Poland becoming "an ethnically homogenous nation state". What more would you like to add? You are right, the para was not sufficiently referenced, I've fixed that.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Well I termed that sentence ridiculous because "all but gone" is a ridiculous way to describe the fate of the minorities after the war, especially since this was the only statement concerning the whole issue except the Bierut era paragraph.
Anyway, I understood you agreed on the information from Bierut era being moved to somewhere closer to 45-50 (which I appreciate, I did that myself before but got reverted:(). Yet, I do not think the paragraph as it is weights the things that happened according to their notability. Poland got involved in the largest ethnic cleansings in post-war Europe. Poland not only expelled her minorities, but also Poles settled a huge "wild west" area, thereby eg assimilating the forcefully displaced "eastern Poles" and Ukrainians, all of that in a process of 5 years for the bulk of it. Where would one expect to find informations about how this came about on wiki if not at this article? But nothing is said and if one does not look closely enough in the wrong section one even misses the few links given to get this picture elsewhere. I think this is pretty sad. A most interesting, most impacting period untold and hidden. So much for now, I do not intend to engage in an edit war with Tymek and you and heck nows whom, I'd rather get you to think if the way the history of your country is presented here is the most honourful. I would like to read here how that Poland actually looked like in the late 40s and 50s. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
"Where would one expect to find informations about [this]"? Not more than a brief overview in the general "history of..." article. Details go in subarticles: mentioned historical demographics, expulsion/reptriation of Poles/Germans/Ukrainians and also in the Regained Territories article. Or perhaps we can figure out a name for a dedicated subarticle. But this is not it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I for now will settle for the minimum compromise that we have achieved here, that is to at least move the paragraph I created the debated section from to its proper chronological place. While I still think the issue is covered not well enough here, I instead of expanding at least got the wikilinks in that link other the articles on this matter, along with some minor rephrasing to get these links in - the visible space consumed is about the same as before yet there is more information accessible now. Skäpperöd (talk) 13:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Polish war losses

There is a problem with the number of Polish war losses in the article. The article says "over 6 million", while the sources don't say "over".

Furthermore, the 6 million has long been overcome by modern research. As Ingo Haar explains, this is due to questional methods regarding the underlying population balance. Eg Polish victims were inflated at the expense of Jewish victims, Poles who adopted Soviet citizenship were counted as dead, etc pp.

According to Haar, Wl. Bartoszewski already publicly corrected the number of ethnic Polish deaths down to two million. Haar further says with reference to Madajczyk that the current estimate including Polish Jews is at five million with downward tendency.

Haar says the high numbers are inflated for political reasons- they were used to justify the west shift of Poland among other things.

The USHMM gives 1.9 million ethnic Polish victims.

The expert for Poland of Die Welt confirms the political motivation in inflating the Polish war dead, and says that "most historiens" expect the real number be at 4.5 million. A decree of responsible Polish secretary of state Jakub Berman of 1946, directed at the respective scholars, reads: "The number of killed is to be fixed at 6 million." Historian Gniazdowski postulates that this number was chosen to equal ethnic Polish and Jewish deaths.

The "Program straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod okupacją niemiecką" has verified 1.5 million deaths as of June 2009.

I thus expect this edit to be restored: [7], reliable and verifiable sources for all the above were already included in this edit. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:41, 29 August 2009 (UTC)/20:50, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's hard to see this edit as anything but "retaliation". But assuming good faith you might want to note that the sources you provide state "at least", not "at most". I think the number most commonly found in research (no, not communist or anything to do with Berman) is 5.9, including both ethnic Poles and Jews. And yes the ranges for the break down are from 2/4 to 3/3. There's nothing here that is contradictory.radek (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
It is sad that you see it as retaliation if you abundantly use a source and I read this source from the beginning and enter more from it.
Furthermore, you are wrong thinking that the breakdown changed and not the total. The very source you used yourself numerous times, Haar, makes it clear that the "new" total is 5 million. The USHMM also says 1.9+3 and not six. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:02, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
What's sad is omitting the crucial 'at least' that's found in the source. Last time I checked the US State Dept. and other provided sources were reliable. It's not like the members of the US State Dept. or Piotrowski are ex-Nazis or right wing extremists or something.radek (talk) 21:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Where did I say so. It's not like I deleted the 6 million, I only added from sources you considered reliable elsewhere.

Haar does not say "at least", but says five million with downward tendency with reference to Madajczyk. The USHMM says "at least 1.9", right, but in contrast to what you suggested above, I did not "omit" at least or add "at most", but added " 1.9 to two million ethnic Polish and 3 million Jewish victims".

What exactly do you dispute? Skäpperöd (talk) 21:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a (German...) and recent (30/08/2009) report on what's a reliable estimate of Polish casualties: "The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said its researchers now put the figure at between 5.62 million and 5.82 million rather than the estimated figure 6.028 million used in communist-era Poland." --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Consolidation of Communist power (1945–1948)

Unless anyone can help me find it elsewhere, I think a lot needs to be added here: Much of Poland was in anarchy at this time, plus there was a civil war between the residual AK fighting Communists in the forests, as well as general lawlessness and looting in which around 10,000 Poles died, including the 50 or so Jews killed in the Kielce pogrom. This 'postwar civil unrest' may even merit an article of its own. -Chumchum7 (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading redirect

Also, the redirect from Polish Provisional Government should not come here, but should go do a disambiguation page, giving the reader 4 choices: the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland, or Polish Provisional Government of National Unity, or State National Council or this article. -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:48, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Wielka płyta

There is a series of disconnected articles in Wikipedia all about the same thing, called Structural insulated panel in English. These articles concern the Panel building technology implemented across the entire Soviet Bloc during the Cold War, also described at the Urban planning in communist countries article. Concrete block apartments were standardized and manufactured everywhere with the cost as much as 40% lower than conventional building. The only article missing in this series of mirror entries is the Polish Wielka płyta.[8] Examples include:

  1. Panelák in Czechoslovakia
  2. Plattenbau in East Germany
  3. Khrushchyovka in the Soviet Union
  4. Panelház in People's Republic of Hungary
  5. Also known as the Tower block in the United States

Manufacturing of block apartments in this way was given up in the West at the time when the Soviet Bloc boom for them only began. The main problems were the lack of proper ventilation leading to mold, growing cost of construction, ghettoisation and the risk of structural failure like the one during the Highland Towers collapse. However, the housing situation in the 1970s under Edward Gierek was so bad, the waiting period for a small structural-panel apartment was in excess of ten years and growing. Poeticbent talk 17:21, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

I noticed that this article and the section Polish People's Republic#History, both being huge, have diverged considerably, not to say that the latter one is poorly referenced. It is time to rearrange the two per Wikipedia:Summary style. In other words, I am not' suggesting the full merge, just eliminate WP:FORK. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Staszek Lem, I've removed the proposed merge tags since your proposal has not receied any support. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
And I have restored them, because the mentioned serious obvious problems were not addressed. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Staszek Lem, no other user has agreed with you that there are serious or obvious problems despite the tags being there for four months on these high traffic articles (this one being a FA, even).
Most probably nobody cares. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
I oppose the merge. There is nothing wrong with this article (I think it still meets FA criteria). You can simply remove (poorly refrenced) material at Polish People's Republic#History. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
No there is nothing wrong with this article. I fail to see why you are objecting to adding relevant information to it. I don't want to mechanically delete anything which is not obviously false. The articles have problems. period. Do not remove tags until the problems are resolved. There is no deadline. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. According to Pageviews Analysis article "History of Poland (1945–1989)" is visited 24 times per day on average. Meanwhile, article "Polish People's Republic" (PRL) is visited 341 times per day on average. From the readership standpoint the PRL article is therefore considerably more important. The "History of Poland" article can be used as springboard for better referencing of the PRL article, but I would advise against making the PRL article less prominent, considering its far greater popularity.[9] Poeticbent talk 06:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
    The History section in the PRL article is a poor unreferenced essay with uneven narrative, dwelling on some unnecessary details in some places, at the same time omitting important developments. Not to say it is poorly referenced. Therefore I suggest a two-step approach:
    (1) merge content of PRL#History into 1945-1989
    (2) Rewrite PRL#History as a summary of 1945-1989 and keep it in this way per WP:Summary style.
    PRL#History is a chaotic essay, sometimes a collection of random factoids. An example: "In 1945, Soviet generals and advisors formed 80% of the officer cadre of the Polish Armed Forces." (BTW, unreferenced, but reasonably believable). The sentence is to demonstrate Soviet influence. But data from 1945 is rather meaningless, akin to gen. MacArthur representing the whole post WWII history of Japan. Of course, immediately in the aftermath of the War the Soviets had to rebuild (rather, build from scratch) Polish military, so the number makes sense. What would be more interesting to know how this %% changed over time. For example, Soviet marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was Polish defense minister from 1952 to 1957. Does in mean that "re-Polonization" of the army was completed by this time? Surely 80% was not all the way until 1989. The articles Polish Armed Forces#After 1945 and History of the Polish Army#People's Republic of Poland do not give an answer; neither they mention the 80% number. (And the two suffer from a similar upside-down organization). That's what I'm calling a chaos in the coverage. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This article is on the history alone, and is a sort of daughter article of the PRL article, i.e. an expansion of the History section from that article. We don't merge "History of the Soviet Union" into "Soviet Union" or vice versa because Soviet Union is a worse article. There is sufficient material for both articles, with the country article being written in summary style and more specific detail about the history being kept in the article on the history. DrKay (talk) 20:04, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

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Length? wp:far?

@Piotrus: Readable prose size seems to be 113. I haven't looked deeply enough yet to identify other issues... WP:FAR  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping, do send another one if you ID more issues. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Now that we have this big ugly banner sitting on top of the page, I think we need to address the issue of article size. @Piotrus: I don't particularly agree with a lot of what's written in Wikipedia:Article size as it's a curious mixture of out-of-date concerns based on technology from 10 years ago and statements of questionable origin. But, this article has ballooned in size since it was last reviewed and almost certainly needs to be pared down or split based on our current guidance. --Laser brain (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Laser_brain, I remember hearing another editor opine that WP:PROSESIZE is outdated and has lost most of whatever value it ever had. If you feel this is true, gather like-minded editors and go update it. I dislike RfC's, but you may need one. But as for this article, the fact that its size has ballooned sine promotion is a valid reason to go over it. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:24, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Bias

The amount of non-neutrality in the article is amazing, especially compared to history pages of countries with similar socioeconomic models. Usage of words obviously show the political intentions of editor. I think it needs to be seriously fixed for keeping neutrality.--Comrade-yutyo (talk) 08:25, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

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