Talk:Meša Selimović/Archives/2007/September

Regarding last edit on the ethnicity

At Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) for opening paragraph guideline it says: Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Taking many recent edits to this article into account, I can conclude that subject's (Meša Selimović) notability to some extent is relevant to its notability. Otherwise, there wouldn't be such interest in this article - in here I'm considering mine interest, also. So, for now I include Selimović's ethnicity in the introduction. Maybe, the opening sentence should be rephrased to provide more information on the controversy regarding this issue and thus give more unbiased view, but this quest I leave to future editors. As some sort of a guideline to solve this the Yugoslavs ethnicity could serve.

All the best. --Biblbroks's talk 20:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I find the argument that his ethnicity in the opening is relevant because of an edit war on Wikipedia fairly unconvincing. I don't see how his ethnicity is relevant to his fame and works whatsoever; at best, it is among many of little petty Balkan quarrels. He wasn't a national activist or a prosecuted person because of his ethnicity where it would really matter. Besides, it has an entire section devoted in the article. Above all, he was a proponent of South Slavic unity and a communist. I'm removing it. Duja► 06:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Argument on editwaring to prove notability of his ethnicity may not be convincing enough, to this you are right, and I confess that I haven't provided other arguments for my previous edits. However, there is a whole section on this subject in the article itself. If the controversy on his ethnicity weren't notable, there wouldn't be so much text about it - my thinking. Existence of the controversy issue in article on him, does add to the Selimović's notability, you can't argue that. What is the cause and what is the consequence - notability or controversy - is another question, though. But removing accurate information from the intro isn't constructive. Editor's impression that someone rephrased his words and put it in the article, is an explanation from your side for your edit, and this I cannot regard as an argument at all.

Also, if Selimović was a proponent of South Slavic unity, he was some sort of a national activist, wasn't he. Even though being a Yugoslavs proponent (which I look mostly positively upon - just for the record), it can be regarded as a national activity, because at the time Yugoslavs were counted as a nation. I see some analogy in the article American (word). There you can find that the explanation for the adjective American is of or relating to the United States of America as the first meaning. This meaning, I comprehend mostly as a nationality - and the article itself states this "nationality" meaning of the word as the first, too.

As per my goal - it is to improve the article. To prove this, I can point that his "emphasizing" on Serbian ethnicity can be considered somewhat contradictory to the sentence that he was ... a proponent of ... cultural and lingustic unity among the peoples of Yugoslavia. This is just my brain-storming contribution which I give for future editors to look upon when trying to improve the article.

All the best. --Biblbroks's talk 11:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Fine. But, be aware of the history of this page: back in 2005, it contained only a couple of sentences on his life and works, the (in)famous SANU speech quote, and the introductory paragraph has been warred over and over between "Serb" and "Bosnian"/"Bosniak". The quotefarm later increased, and the lead has been still subject of an edit war. At one point, I tried to reduce that undue weight and expand (still to an unsatisfactorily amount, but yet) his biography and works, and removed the spurious ethnicity debate from the lead. Note that even the (semi-)biographies at pro-Serbian Rastko website, pro-Bosniak Kitabhana.net and BH Dani and eponymous school in Tuzla do not state his ethnicity. What you see in this article is a consequence of ethno-national obsession of (certain) Wikipedia editors; I maintain that its further emphasizing is an undue weight, and just ask that the trend is stopped, and that edit warring is not provoked further. Call me paranoid or accuse of ownership, but I am wary about "innocent passer-bys" whose sole "improvement" to the article is to insert a controversial statement.

As far as I know, his own "emphasizing" of Serbian ethnicity and movement from Sarajevo to Belgrade mostly came out as result of his conflict with local bureaucrats and pseudo-intelligentsia in Sarajevo; the details I don't know about, nor can I source it. But again, the entire "controversy" (although not a secret) is chiefly on the level of nationalist internet forums (this talk page not excluded) and should be de-emphasized rather than propagated.

Again, I'm removing the sentence per WP:MOSBIO. I find your arguments that he was an "national activist" utterly inconvincing. And the rest of that sentence are my words, taken from this very talk page; He declared as an atheist [1], his leftist/communist stanza, at least in his youth, was not a secret, and his works on Serbo-Croatian literature and Vuk's heritage tell for its own; but the statement that "he was a proponent of South Slavic unity and a communist" was just a conjecture of mine, which I can do on the talk page but not in the article without sources. Duja► 13:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see the only "strong" expression taken from this talk page (actually your words) and put to the article is "South Slavic unity". When editing, the object of my interest was more the sentence taken from the article itself which states ..was also a proponent of the Serbo-Croat language, and cultural and lingustic unity among the peoples of Yugoslavia. The final result was ..supported the South Slavic unity among the peoples of Yugoslavia and was a strong proponent of Serbo-Croatian language.. in the newly added paragraph. This might sound too inclined to the idea of his pro-South-Slavic affiliation. Or to the least unsourced - if you take the statement word by word. But I was merely paraphrasing, this you can see yourself. Again, I think that this controversy should be stated in the opening, because it summarizes the whole section. The subsequent subsection "Quotes" also adds to the fact that there is, if not controversy, than some sort of contradiction with his ethnicity. Maybe some rewording of my paragraph can improve this and moreover, prevent future repetition of editwaring, which here surely was of unconstructive nature. Or if not this, then a bigger task - rewriting the section is an alternative. Anyway, my opinion is that if there is an editwar going, something isn't being addressed right in the article and some atention should be given to it. --Biblbroks's talk 17:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)