Template:Did you know nominations/Evgenia Bosh

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Duplicate topic

Evgenia Bosh

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... that as Soviet Ukraine's first Minister of the Interior and Head of the Secret Police, Evgenia Bosh was responsible for taking direct charge of the Soviet fight against the bourgeois business owners' and landlords' counter-revolution?

Created/expanded by OttawaAC (talk). Self nom at 02:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to have to say that the first, and most glaring problem with this entry is the hook: it is an uncritical paraphrase of Soviet newspeak, and unwittingly (I presume) gives credence to a favorite conspiracy theory, by now hopefully discarded, according to which the landowners of Ukraine and the bourgeois (sic!) entrepreneurs who defended their lifestyles and livelihoods were being counter-revolutionary - since counter-revolution against such abhorrence as communal ownership of all land is, obviously, a crime... The whole thing should be kept in quotation marks, at least. The hook is also well over the 200 characters specified in the DYK rules.
At first glance, the article repeats some of these problems, and furthermore lacks awareness of the Manual of Style: some links lead nowhere (click on Moldavian), some are repeated all over the place (Bolshevik - see WP:OVERLINK), some are vague or absurd (Social Democrats points to Social democracy, but it should refer to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party); other, relevant ones, are missing (Tsentralna Rada is an article, did you know?). The "see alsos" are either redundant or more important than the vaguer links in the text, and should perhaps be integrated into the article. The Victor Serge reference is unformatted and lacks page numbers - the info based on it is as such unretrievable.
The article has a chance for DYK entry, but it has to be revisited, and the hook should either be rephrased or replaced. Regards, Dahn (talk) 13:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the format problems, I haven't yet memorized the Style guide for Wikipedia, so I'll be revising the article accordingly. I will not be incorporating all of your suggestions, however, as I don't agree with all of them. "Bourgeois" is spelled and used correctly (unlike your use of "sic"); "counter-revolutionary" is a valid historical description, whether you are pro- or anti-commie (I am neither), and I don't see a purpose in attempting to qualify it. As for the other historic errors you've pointed out, fair enough, I have never claimed to be an expert on the subject area, and I don't believe that's a prerequisite for creating a Wikipedia article. Suggestions to improve the article, or actual edit revisions, are welcome, but do me a favour and skip the snark. It isn't necessary, and it undermines whatever "helpful" review remarks you're trying to pass along to me. OttawaAC (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I used the sic because, no matter what our personal opinions may be, this word is a loaded term in almost any context, particularly so in the Soviet one. It is a shibboleth, like "truthiness" (invented, and used exclusively, by the American left) or "Islamofascism" (invented, and used exclusively, by the American right).

Very few people in history have ever used the term to define themselves or a social class on which they would hold positive views. Furthermore, the term is quite exotic for Ukraine (and the whole of Imperial Russia), since, as even Lenin noted, the society in those areas was not quite "there" yet: the Bolsheviks only came to power because the middle class was small, feeble and in fact loyal.

Aside from being part of the same vocabulary, "counter-revolutionary" implies that those people were actively campaigning against the Soviet gvt. This brings on two problems: 1) an unproven allegation against an entire class of people; 2) the fact that these people may have been (and very likely were) branded as opponents simply because they had decent lives and careers, and ultimately because they were born into, or worked to obtain inclusion into, what had just a few years before been a respected community (of traders, of artisans, of functionaries etc.).

Do note: I am not suggesting that we rephrase Bosh's mission statement, here or in the text. We can perhaps use the whole of, provided it is in quotes. Since Wikipedia in 2011 is a little more careful with nuances than Izvestia was in 1917.

It was not my intention to ridicule you in any way, and all "snark" is also unintentional. For what it's worth, I do apologize that I gave you that impression.

Please note that there is an additional problem, regardless of what stays in the hook: at 248 characters, the hook is currently too long. Dahn (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for replying again. I'm new to the DYK nomination process, so bear with me. I understand what you mean about "bourgeois" in the propaganda use of the word; I didn't realize it would be such a hot controversy still, and I appreciate that you've shared your perspective on it. I could expand the paragraph a bit to point out the Marxist use of the term, and why those groups were targeted for persecution by the Soviets like Bosh. I'm going to be pedantic for a second though, and point out that Marxists didn't create that word, they co-opted it, and it has a broader sense too. I think we had a culture-clash moment there, over the use of the word. It isn't necessarily a perjorative; I grew up with people who actually have the last name "Bourgeois". (-; I didn't automatically think of the word in a perjorative way, just as a label attached to the social class before and after Marx. I could see "counter-revolution" needing more context, though, I should've thought more carefully before including that term in the article. Anyway, I will check the info more thoroughly. This hook won't get in, but it will help me prepare future noms. OttawaAC (talk) 22:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I would love to continue the conversation on these subjects, but I just noticed an issue which invalidates the whole article: the article already exists, under the spelling Yevgenia Bosch, and has existed since 2009... Meaning that the content of your article should perhaps be merged with the existing one, if it adds anything new, and the link on Evgenia Bosh should be a redirect. In any case, this does not apply as a DYK entry. Sorry. Dahn (talk) 09:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)