User talk:Paul Siebert/Archive 5

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About that photo

This source issue is not as straightforward as I thought. At first I thought that Poeticbent most likely took it from the same website from which he copied, word to word, the misleading description: "To jedna z najciekawszych fotografii Białegostoku z czasów sowieckiej okupacji. W tle kościół Świętego Rocha, a wokół sierpy, młoty, pięcioramienne gwiazdy - symbole nowego porządku." [1], but that site indeed seems to only have a zoomed in part of the image. The original source is a mystery. The site of the Polish description, a Polish regional TVP, is reliable, through clearly, it makes mistakes (journalists are not perfect). That said, I have no clue how this mutated into the English description "Jewish welcome banner" since the Polish text does not say something like that. But note that a bit later Poeticbent linked in edit summary a new source, [2] (also roughly reliable, publication related to IPN). It has an even (larger frame, at least) better version of the photo on page 25. The document is in English and and contains a caption for it "Soviet street propaganda in front of St. Roch Church in Białystok. (From Tomasz Wiśniewski’s collection, “In Search of Poland” Society)". Personally, I don't think the caption change is malicious, never attribute malice to what can be explained as a common mistake, but I also remain puzzled re to the source of "welcoming banner". Perhaps Poeticbent saw the photo described as such at whatever site he copied it in the first place, but at the very least, failure to provide proper source is, well, a mistake. Hardly bannable, unless of course we assume he introduced a bias/falsehood on purpose. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Piotrus, "Soviet street propaganda" does not contradict to the statement that it was taken during first days of German occupation, and it directly contradicts to the original Poeticbent's statement (it was directed at Jews, not at Soviet army). Moreover, I am sure that during any military occupation, the occupying administration makes posters written in local languages: thus, I believe it is easy to find photos of German occupation administration posters written in Ukrainian, Polish, etc.

However, definitely, this photo has lower resolution than the museum poster photo, so the original photo was different. And, definitely, this is an election banner (some words are possible to read).

Piotrus, unless Poeticbent provided the information on where exactly did he take the "Jews greeting Soviet Army" description, we should assume he himself invented it. Taking into account other examples of his edits, where he links Jewish ethnicity and Communism and Stalinist crimes (using the sources that either do not say so or say otherwise), the only explanation is that he was introducing a bias/falsehood on purpose, so he must be banned. You are a reasonable and intellectual person, and I really cannot understand why you do not understand that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

WP:AGF. Two edits out of thousands are not a pattern. But I am open to reviewing more evidence, and seeing if it can indeed outweigh things like him creating articles for dozens of Jewish WWII ghettos and many other Jewish Polish topics that wouldn't exist on English Wikipedia if he didn't do it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

AGF suggests to assume good faith unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. These two edits seem to be a very clear evidence. Note, I didn't look any evidences against Poeticbent: I just was reading this case, and I found several accusations against Icewhiz. The diffs demonstrated that he removed the mention of ethnicity from the articles about some Jewish Stalinists. And I asked myself: how the articles about Polish Stalitists are organized? I started to read, and I fount the article where the infamous table was presented. I ased myself: "interesting, who added it?" I looked through the article's history, and I found that that table was added by Poeticbent. Note, I was not looking for evidences against him, I found that table by accident. Therefore, we cannot rule out a possibility that we are dealing not with "two edits out of thousands", because I have no idea what the result of the comprehensive analysis of Poeticbent's "legacy" will be.

By the way, you yourself do not seem to be totally innocent. When I was analyzing accusations against Icewhiz, I found that the edit he reverted was done by you. Do you realize that to start the section about antisemitism of Poles as one of the factors of the Holocaust with the words "Rescue of Jews..." creates a totally wrong impression that a significant fraction of Poles was engaged in rescue of Jews (especially, taking into account that the previous section tells about saving of Jews by Warsaw Poles)? However, majority of non-Polish sources say that the Poles who were saving Jews were more an exception than a rule, and a general attitude was deeply hostile. I perfectly understand that currently Poland is inventing its brilliant past (which is quite normal, every nation during some period of its history does that), however, that is definitely a local, and deeply mangled version of history. It is impossible to study the history of Great Patrioic War using predominantly Russian sources, it is impossible to write a history of OUN based on writing of Ukrainian scholars, and it would be equally wrong to write a history of Poland during WWII based on predominantly Polish sources. You know English, you seem to have a full access to good articles of Western scholars - please, look at the works of your compatriots through a prism of Western scholars: they have no reason to be biased, and they will help you to identify a bias in Polish sources. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

This cuts two ways though. Three, actually. So first, I don't think anyone thinks that we should write these articles with only, or even predominantly Polish sources. The argument is kind of about including Polish sources at all - Icewhiz has been trying for awhile now to basically have a prohibition on Polish sources in articles on Polish history. If you just step back and think about it... it's kind of messed up. How come nobody ever shows up on articles about, I don't know, French history, and demands that we ban all French sources from articles on French history? There's an underlying theme of a kind of Orientalism here - "a general patronizing Western attitude toward", in this case EASTERN Europe. It manifests itself in an implicit or explicit belief of some Western Europeans and Americans that Eastern Europeans are "backward" and "primitive" and they're all "nationalist" (as if nationalism didn't exist in the west) so they can't be trusted to study their own history. So these Westerns have to write it for them and "get it right". And this often involves implicitly describing these Eastern Europeans as "backward" and "primitive" and "nationalist" which creates a kind of confirmation bias. And I say "Eastern Europeans", because this happens not just with Poles but also with Russians and Ukrainians and Lithuanians and even to some extent Eastern European Jews.

Since your text is long, and that is my talk page, I took a liberty to wedge my comments after each paragraph.

I don't think Icewhiz is totally right in this conflict. My understanding is as follows: you guys form an overwhelming majority in this topic, and you even don't need off Wiki coordination for efficient collaboration, so the outside observer may conclude that old good EEML is still alive (btw, I don't think it is, and, technically, you are doing nothing that violates our rules). In the situation when the opposite party is much more numerous and powerful, Icewhiz believes that the more Polish sources he removes the better, because he would be incapable of removing all of them, so some reasonable balance will be established. The problem is that both him and you guys do not show signs of collaboration.

Yes, Eastern Europe was backward, and still is backward in some aspects. Thus, one friend of mine (she is an ecologist and a former director of one national park) moved to Poland (she has Polish roots, her son speaks Polish), and soon after that decided to move to Russia, because, as she explained, "clericalism and reactionary policy is too strong in modern Poland". And, by the way, it is Polish nationalism that was a primary cause of many terrible things in EE. Believe me, I am very critical towards OUN, and I am persistently re-adding the epithets like "terrorist" and "Nazi collaborator" to the articles about Bandera, Schukhevich ets, which are being constantly removed by various Ukrainian nationalists. However, the primary cause of all what OUN did was Polish nationalism. You Poles re-established Poland (Second Republics) as a successor of the Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, however, whereas Rzeczpospolita was a polyethnic state, its alleged successor was build around the slogan "Poland for Poles". That is not your fault, because during the Rzeczpospolita times, no nations existed in Europe: people identified themselves as subjects of some monarch and as members of some estate, not as a part of some nation. In that sense, XIX revolutions, which were driven by nationalism, had a very positive impact, because they replaced an old feudal society that was split unto small social groups with different rights into a larger entity, a nation. In other words, XIX revolutions declared: "We all are now equal, and we all are now a nation: Frenchmen, Germans, Americans etc." In contrast, newer, XX and XXI century nationalism is organized as an ethnic nationalism. Is says: "Our country is called Poland (Ukraine, Latvia, etc), therefore, its citizen are those who speak Polish (Ukrainian, etc), are ethnic Poles (Ukrainians etc) and all others must fit some criteria to get full citizenship. In other words, XIX nationalism united people, modern nationalism divides them.

By the way, the term "nationalism" is somewhat misleading, because in different countries it has different meaning. Western countries are based on the concept of nation-state, and their nationalism is not ethnic one. In contrast, nationalism in Eastern countries is ethnic, and that is why they are backward.

Going back to Rzeczpospolita/Second Polish republic, the latter pretended, politically and territorialy, to be a successor of Rzeczpospolita (a multiethnic pre-nation era feudal state), but it was built as a national state of ethnic Poles. Western sources agree that the latter was a "prison of people", only Poles had full rights, and other groups were oppressed. That means Ukrainians had a very serious reason not to love Poles, and Vohlyn massacre is explainable (although not forgivable). Jews were competing with ethnic Poles, who refused to accept Jews as a part of their society, and, since Jewish competition was successful, the hatred was mutual and widespread.

The problem with Polish sources is that many of them negate any significant misdeeds of Poles, negate the fact that something was fundamentally wrong with the Second Polish republic, and negate the fact that Poles also were responsible for what happened in mid XX century.

There definitely are some authors in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, who present an absolutely balanced and astonishingly deep analysis of their country's history. However, the picture those authors create is rather unpleasant, and their works are usually ignored by nationalist Wikipedians. In general, I think it would be much safer to avoid the authors who are not recognized (or criticized) outside of its country when one writes about sensitive moments of country's history. The examples are Viatrovich (in Ukraine), Gareev (in Russia) etc. The story with "Golden harvest of the Hearts of Gold" belongs to the same type: this work is totally ignored in the West, and it was written as a response to the book of a renown author. It is definitely a fringe view, but you guys are pushing it. Why?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

""clericalism and reactionary policy is too strong in modern Poland"" <-- I wanted to reply to this earlier but got side tracked. Sure. "Clericalism and reactionary policy" are indeed running strong in present day Poland. But... in US there's Trump, politicians in Congress who at best may politely be described as "far right" if not outright "white supremacist" and local governments passing religiously based laws, in UK you got Brexit and Boris Freakin' Johnson as the most likely candidate for next PM, in France, the National Front is THE most popular political party, in Germany the far-right is likewise on the march, in Israel you got the far-right Netanyahu who's trying to bring in the even farther right, and outright racist "Ku Klux Klan of Israel" [3], the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit (judging by his defense of far right sources and attempts to whitewash them, Icewhiz is a fan) and ... I'm gonna leave that beacon of compassion and justice Putin out of it because it'd likely derail the conversation and not even include people like Modi in India... anyway, the point is, it's not just Poland. The far right is on the march across the whole world and this dispute here *may* have something to do with it. But not in the way you think.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Related to this is simply the issue of access to primary documents, which is vital for good historical scholarship. With some exceptions, most Western scholars do not speak Polish (or Lithuanian or Latvian... with Russian it's a bit better which is good part of the reason why Western scholarship on Russian history is better). So they don't have access to the primary documents. Even in cases where they do speak the language, there's still cultural barriers - knowing where to look and whom to ask. Most Western writers who write about Eastern European history rely on secondary sources, which in turn makes them tertiary (or even further removed). And this creates a lot of errors. Coming back to the Orientalism aspect, one often finds when reading Western authors, that they confuse basic locales (to Westerners all Slavic place names look like just a bunch of szczchsszzlszgsz's) names or organizations (this one is kind of understandable given the love of confusing acronyms in Soviet Union as well as some inborn tendency for factionalism and splinter groups among Eastern European political movements). Polish scholars on the other hand usually have a much more extensive knowledge of archival material and primary documents. They know a lot more details. They avoid silly mistakes. Etc.

One, good, example is the work of Timothy Snyder. I believe he taught himself some Polish, but pretty much all he writes about, for example, Polish-Ukrainian relations during WW2 is based on the work of the Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka. If you've read both, it's pretty obvious, even the presentation of the material is pretty similar. And Snyder does do due diligence and cites Motyka where appropriate (except not many people read footnotes). But in many ways Snyder is an exception, which is why he's such a popular author. Most Western writers don't bother and they fudge it.

Finally, you write "it would be equally wrong to write a history of Poland during WWII based on predominantly Polish sources" and this is true. But in this particular controversy, it's also true that a lot of the English language sources have been written by Israeli historians who spend the war... as Soviet Partisans. Yitzhak Arad, Dov Levin, Rachel Margolis for example. Since many of these disputes involve confrontations between Polish and Soviet partisans, it would be equally wrong to write a history of Polish-Soviet relations during WWII based on predominantly former Soviet Partisan sources". Of course, all of these authors are reliable - indeed, some of them are excellent writers and scholars - and should indeed be used. But the same thing applies to reliable Polish historians and authors. The key here is WP:BALANCE. (There's also the issue of some writers who were part of the Stalinist security apparatus in the 1950's which I think are even more biased).

Yes, Israeli sources are considered good quality sources, however, one has to keep in mind two considerations. First, Soviet POV is significantly underrepresented in Western historiography because of the Iron Curtain, and because German (and emigrant Polish) sources were much more available. That means German and Polish POV is already represented sufficiently well, and Israeli author (former Soviet military) just restore balance. Second, Poland is much better integrated into the Western intellectual community, so there is a lot of Polish publications in Western journals and books. That should be sufficient to describe a real history (which was not as pleasant as Polish nationalists, who are trying to polish Polish history :) beyond any reasonable limits).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed reply.

"you guys form an overwhelming majority in this topic" - not true, I think this perception is a biased perspective resulting from where one is standing. The "Icewhiz Team" (him, FR, koffman + couple accounts that managed to get themselves blocked by now) is at least on par with the number of active Polish editors, and they are far more tendentious and dedicated. AFAIK EEML has been dead for 10+ years (I left before it got disbanded). And if you actually pay attention it's easy to note that it ain't all rosy between the former members. MyMoloboaccount has tried to get me banned at WP:AE several times. Another member, Miacek/Estlandia, went a bit nutzoid on and off Wiki and got really nasty with his harassment of me. Most of the people from there have long ceased editing Wikipedia (I mean, the Wiki-life of an average user is like 2? 3? years and this was more than a decade ago). There is way more (indirect) evidence of coordination on the other side (and remember, even back then there was a good bit of coordination on the other side too, and in fact, in the aftermath of the EEML case, it was the "anti-EEML" editors that ended up with long bans. *Without* help from the EEML people, most of whom were topic banned or keeping low profiles after the case. These dudes managed to get themselves sanctioned all on their own, partly cuz they felt so flush with victory that they went too crazy with the POV pushing, which was too much even for the clueless admins)

"Icewhiz believes that the more Polish sources he removes the better, because he would be incapable of removing all of them, so some reasonable balance will be established." - he does in fact try to remove ALL of them... except in a few cases where he'll find something he likes in one of them and try to use it, completely contradicting his uncompromising stance on Polish sources. Like when he used far-right anti-semitic Polish publications, because he found them useful. Or like when he used a Polish historian which he shortly thereafter adamantly insisted wasn't reliable. And this isn't just Polish sources really. Like when he demanded we use Antony Polonsky on an article but then as soon as someone actually tried to use Polonsky, he began removing it because it turned out that Polonsky wasn't sufficiently anti-Polish for him, and had some critical things to say about Soviet partisans. He's um... very flexible, to put it diplomatically, about what he considers appropriate or not at a particular time. The POV comes first, the sources are chosen and evaluated to buttress that POV. It should be the other way around.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

" Western countries are based on the concept of nation-state, and their nationalism is not ethnic one. In contrast, nationalism in Eastern countries is ethnic, and that is why they are backward." - also not true. There's both kinds of nationalism in Eastern Europe. The "ethnic nationalism" is the nationalism of Roman Dmowski. The "Nation-state nationalism" is the nationalism of Jozef Pilsudski. There's always been tension (sometimes great hostility) between these two conceptions and world views. Why do you think the "nationalist" Eligiusz Niewiadomski murdered the Polish President (oh my! Icewhiz might report me for calling him "Polish" when he was "Lithuanian"!), also a "nationalist", Gabriel Narutowicz? I don't know man, it seems like your background in Western historiography is showing here and kind of highlighting the very problem I'm talking about. Just because you perceive, on the basis of Western sources, Eastern Europe, a certain way, that doesn't mean it actually is that way. This is the colonialist/orientalist kind of framework, that is so ingrained in many Western scholars that they don't even notice it. Was it Michel Foucalt that pointed out that the dominant paradigm never sees itself as dominant but always reflexively believes itself to be "just normal"? Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

"Soviet POV is significantly underrepresented in Western historiography because of the Iron Curtain" - I actually don't think that's necessarily true. Academia has been more sympathetic to "the socialist experiment" than your average Westerner for, well, ever since it came up. To the extent you see under representation it's not a under representation of a view point but of material (which is part of what I already said). There's 50 books published about Normandy landing for every book that's published about Kursk. Etc. But "giving the Soviets the benefit of a doubt" is very much present in lots of Western scholarship. "(and emigrant Polish) sources were much more available" - this is not true at all. Polish emigrant sources (I don't know about German ones) were always scarce, barely existing. They constantly struggled for funds, had low readership and circulation (somewhat ironically, the most popular publications of Polish emigre press were the writings of Russian dissidents like Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn). Historical works were limited to mostly to (thin) bibliographies and collections of primary documents. Most Western AND Eastern European academics had scant access to the emigre publications and whatever little scholarship it managed to published hardly made a dent in general historiography. "That means (...) Polish POV is already represented sufficiently well" - but that is not true at all. Timothy Snyder or Norman Davies are the exceptions. Even when "Polish POV" does make it into Western works it's... kinda caricaturish (more Polish than the Poles) or at least very general and shallow. What are these "Polish publications in Western journals and books" you refer to? I'm sincerely interested.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

So you really got to have both if you hope to have a serious NPOV article. Like I said, if someone showed up to articles on Italian history and demanded that we ban the use of all Italian sources, they'd be laughed at and I'm sure someone would point out the problem with that kind of ethnic criteria for sourcing. Why is it different for Poland here? Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

No difference. If some local source (Italian or Polish) says something that pleases your national pride - be careful. As soon as some Polish source tells about Polish antisemitism and it understate its scale, the source should be treated cautiously. As soon as an Italian source discusses Mussolini, and it describes him more positively than it looks in Western books - it should be treated very cautiously, unless there are many positive reviews on this source (internationally).--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Re: the diff - my wording was not the best, but the original sentence was just as bad, OR about "deeply rooted". Now that entire sentence is gone and I think that section reads better, through IMHO it is still mostly a SYNTH mess. But that's for another time. Anyway, regarding sources, consider the POV of the writers. Are Polish writers biased? Of course. But English/Western scholars are also biased. Just like many Polish/Canadian-American scholars are, so are Jewish-Americans, etc. If someone or their family had connections to the Soviets, who fought Polish resistance, can they be neutral when they discuss Polish resistance actions against Soviet forces as actions against the Jews? Consider the case of Antoni Gawryłkiewicz and Yaffa Eliach's accounts. Did Polish resistance really beat Gawryłkiewicz to punish him for helping the Jews, and Polish media / scholars censor this fact, and he decided to stay silent about it, even during his visit to Israel? Or did Eliach mis-remembered things, and to what extent is her memoir about her childhood memories, written decades later, reliable? And could the fact that her father, killed during the war, collaborated with the Soviets, who fought the Polish resistance, color her memories? As in, her father dies in a Polish-Soviet shootout, her father was a Jew, so Polish resistance murdered him because they were antisemites? Reliable, Western source, eh? Another case study: when I was expanding the bio of Shmuel Krakowski, another scholar known for his critique of Polish resistance as antisemitic, what are the chances his two decades of career in Polish communist secret police, where his coworkers were involved in stuff like hunting cursed soldiers, color his view? Is he a neutral party here? Also, Israeli accounts of his career in the Polish secret police simply summarized it as him having served in the Polish army... whitewashing? Why wouldn't the obituaries written by his co-workers, etc. discuss his two decade career in Poland in more detail? Again, Polish sources are biased, but perhaps we should not assume that 'Western' sources have no agenda. Particularly sources written by people who where either directly involved in said events, or were exposed to family/friends narrative.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Western sources are biased, but they have much less reasons for a bias, and the are biased in a much lesser extent.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

This is disputable. Less reason? Less overt government interference, that I would agree. But we would need some quantitative data if we want to talk about bias between Western and Polish sources, and that's hard. Also, do you include Israeli in Western? Frankly, I consider any source written by someone with family connection (name can tell) to a side of this likely POVed, which is why IMHO the few reasonably neutral scholars on this are people like Norman Davies or Timothy Snyder, since AFAIK they have no family connection to EE. Everyone who has such a connection (not to mention, citizenship) is biased.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Paul, I'm guessing that Poeticbent got it from this sentence in the article itself: "Na zdjęciach z lat tysiąc dziewięćset trzydzieści dziewięć - czterdzieści jeden Białystok jest miastem, które radośnie wita wojska sowieckie i czeka na nową władzę.". Translation: "On the photos from the years 1939-1941 we see Bialystok as a city which joyously welcomes the Soviet Army and awaits the new authorities". The plural, "photos", is in the source. I assume, that Poeticbent assumed that this was one of these photos, although carefully reading the source there is no indication that this particular photo is one of these. The article is about an exhibition of wartime photos at the University of Bialystok library. Presumably, judging by the description of the exhibition, there were some other photos in the exhibition which had signs welcoming the Red Army. Whether these were written in Polish or Russian or Yiddish or whatever is unknown. This is definitely a mistake. A very sloppy mistake. But there's no indication of malice or any intent to misrepresent the photo purposefully. I presume (reasonably I think) that Poeticbent does not read Yiddish.

The issue as it relates to this ArbCom case, is that Icewhiz has been parading this photo around so he can scream and wail about the collapse of Wikipedia, play himself as some kind of martyr, and try to smear OTHERS by association. He keeps referring to this as a WP:HOAX in fits of hyperbolic, but calculated, faux-outrage. It's not a hoax. WP:HOAX states: "It is considered a hoax if it was a clear or blatant attempt to make up something, as opposed to libel or a factual error". This was a factual error based on a confusingly written source. Icewhiz, on his user page after proclaiming bombastically that the existence of this photo proves that Wikipedia has entered the "post-truth era" (sic), then proceeds to award himself multiple accolades and salutations for having corrected the caption. Great, good for him. On the case request page he tried to not-so-subtly associate me with it. But here is a thing: when he fixed the caption nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody disagreed with him, or challenged him or reverted him. Hell, I've never even edited the Bialystok Ghetto article. And of course by the time he fixed the caption Poeticbent has been long gone from Wikipedia. But he's pretending like this was some odious dispute he was part of. There was no dispute. There was an error. He fixed it. Good for him. Nobody disagreed. That's it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Even if that was just a mistake, only a deeply anti-Semitic person could have done that. He cannot edit Wikipedia.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. He seems to have been just following the source. I'm actually curious about the actual photo - can you tell if there is a date on it? Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

That only means there are much more problems with you than I thought. Look:

The Poeticbent's description was "Jewish welcome banner in Białystok during the Soviet invasion of Poland of September 1939." The source he used just said that some photos show the occupied Poland in 1939-41 and those photo were aimed to demonstrate the Soviet Army was welcomed. To write the description of that kind required a great deal of creativity: one has to conclude that this particular photo depicts a welcome banner, and it was taken during the invasion, not during some time between 1939-41. This conclusion requires not only a fantasy, but also a lack of elementary logic: obviously, that type banner does not created an impression it was hastily erected, which rules out an possibility this photo was taken during the invasion. And the context this photo was placed was pretty obvious: it was supposed to demonstrate the idea Jews were pro-Soviet and pro-Communist (Zydokommuna). If you don't understand that, than your own mentality is to some extent anti-Jewish, and you need Icewhiz to compensate that problem. Similarly, Icewhiz's mentality is too Jew-centric, and you both would be an excellent tandem for writing balanced texts.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

"and it was taken during the invasion, not during some time between 1939-41" - that's actually why I keep asking if there's a date on the photo.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

But yeah, I agree there does appear to be some problematic WP:SYNTH here. But without the user being here, able to speak for themselves, I don't think you can properly ascertain their intent.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Also, can you tell if there is a date written anywhere on that board? Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:38, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Actually, while I'm here I got a favor to ask. We've had plenty of disagreements (and I'm about to disagree with you on something else right above) in the past and I'm sure we will disagree again. But I've always appreciated your knowledge of these topics, as well as your honest approach to editing (unlike some editors *cough*Icewhiz*cough*, you don't misrepresent what they say to win disputes or go running around lying about them, trying to get them sanctioned, and I've never seen you misrepresent a source). So here is the thing - Icewhiz is making A LOT of accusations against me. Obviously I got to respond to at least some of them. You know, "rebuttal". But we're limited in how much we can write (1000 words apparently). Equally obviously I can't respond to all of them. Most of them are total bullshit where he is either lying about what's in them or taking a minor disagreement and pretending like it is some super horrible thing, or insinuating stuff by linking to irrelevant sources and notions I've never used or presented. But nobody's perfect, so maybe I did make some mistakes. I'd like to have some way to separate out the wheat from the chaff and equally equally obviously I may not be the best judge of which of MY OWN edits are "bad". And I don't mean the silly stuff like "you should've been more diplomatic on the talk page", I mean the real content, substance stuff. So I'm asking you to audit me. Can you look through his evidence and see if there's anything there that I should take seriously? I genuinely am interested, and your opinion does carry weight with me (though again, I might very well disagree). Like I said, don't pay attention to the "Volunteer Marek was uncivil" crap, just the actual content related stuff. And if you don't have time, or don't want to get too involved, I totally understand. Thanks either way.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

You will save a lot of my time if you dropped me the diffs here (the most important ones). I'll try to comment on them on the arb page. I think you both are not right in this dispute, you could save a lot of time of other people if you (both) harnessed your nationalism and elaborated some common rules of collaboration (something similar to what I described on the ArbCom page).--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of the thing. I'm not sure WHICH ones are important cuz it all looks like a bunch of BS to me.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Then drop some of them, on your choice (not very trivial ones).--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Mmm, let's start with this one:

"[4] - edit-summary: "per sources, "enormous", "most" etc. ..." - claiming "most Poles" (more than 12 million) were involved in Holocaust rescue is in WP:FRINGE turf. Mainstream sources see rescuers as a minority.[5] "Most" rather impossible to source outside of Nasz Dziennik,[6] see also Rydzyk.[7][8][9]"

I'm not asking for an opinion of whether "some" or "many" is better to use here. The sources used [5] do support something like "many". Of course you can find other sources or quibble over whether "several hundred thousand" is "many" or "some". But my interest here is in whether Icewhiz's presentation of the diff - his characterization of the nature of my edit, as well as him bringing up sources like Nasz Dziennik and Rydzyk which have nothing to do with this disagreement - is accurate or not.

You can also take a look here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

VM, I hope a positive response from Icewhiz will make all of that redundant. Let's wait for a clear response from him.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry - Paul, I'm going to butt in here and discuss the edit VM just pointed out.

I'm assuming you mean to discuss this edit by Icewhiz, and not your revert? Let's look at the edit as a whole -

• First, instead of looking the edit, let's look at the entirety of the sources. There are two sources given for this edit - 1) Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Righteous Among the Nations - per Country & Ethnic Origin January 1, 2011. Statistics and 2) Lukas, Richard C. (1989). Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust. University Press of Kentucky. p. 13. ISBN 0813116929. The estimates of Jewish survivors in Poland... do not accurately reflect the extent of the Poles' enormous sacrifices on behalf of the Jews because, at various times during the occupation, there were more Jews in hiding than in the end survived.. The first source is actually a deadlink and it is from 2011. We should be using the most current stats - which are at https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/statistics.html. So, a good thing would have been for the editors involved to have updated this ref.
• So, these two refs are supporting "Polish Jews were among the primary victims of the German-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, some Poles risked their lives – and the lives of their families – to rescue Jews from the Germans. Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons who rescued Jews during the Holocaust." The YV source does not support anything in that sentence. Before folks start screaming - the YV source only details those people who are recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" - which is only a subset of those who rescued Jews, and a small subset at that. Anyone who accepted money/etc for rescuing Jews is disbarred from the Righteous title - which actually impacts rescuers in Eastern Europe disproportionately. Because of the conditions in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, it was just plain more difficult for even the most altruistic of rescuers to be able to support hidden Jews without some help - rations/etc in Eastern Europe were set by the Germans to such a low bar that most non-Germans had extreme difficulty getting enough for their own families, much less any Jews they were trying to hide. Leo Cooper discusses this in chapter 8 of his In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust, and Beyond (specifically p. 164 of the 2000 paperback edition). But the YV source is ONLY dealing with the Righteous - it does not say anything about "Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons who rescued Jews during the Holocaust." And the YV source does not say anything at all about the first two sentences of the three.
• The second source - Out of the Inferno edited by Richard C. Lukas. This should actually be cited as Lukas, Richard C. (1989). "Introduction". Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust. University of Kentucky Press. pp. 1–16. because it's actually a collection of remembrances with an introduction by Lukas. And page 13 doesn't support much of this either. Lukas claims "Recent research suggests that a million Poles were involved [in rescues], but some estimates go as high as three million." Well, those are REALLY high estimates, and Lukas just prior to this states that Zegota figures are "several hundred thousand". There are other figures out there - Cooper cites Teresa Prekerowa who gives a figure of perhaps 1-2.5% of the Polish population involved in rescue attempts, whether they succeeded or not. (Cooper, p. 168) Cooper, then on page 169, estimates 160,000-360,000 rescuers.
• Lukas does not support most of these three sentences (at least not on page 13). "Polish Jews were among the primary victims of the German-organized Holocaust." is not supported at all. The next sentence "Throughout the German occupation of Poland, (some/many) Poles risked their lives – and the lives of their families – to rescue Jews from the Germans." includes the disputed words some/many, but this is not completely supported by Lukas - he supports the "risked their lives" part, but not the "and the lives of their families". And the numbers he gives - even if we go with 3 million - is still not easy to reconcile with "many". Instead of trying to quantify this number with vague terms - we would be better off dropping the "some/many" and just going with "Poles risked their lives" and discussing the many different estimates in the body of the article.
• Lukas does not support the last sentence "Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons who rescued Jews during the Holocaust." either - he never states such a thing. At best he says "The Polish record of helping Jews thus compares very favorably with that of Western Europeans, who were in far less threatening circumstances."

So... on investigating this one diff - no one comes off well. No editor actually looked critically at the sources and what they were supporting - or at least it sure doesn't look like it because as detailed above, there are some big problems with the sentences the sources are supposed to be supporting. At the very least - someone should have noticed that the YV source was no longer working - that's like a big red flag. This isn't meant to make everyone look bad - it's just that there are so many sloppy sourcing things going on in this area that it's just feeding into the whole problem. And I haven't even touched on the problems with using Lukas himself - while he's not fringe, he's definitely on one side of the whole historical debate, and he needs to be balanced by those on the other side. This is how history works - there isn't usually one monolithic "correct history" but instead a lot of different historians who take the same events and get not only different interpretations, but often different "facts" (which are actually just guesses) - in this specific editing dispute the facts are in dispute because, in the end, it's all guesswork - we don't have hard figures for rescuers so historians make their own best guesses and they often conflict. When these situations arise, the way we should do things on Wikipedia is present all sides. What is actually happening here is that there are sets of editors who are (at least to this outsider) trying to only present the side they agree with, and thus the fighting gets vicious. It's also not helped by, at least as it appears to me, a historian, that many of the editors aren't actually historians. Granted, I'm a medievalist, not a WWII historian, but in many respects, the principles are much the same. Too much emphasis is being placed on newspaper and other sources that are not the best choices for Wikipedia editors to be using. Too much reliance is being placed on Google searches rather than reading entire books. There is so much written about Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust - and much of it is not in agreement. Wikipedia needs to present that range of opinions, rather than trying to present a single narrative. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:27, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Ealdgyth. That perfectly demonstrate my point: when lion's share of efforts is devoted to a conflict, users just have no time for careful representation of what the sources say. And, as I already said, more strict approach to source selection (more strict than our policy allows) would be extremely beneficial in this area.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Usr:Ealdgyth, those are all valid points and I'm willing to acknowledge that precisely because the arguments are such a time sink, more mundane but important edits don't get done. I mean, look below. Icewhiz is already trying to change the topic and starts talking about something else. The only, relatively minor, quibbles I gave with what you said is that the Bartoszewski quote in the Lukas source (same page I believe) gives "hundreds of thousands" and that statement can be found in other sources and even if you think Lucas is an outlier, Bartoszewski is about as "mainstream" as you can get. And whether it's "hundreds of thousands" or a million or three millions, I do think that justifies the "many" better than "some". "Some" definitely looks like an attempt to minimize it. But yes, this is relatively minor and perhaps it would be best to drop any qualifications at all.

I'd go any make some changes along the lines you suggest myself, but at the moment I'm concerned that ANY edits I make to the topic, no matter how justified, Icewhiz may try to use against me.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth: - Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust actually has much bigger problems - first in source selection - currently it represents only high-ball estimates (and often misrepresents the scholars it is using - for instance see diff by Gspaulsson). Lukas, is, umm, very much on one side here - e.g. see this. There is a whole range of scholars that estimate rescues at a small multiple of the YV Righteous number (e.g. x2 or x3) - a proper presentation would state their view contrasted with larger estimates (some of which use laxer criteria - e.g. "help" vs. "rescue"). The article itself requires a through rewrite and evaluation of sources (both of what it uses - misrepresentations, and what it doesn't use). There are also many aspects that are not well covered by the article - e.g. see Michlic, Joanna B. "'I Will Never Forget What You Did for Me during the War': Rescuer-Rescuee Relationships in the Light of Postwar Correspondence in Poland, 1945–1949." Yad Vashem Studies 39.2 (2011): 169.. The whole thing probably requires work akin to writing it from scratch (the photos are probably mostly usable). I have this marked as a future project (unless someone else does this first) - so far I've just watchlisted it and challenged some sources that clearly shouldn't be used (e.g. Paul) - but I haven't done anything here beyond that. It probably requires a few days work to really do it any justice.Icewhiz (talk) 14:57, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

That blurb by blurb by Paulsson is currently at the beginning of Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust#Statistics - and one might add that beyond selection from within Secret City, this work itself was critiqued for methodlogy - Dreifuss, Havi. "Utajone miasta. Kilka uwag o metodologii Gunnara S. Paulssona." Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały 10 (2014): 823-852.. However, this is probably not even close to the worst of the problems. Icewhiz (talk) 15:03, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Polish sources

RE - diff - I've actually grown appreciative of some very good Polish language scholarship and sources over the past year and half (when I jumped into this a year and a half ago - I was not up to date on modern Polish scholarship). Unfortunately, my work on Wikipedia in this topic area has shown me that Polish sources (in this particular historical field) actually used on Wikipedia are often:

1. Poor quality media/local-sources and/or by writers very much on the right-wing extreme - as opposed to mainstream or "leftist" sources from within Poland.
2. Fail verification. The amount of times I've challenged Polish language sources/content for failing WP:V - is in my mind staggering. In some cases, these are totally reasonable sources - even very good sources - however they are misused - by extreme cherrypicking and/or even outright fabrication (information not in the source). The amount of editors actually willing to verify a Polish language source - is small.

Piotrus linked to AE here, in which I noticed I did some stats on the time (not Polish language): at the time of that AE, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna Poray was used in some 50 Wikipedia articles (a self-published author cited by noone), whereas Jan T. Gross's Fear had 359 google-scholar cites vs. 11 Wikipedia uses and Neighbors had 718 google-scholar cites vs. 13 Wikipedia cites (and some of the citations - were self-uses to articles on Gross or his books). Regards. Icewhiz (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

That is exactly what I meant when I proposed the way to resolve the current conflict: if you both (Volunteer Marek and you) develop a common criteria to the selection of sources, the major part of the problem will be resolved. If you both will come to an agreement that the source that has been cited by many scholars has more weight than the one that is ignores, and if you both will play a "ignorant wikipedian" before starting to edit any topic, you will be able to collaborate fruitfully. I personally think you both bring some bias to Wikipedia, and this bias is of opposite signs. The result of that is an overall improvement of the content. However, you may achieve the same result (with much less efforts) if you both agree to be less biased (for example, according to the rules outlined by me, of whatever rules you both will stick with).

I am totally on your side regarding Poeticbent: that deeply anti-Semitic user should not be allowed to edit this topic. However, I don't think any actions against VM are needed, because you both are quite capable (potentially) of collaboration. I believe if you both address to ArbCom and propose that, you will save a lot of time of other people.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:55, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And again, I never undid any of Icewhiz's removals of Poray, I did not vote in the AfD (and would have voted delete if i had been bothered to do so), and I agree that this is essentially an unreliable WP:SPS, although in some case it may serve as useful starting point for further research, which doesn't mean it should be used on Wikipedia. Icewhiz, in this arbcom case which you started, and in which the only active participants are me and you, you keep bringing up shit which I never had anything to do with. It'd be one thing if you were doing this in some kind of pre-emptive "I know VM is going to accuse me of a bunch of stuff, so here ArbCom, look! I made some good edits too like remove Poray" but rather the running theme throughout your statements and "evidence" is to insinuate that I did this or was somehow associated with it. Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I am much more concerned with the content introduced by Poeticbent (and to a limited extent, others) than stonewalling, partial reverts, and reverts of cleanup attempts.Icewhiz (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

(ec)Clarify that in your statement/evidence then.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Guys, I am somewhat busy this week, so I've exhausted my time I can allocate for Wikipedia. I can address to arbitrators to inform them that you both are currently discussing possible ways of future collaborative work on this topic, and it would be good if the arbitrators exclude VM from that case (or, at least, the case should be suspended for N weeks). If we do that, we will save a lot of time of many people (including yourselves). Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek, are you ok with that?

You can use my talk page for further discussion, and if you need a third opinion, I am always glad to say something.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

No problem, thanks Paul.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that would be fine with me.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I am waiting for a response from Icewhiz.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

While your proposal on source moderation makes sense, I cannot agree with calling Poeticbent "deeply anti-Semitic". Did you look at my (revised) evidence? How can someone who created so many sympathetic articles on Jewish history and suffering be antisemitic? The only problem is that like many people associated with Poland he gives more credence to the zydokomuna stereotype than people in the West. This, however, is a matter of academic discourse, and it's not like Western view represents the pure neutrality here. Sure, Poles tend to exaggerate the extent of Jewish involvement in the communist regime, but again, per my case study above (Krakowski...) Western sources will try to minimize it (I don't want to say whitewash, but...). The only thing here, IMHO, would be to caution Poeticbent on the use of Polish sources that may be unduly stressing this view, and ask him to consider UNDUE in such cases. But taking part in the argument about this issue is hardly antisemitic. To say that one is not allowed to discuss the possible connection between Jews/Jewish culture and communism (outside of denying it) is just a different form of censorship (reminds me less of the classic totalitarian one, and more of some political correctness chilling effect, as well as the semi-censorship in the US of topics like global warming or gun violence, where the Republicans passed laws that people cannot get federal funding for that, which wrecks havoc with attempts to study those issues at most public or semi-public universities, etc.). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Piotrus - what you seem to think is a problem with Krakowski (who was, AFAICT from the IPN dossier, in a GRU/DIA equivalent - foreign affairs, not local "secret police") - is not seen as a problem in most of the West. Holocaust survivors serving with the Soviets (often described in Western sources as liberators) and the post-war states? Is not seen in anywhere the same light as seen in post-communist Poland (or other EE states) - if at all the post-communist backlash is seen as akin to previous episodes in the West that are today seen in a dim light (IMHO - possibly overly dim - the contemporary backlash to the historic backlash is an overcompensation of an overcompensation - Positive feedback). And in any event - whatever he did in the 40s-50s (+afterwards in the reserves) - his career as a historian was well after. Western, and Israeli, sources aren't whitewashing this - they tend to disagree this is an issue. We have a few Wikipedia articles on individuals that post-1989 Poland requested their extradition - however Sweden, UK, and Israel - have refused. Was there even one extradition request (for a communist figure, request post-1989) that was accepted by a Western state? I personally see where lustration is coming from, however this isn't viewed the same way elsewhere.Icewhiz (talk) 06:07, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Piotrus, these two cases (the banner and the table) is a demonstration that every Poeticbent's contribution into the Polish-Jewish relationship area must be carefully checked. That requires a significant time. Thus, I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out the situation with the election banner (and I was just one out of 3 Wikipedians who was doing that, and I am sure other two spent even more time), and I spent approximately 1.5 hour to read the original source and understand what concrete point did that table demonstrate in the source (which required some skills that not every Wikipedian has). And I am leaving beyond the scope the time needed to identify all suspicious and questionable edits made by him. Do you really value his contributions so high that they outweigh the time of other users who will have to carefully check Poeticbent's writing?

Anyway, I presented my point of view on Poeticbent, I am not going to discuss it anymore. I am not going to add new evidences against him, let's wait for arbitrators decision. The current section is primarily about a conflict between Icewhiz and VM. I am seeing some signs of a possibility of its resolution. I propose to focus on that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I'll add a bit on Poeticbent. Here Poeticbent adds Jean-François Steiner's "novelization" of Treblinka history in 2013. To be fair, Steiner was already in use in the article - but in 2016 Poeticbent created the wiki article on Steiner, and included as a source Richard Glazar's critique of Steiner - but Poeticbent did not remove Steiner as a source - which just boggles the mind. No historian would consider Steiner at all as a source, but when I looked at the Treblinka article (here's the diff from 9 November 2018) it was still used at least twice. (We'll leave aside the use of Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which is generally considered to be a memoir by most historians and not an academic or particularly reliable history either). Steiner is NOT reliable. Should not be used. And even if PB didn't know that in 2013, he SHOULD have known it when he created Steiner's article in 2016... and should have made an effort to remove Steiner as a source on the GOOD ARTICLE on Treblinka. There are other issues with the Treblinka article - it appears to rely on a large number of memoirs/primary sources rather than secondary sources for one, but this is another example of issues with PB's editing. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Volunteer Marek: - If you would agree to stop following me around to articles you've never edited / haven't edited recently (articles not on your watchlist) + recognized the problematic nature of some of Poeticbent's contributions (I'll note - you've already done so on June 2018 - "If you want to blame somebody for that text, then blame whoever put it in [6], which was this guy" - as that guy (Lewinowicz) - was confirmed to Poeticbent at SPI (the 14 September 2011 batch is confirmed to each other)... At least my understanding of Poeticbent's impact on the topic area has vastly expanded since then - IIRC Stawiski was the first really big one I found, and if not among the first) - then that would be a way forward.Icewhiz (talk) 05:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz, I didn't understand: do you want me to ask arbitrators to suspend the case regarding VM (leave Poeticbent beyond the scope) while you (I mean you and VM) are discussing possible ways to resolve the conflict, or not? If yes, then the sooner you tell me that the better, because that may save a lot of time of other people.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Paul - I suggested a possible compromise here for VM. If he commits to stop following me around (to approx. 38 articles between 15 and 30 may - I had over 30 reverts bells on the top of my screen at some point (I stopped paying them heed and let them pile up)) + recognizes that there are some issues with Poeticbent content - I can agree to move to suspend this at ARBCOM. I'm looking at this forward - I want to review Poeticbent content (and not just the 24 September 2011 sockpuppet content) - and this requires careful review (at least in important articles - e.g. - I already spotted issues in two extermination camps - Belzec extermination camp and Chełmno extermination camp). Look at what I got after I removed this (not Poeticbent) in December - [7] - I don't want this hostility at every turn. Icewhiz (talk) 14:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz, I haven't put this in my evidence yet, but it's pretty obvious that you have "followed" me to far more articles than I have "followed" you. You also have a tendency to insert the same piece of text into multiple articles, so if I see you adding it one article which I already have edited, it's not surprising that I'll also say something if you put the same piece of text in another article that I may not have edited previously. From my end, I would AT THE VERY LEAST like for you to commit to stop turning WP:BLP articles on historians who don't agree with your POV (Davies, Musial, etc) into attack pages. If there are some truly extremist historians like Kurek where you really think we need to expand "Criticism" in their respective articles, you can bring it up on talk page.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:11, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Regarding this part of your request: "(VM) recognized the problematic nature of some of Poeticbent's contributions" --- like you point out, I already do that in some instances (I haven't look at all the content). But generally... I'm hesitant to discuss a person who is actually absent from Wikipedia and who isn't here to defend themselves. It feels kind of ... sleezy, like talking about someone behind their back (discussing specific content, like the photo, is fine). Also, since I've been around much longer, I'm also aware of some stuff other stuff that happened a long time ago on Wikipedia that may be relevant that also makes me uncomfortable discussing this particular user (I'm being purposefully vague).Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe that is not a really important issue? What if you focus on more important things?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:30, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Except the accusation is still sitting there in Icewhiz's "Evidence".Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The other problem is that once you find a source, even a questionable one, which fits neatly in with your POV you try to milk it for all its worth on as many articles as possible. One example is Michilic and that single line from one of her books about ethno-nationalist history - how many times have you brought it up? There may be an article or two where it's relevant but in most cases it's simply WP:UNDUE. Yet you completely refuse to acknowledge that. Even worse, is your attempts to put Janicka into as many articles as possible (including the Casimir article you link to - in that instance, you actually pull it out of a freakin' footnote and ignore the actual interview itself). Janicka is in fact a photographer, not a historian or anything close to it. Her views are WP:FRINGE even by the standards of people like Michilic. Most of the stuff she writes is glorified opinion pieces full of "post-modernist" claptrap. And not even "good postmodernism" kind, but like some infantile caricature of it. You KNOW it's a low quality source. Yet you insist on putting it in anywhere you can.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Do you realise that some mutually acceptable sourcing rules will eliminate a possibility of this type problems?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Potentially. It depends on what these rules are. Also there is another concern - on Wikipedia, as we all know, "rules" often stop being about actually improving articles and often end up being a weapon in the WP:BATTLEGROUND arsenal. Once you put a "rule" in place you also create a hundred disputes over whether the rule is being obeyed or not. I'd have to see the specific product before I buy it, caveat emptor and all.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Usually, rules are being gamed when they are seen as external. When two persons acting in a good faith develop their own rules, a probability that they will game them is low.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:07, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Frankly speaking, I see the problem not in VM's following you. The actual reason of a conflict is that you both advocate too extreme points of view. That is why you both are vital for the articles belonging to this topic. You both are biased, and the truth is somewhere in the middle, so if you both simultaneously decide to soften your positions, the overall result will be very positive. I think you just need to discuss major principles. I think these sourcing restrictions are a good starting point for a discussion, although I think the rules you proposed were too strict. If you are ready to start a discussion with VM, we can inform arbitrators about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Those sourcing restrictions were rejected by the ArbCom [8]. And for good reason. 4) is more or less already policy and there is very little practical objection to it. 2) and 3) however are a round about attempt to eliminate all Polish sources, even academic ones, from these articles which flies completely contrary to Wikipedia policies like WP:NPOV, WP:BALANCE and of course WP:SYSTEMIC BIAS (not a policy but an important consideration). Like I've pointed out repeatedly - how come nobody makes ridiculous proposals like these which try to insist on removing all French sources from French history articles? This is straight up ethnic bias and a type of Orientalism. As far as I'm concerned 2) and 3) are non-negotiable. It's very important to have Polish sources (reliable ones of course) represented in Poland related articles. This is a no-brainer.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I know they were rejected (otherwise there would be no point in this discussion). They are too strict, but nothing prevents you both to develop some common rules you will be sticking with voluntarily. If that will work, it may set a good precedent.

Under "too strict" I mean that too much Polish sources will be eliminated. However, current rules are too loose, and Icewhiz is right that many junk sources are being used. Why cannot you discuss it with Icewhiz to develop some mutually acceptable rules?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:23, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, the problem is in defining "too much". If Icewhiz wants to come up with a list of "junk sources" which are being used I can review these and I expect I will agree with him on some, maybe many, of these. But I will most certainly object to attempts to remove reliable works by Polish scholars and historians solely on the basis that they're Polish (this includes most attempts to remove IPN related sources written by historians and scholars (their "review of media" can usually be removed)). This might be a productive exercise as it would provide us something practical with which to clarify the disagreements.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

{ec}"the problem is in defining "too much"" - maybe, it is a good time to start discussing it with Icewhiz?

"attempts to remove reliable works by Polish scholars and historians solely on the basis that they're Polish " - you probably noticed that this section starts with Icewhiz's words: "I've actually grown appreciative of some very good Polish language scholarship and sources over the past year". Regarding IPN, I have no idea on it, however, similar institute in Ukraine is a source of totally terrible whitings. Anyway, that can be a good subject of a discussion.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Mmm, yes. The Ukrainian one is... kind of a caricature or at best a weak copy of the Polish one. IPN has made some controversial decisions that have pissed off people on all sides of the political spectrum (hence you can certainly find a lot of criticism of them, but I think this rather reflects their independence) and the standards are quite high.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Polish vs Ukrainian IPN's, there is one good Russian joke "Наш разведчик высок и строен, а их шпион тощ и долговяз" (sorry for Russian, but the translation to English kills the whole humour. Anyway, since you see that Icewhiz is not going to reject all Polish sources, you can develop some mutual criteria.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but first of all we have a conduct issue here - WP:HOUNDING and misrepresentation of sources - this is prior to even speaking of how we select sources. Paul as for "too extreme points of view" - please show such an example. Jan T. Gross is required reading in any college course on the topic - take a look at his reception at RSN and article (and I didn't bring him up - WikiEducation did, as a course assignment! (and if you'll look at the article history - after the student was done, well, certain hands removed/balanced things up again) Frankly, I know that if I use Gross it probably will end up with a spurious challenge - which is why I tend not to use him). The Polish language sources being pushed on the other side here are often opinion columns from Rzeczpospolita or wpolityce.pl. It's easy to state looking from the outside that there are two "extremes" here - but frankly - what's being contrasted here is mainstream academic writing in English vs. sources, often non-academic, that are deeply on one side of the debate even within Poland. The Polish Wikipedia is actually more balanced than the English one - and I say this both based on personal experience on many articles - and based on outside observers who are surprised at this - e.g. Wolniewicz-Slomka, Daniel. "Framing the Holocaust in popular knowledge: 3 articles about the Holocaust in English, Hebrew and Polish Wikipedia." Adeptus 8 (2016): 29-49. - "Furthermore, the English version of the articles, in spite of being expected to perform as a “middle-ground”, neutral version, proved during the analysis to have numerous cases of biased structure or judgmental language". German and Hebrew sources are equally if not more important than Polish sources in this topic area - I haven't advocated their use. Icewhiz (talk) 15:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, in a situation with "Gross vs Golden Harvest of Hearts of Gold" you are totally right: a well recognised author was criticised in some obscure book with zero citations and no reviews, which was mentioned only once in a review on Gross, as an inconvinsing attempt of some Polish authors to question his conclusions.

However, in some other cases when you say that VM's edits are not supported by sources you are not right: I checked the sources (I have no time now to provide concrete information), and those did contain the words cited by VM. On another hand, VM frequently put emphasis incorrectly, and that is why he should be checked, and that is why I see no problem in following him by you.

By saying that, I do not mean you are totally right. Thus, when you are removing the information about ethnicity of the perpetrators of Stalinist crimes (which is correct, because if we write "Jewish Polish" about Polish Jews, we should write "Polish Polish" about Polish Poles; btw, that is how I found the infamous Poeticbent's table: I started to look at the articles about Polish stakinists, adn I found the Ministry article), you also are removing some relevant information about their crimes. That is incorrect, and that is one (out of many) reasons VM has a right to follow your edits.

In general, IMO, by following each other you are doing a good job.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I am done for today, if you decide we can inform arbitrators, let me know (or do it yourselves). Good luck you both.

:-) --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:53, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to follow VM. I don't follow VM. VM, AFAICT, doesn't add much content to this topic area at all - he goes mostly around and reverts content created by other people (either back in, or back out) - e.g. in all or most of the source-misuses I've seen him involved in - someone else actually introduced the text - VM then reverts / partial-reverts / tweaks. And vs. me - he's abrasive. Very abrasive. In terms of sourcing - Janicka who is repeatedly being challenged as a "photographer" - is in fact a literature researcher at ISPAN [9] / cultural anthropologist[10] / "a historian of literature at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (ISS PAS). After an M.A. from the Université Paris VII Denis Diderot, she received her PhD from Warsaw University. Her research interests concern the cultural patterns, narratives, and phantasms legitimizing violence and exclusion."[11]. She has a PhD. She is published in journals in the field (e.g. - East European Jewish Affairs) - and she's actually based in Poland. Per VM above - she's "FRINGE". It seems those who publish her and cite her don't think she's fringe. I would think that she would be a good source for cultural/literature topics - e.g. Esterka or Paradisus Judaeorum - as well as some connected aspects. I think that Janicka being challenged on the basis she also has (or had?) a career as an artistic photographer is rather extreme - and this on works she's published in academic journals. I complain when we have self-published sources. Or op-eds in right-wing media. If I were in BATTLEGROUND - I would bring equivalent right-wing media in English, German, and Hebrew - there are nationalists screeds in any language - and use that as a "starting position" for compromise - but I don't. Instead - when I bring a possibly liberal leaning (frankly - I don't know Janicka's politics) scholar from Poland, publishing in English in an academic setting, that's fringe? Icewhiz (talk) 17:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Paul, I appreciate your good faith and... optimism, but aside from the sourcing issue there is actually a more fundamental problem here. While right here, Icewhiz may be pretending to play nice and makes a show of engaging in what could be a constructive discussion, over at the actual ArbCom Case page (which ultimately the page that matters cuz that's where stuff will get decided) he's busy piling on the bullshit and false accusations. Like here. He apparently has a problem with the fact that I once reverted a sock puppet of a Neo-Nazi user who was indef banned for spreading neo-Nazi propaganda and also making violent threats against me. Oh but it gets worse! I not only reverted the neo-Nazi fuck, I had the temerity to point out that it was a sock puppet. So I made... ASPERSIONS!!!!! Oh no!!!! How dare I??? ArbCom please ban me right now!!!

Why. The. Hell. Is. Icewhiz. Trying. To. Use. This. As. Evidence???

There is no way in this universe that his bringing this up can be understood in a positive manner. He should have no problem with me reverting sock puppet of Neo Nazi assholes or AT THE VERY LEAST he should be capable of understanding of why I did. Instead, he runs to ArbCom and pretends like this was some evil act on my part. Why?

Well, let's see. This Neo-Nazi guy, aside from pushing neo-Nazi crap on Wikipedia of all sorts, also kind of hated Poles. Which, you know, is not uncommon. In fact, kind of goes together very often. So... I don't know, should I "connect the dots" for you here and risk Icewhiz putting up this very statement in his evidence section? Oh what the hell, sure, I will. The Neo-Nazi guy had a anti-Polish agenda. I reverted the Neo-Nazi guy and his anti-Polish agenda. And Icewhiz got upset because even though the guy was a neo-Nazi he still, according to his POV, had the "right" agenda. So from his point of view, reverting of that agenda was the wrong thing to do. Kind of like when Icewhiz tried to use far-right anti-semitic sources HIMSELF. Because in that one instance they happened to support his POV.

That's the thing. Here, on your talk page Icewhiz is putting on his best act trying to appear reasonable. Meanwhile, over on the ArbCom page, he is piling on the attacks and smears and lies. Why should I trust someone who does stuff like this? Whatever "sourcing rules" we come up with today, he'll ignore tomorrow or more likely, try to use them against me. That's the reasonable expectation a rational person would make from this situation.

If Icewhiz is serious about resolving these disputes and differences, he needs to start by making a show of good faith and either 1) as you suggested, making a motion to drop me from the ArbCom case, or 2) at the very least cease adding the false accusations to his "Evidence" page.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:29, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Do you remember why Athena decided not to save Tydeus?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:11, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Something about eating brains? Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:19, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes. And under "Athena" I mean ArbCom. --Paul Siebert (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: - I very much support reversions of neo-Nazi sockpuppets. However, no evidence has been offered to show that the 64-bit IP in question was such (other than IP geolocation (you aren't accusing all Germans of being neo-Nazis, are you?) and use of Germanized English ("ist")). The IP's edit was more than reasonable - and looking at the article history - Barczewo history - other users thought their rationale made sense (and having looked at part of the sources and misuse of them - at least some of it had to go). I understand you had a conflict with a user in 2013. You filed a SPI in 2015 - Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kaiser von Europa/Archive - that was partially rejected (vs. the named user, some of the IPs were blocked - not sure they were actually matched socks or rather just blocked for being disruptive). I don't see any concrete evidence offered to show that the 2017 IP is a sockpuppet. Germans being interested in former-German towns is far from unusual. If you do want to compromise here - I can't work here if you follow me to a large fraction of the pages I edit. I don't enjoy it. I don't think you enjoy it. I need you to stop doing this - a commitment to stop doing this. If you want to setup a mechanism - e.g. alerting a 3rd party (a neutral one) to mediate in a small subset of articles you see me editing (assuming you're interested in monitoring my edits) - and that I discuss your concerns with them - I'm fine with that too. But opening my computer in the morning and seeing 12 revert bells on top, and a bunch of angry TP posts / edit summaries - is not my idea of enjoyable editing. Is it yours? The ARBCOM case is open, and I intend to present my case in the best manner possible there as long as it is open. I am also willing to reach an out of ARBCOM settlement. Icewhiz (talk) 08:34, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

"However, no evidence has been offered to show that the 64-bit IP in question..." - that's not actually true. I've provided the name of the admin who blocked the original sock master who could easily confirm this. You could have also simply WP:AGF'd. You could have objected to the nature of the revert, but not the revert itself (per BANREVERT). You could have looked at the IP's and the sock master's contributions - the link between the two is obvious. Most of all, you simply could have NOT try to put it in evidence and NOT tried to cynically use that "diff" as part of your BATTLEGROUND. You did not do any of these things.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz, if I were you, I would suspend my activity on the Arbitration page while the discussion of that kind is in progress. Otherwise it creates an impression (probably false) that you are not completely sincere in your attempts to find a solution. Of course, that is just my opinion, and I am not going to share it with anyone. However, when I am reading your posts here and there that causes a kind of cognitive dissonance, and I am asking myself: "Are you sure you are not wasting your time?"

In addition, as you can see, your posts at the Arbitration page seem to distract VM from proposing his criteria to source selection. Meanwhile, the need of good rules for source selection both parties will be sticking with is the idea yourself are advocating.

Cheers, --Paul Siebert (talk) 14:46, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

PS. On on 20:49, 14 June 2019, My very best wishes, as user who is not welcome on my talk page, left a post addressed to you. I removed it, but if you are interested to read it, look at the talk page history.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

The underlying problem here is less source selection (though that has been a problem as well - that we are seriously discussing self published works by fringe figures is an issue as well) - but hounding, personal attacks, and source misuse - either highly cherrypicked or fabrication - e.g. Krzyzanowski is a bit of both (his entire conclusion reads the complete opposite, important qualifications (two small cities, on the basis of court records, that this was only a court order) removed). VM, in particular, is following me around, making really poor reverts (from the face of it - it seems he is making no effort to verify sourcing when it is challenged as a V issue) - and discussion with him, when it happens, is a mere semblence of a discussion (e.g. "sources are fine" - for a low quality local publication that doesn't even say what he is reverting back in) - and remain stonewalled until a 3rd party shows up. I've had it. Either he stops - or this goes forward. Any compromise here will involve VM stopping his hounding. I am willing to discuss sourcing, but if VM does not agree to cease with his HOUNDING - there really is nothing to discuss in terms of pulling ARBCOM.Icewhiz (talk) 05:56, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

"though that has been a problem as well - that we are seriously discussing self published works by fringe figures" - the ONLY reason we are discussing such works is because you keep bringing it up despite the fact that no one here is actually proposing using such works.

I am NOT "following you around". I am editing a particular topic area and I have been editing this topic area for about TWELVE years longer than you have. If you really do have a sincere desire to resolve this conflict, rather than trying to just use this page to engage in a phony display of of dialogue, then you will drop this allegation, and you will remove the false allegations (this one as well as the previous one I mentioned) from your "evidence" section. Better yet, clarify to ArbCom, as you stated explicitly here, that your primary and main concern is with Poeticbent and not me. The fact that you are now trying to back out of this dialogue just as it started to look like it might actually lead to something productive indicates a very deep running bad faith. Quite simply, you're putting on an act for Paul and whoever might be watching. You're not sincere, it's just another WP:GAME you're playing as part of your WP:BATTLEGROUND approach.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

The evidence of hounding is clearcut - and includes many articles you have never-ever edited in your twelve years here as well as newly created articles (and prior to them being linked to where you might be watching) you jumped into while they were work in progress. If you want to come to a settlement here - hounding has to stop, and I need a statement from you at ARBCOM repudiating Poeticbent. I am offering this because I actually care more about content than conduct - and what is of paramount importance for me is cleaning up the many Poeticbent contributions in mainspace. You place a clear stmt repudiating + a commitment to stop following me to articles - and I drop all evidence against you and focus on Poeticbent content at ARBCOM.Icewhiz (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I haven't analyzed any evidences provided by you, and my comments are just general. If VM expresses interest in Poland history, and he has been editing Polish history related articles for more than a decade, it looks natural that he is monitoring the activity of another user who is making questionable (in his opinion) edits to the same area (not necessarily to the articles that he was working with previously). The fact that VM didn't edit some particular Poland related article and he started to do so after you have made some change may have two explanations (i) he is hounding, and (ii) he saw no problem with this particular article until you came. Since Poland in general is the focus of VM's activity, I think the second explanation is quite plausible.

Personally, I see no problem when some user is watching my contributions and modify them, provided that they are acting in good faith and share my vision on which sources are reliable and represent a majority POV. That means, the core issue in your conflict with VM is not (hypothetical) hounding, but the discussion about sources, which you started below. You explained your point of view on that, and I am grateful. Now, please, let VM to focus on his part. Believe me, I perfectly understand him: your continuing posts at the Arbitration page are really discouraging, and he has a good reason to believe any continuation of the discussion about sources is senseless. Meanwhile, I believe it IS important, and it will help you to come to mutual understanding.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:38, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

He has followed me outside of the Polish topic area as well - e.g. [12][13] (restoring a newly created duplicate category). His interactions with me in the Polish topic area are not constructive - he just shows up and stonewalls. e.g. - [14] - accusations of sock-puppetry + a blurb "and the source is reliable" is not a discussion. The source itself - a local magazine funded by the municipality is far from "fine" - and per my reading does not contain the language VM restored. Note his failure to provide any quotes or anything resembling an argument. And this goes on - article after article. He shows up, reverts, often absent in talk and when he does show up in talk - it's a non-argument ("It's fine") as opposed to backing up his assertion with quotes from the source, other sources, or with a reasonable argument. This tends to continue until a third party shows up at the article. I've had enough of this - the evidence of hounding here is very clear cut, as are the personal attacks. Icewhiz (talk) 05:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

That reminds me a joke about a poet, a physicist and a mathematician who were traveling in New Zealand and who have seen a black sheep from distance. The poet exclaimed "Oh, in New Zealand sheep are black!" The physicist corrected him: "Some seep are black in New Zealand." And the mathematician specified: "In New Zealand, there is at least one sheep, which has at least one black side."

Icewhiz, VM had followed you outside Polish related area only twice, and he added some category, which is hardly too controversial. If I were you, I would pay zero attention to that. With regard to the last diff, yes, to write just "the source is reliable" is absolutely incorrect. However, you probably have noticed that I am maintaining that the development of a common approach to the determination of reliability/mainstreamness of sources is a key problem, and it seems VM already agreed with that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:55, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Oh these weren't the only two examples - they just were silly ones (undoing two of my edits on a category duplication recently added and on articles he's rather uninterested in) - there are a few more. In regards to "the source is reliable" - beyond being possibly incorrect - that particular phrase wasn't in the source AFAICT - so it wasn't just a source selection issue. The response was basically a non-response.Icewhiz (talk) 17:03, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Whats happenen

Yo Paul man how did you get involved? I did not know I had fans on Wikipedia--Woogie10w (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Didn't you know that I am your fan? ;-)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I am too busy reading Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas by John J. Hennessy. I have no time for Wikipedia--Woogie10w (talk) 03:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)