Wikipedia:Featured article review/Anschluss
- Article is still a featured article.
- nominated for removal on June 26
Reason: The article has several problems:
- It has pov-issues, which a featured article should not have. Therefore this version cannot be considered stable, which is another requirement for featured standard. The article reads like the author is trying to prove a point, namely calling the Anschluß annexation - which is something no Austrian publishing house would print. This problem is apparent in the intro and lateron there is a complete section called "the word" which the author probably made up (no sources). Also, the author carefully avoids any mention of the official standpoint of the austrian government (accepting moral responsibility), calls the Anschluss 'invasion' and so on.
- It is 50 percent off topic. The first half does deal with the Anschluss and needs some work, lacks essential info (see f. i. talk, request by StanZegel). The second half is a bad article on current austrian politics. (Maybe splitting is a solution).
- The article has references and footnotes but the references lack quality. Most of the text seems to be based on one article in the Wiener Zeitung, a viennese daily. For an article on history, historians should be quoted, not journalists. A section called 'The appeal of Nazism to Austrians' absolutely needs sources, and in this case I mean inline notes. --Fenice 06:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Remove or Revert to newly-FA'd versionI don't agree that the article is off topic, the "current Austrian politics" seem relevant to the Anschluss. ,The POV-ing is a major problem, however. Borisblue 30 June 2005 02:52 (UTC)- Strong Keep after rereading the article, its FAC, and the Peer Review, I have come to the conclusion that this has indeed gone through the FAC process rigorously, and is deserving of FAC status. I don't get the impression that the article is trying to prove a point, and if it is missing the perspective of the Austrian Govt then by all means add it. The two other objections are baseless. Firstly, the relevance of the current austrian politics half is clear; i don't see how the article can remain comprehensive if it is removed. Secondly, WHAT exactly is wrong with using journalists as reference? They are a primary source, perhaps even MORE credible than works of historians (secondary source) Borisblue 6 July 2005 02:07 (UTC)
- Rigorous process? On the contrary: it was exceptionally lenient. If you have read the peer-review, I am sure you have noticed there wasn't one. These are just the authors talking among themselves. You have read the FAC: Some articles get reviewed by as many as 10 people, this article had four support votes (one of them by Martg76, who made only minor contributions, so I think it is fair to count her support-vote). Also, the Anschluss article is undoubtedly not up to the standards because featured article criteria officially do include NPOV, see here: Wikipedia:What is a featured article. You do acknowledge that the official stance of the government should be added (that is the acceptance of moral responsibility): as you have seen this article has been on here for quite a while... and it has not been added. (How stable do you think it was going to be if it were added?) Concerning the relevance of the extensive current-politics-section while leaving out important aspects of the historical event (text on first ballot, for instance): as I mentioned on the talk page of Anschluss: you can always argue that historical events are relevant to the present. Your inherent argument, I assume, is probably that the Schussel blunder from several years ago justifies half the article being on current politics. The main issue in current politics though goes much farther (denial of the existence of death camps), so why not move this section to death camp. The section on the victim theory in this article should be about one screen long. You have obviously read somewhere that journalists are a primary source. This may be true in certain cases, in this instance if the authors were to dig up papers of the time of the Anschluss and quote them - fine (for those who didn't look closely; the article in question is from 1998, the Anschluss was in 1938). To claim that the Wiener Zeitung is a better source for this article than historians is quite strange, I really don't know what to say to that. I don't agree anyway. (Do you know the Wiener Zeitung? All I can tell you about it is that I have personally never read it and I cannot report any hearsay on it because it is a running gag among Austrian academia that no-one can comment on the quality of the journalism in the Wiener Zeitung because no one reads the reports in it. (The Wiener Zeitung is a paper that exists mainly for the publication of Austrian laws.)) By the way: it can be assumed that historians do base their works also on journalistic reports (of the relevant time of course). --Fenice 6 July 2005 06:06 (UTC)
- I think the question we all are asking is why didn't you, or any of the editors who feel the same way bring this up during the FAC or peer review? Peer review was started may 18, last comment on the FAC was June 17, A MONTH to bring up your concerns. If it was such blatantly POV even from the time even before the FAC, why was the tag only put up 2 weeks ago?
Really smells like bad faith to meBorisblue 6 July 2005 09:05 (UTC)- Borisblue, you explicitely claimed that you read the FAC and the peer review - I did not participate in that, check again. And please read my comment if you respond to it: I already hinted at the fact that only the authors participated in peer review. The tag was put up a few days late because it is common practise to see if there is not a consensual way of dealing with the problem - some editors try to solve the problem by just fixing it. The attempt to fix the problem was met by the start of a revert war by user themanwithoutapast.--Fenice 6 July 2005 10:10 (UTC)
- I know you didn't participate. I just doubt whether my initial impressions of this article being major POV were correct. I was just wondering why, if this POV issue is such a big problem it wasn't screened during the process? Surely somebody would have found it out if it was on PR and FAC for a month plus, unless the POV missing is not a very commonly held one? And are you referring to this diff? your version actually isn't any more NPOV than the revert, I'm afriad, where at least the revert acknowledges Anschluss can mean both "connection" AND "annexation". I've edited the defintion a little to be more acceptable. Borisblue 6 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)
- Going through the history I've come across this paragraph, it's from the old FAC'd edition (June 18 or therabouts) but i think is still in the current revision:
- The Anschluss can be misunderstood as simply a military annexation of an unwilling Austria, but this lends itself to confusion with other German military occupations of European countries. It also tends to conceal the culpability of many Austrians in Nazi crimes, most of all the Shoah, by perpetuating the myth of Austria as the first victim of Hitler's expansionism. Despite the subversion of Austrian political process by Hitler's sympathizers and associates in Austria, Austrian acceptance of direct government by Hitler's Berlin is a very different phenomenon from the administration of other collaborationist countries.
- So it does give space to the POV that Anschluss is a willing union. I retract my earlier statement that this article has major POV problems, i now think it is in fact NPOV Borisblue 6 July 2005 13:58 (UTC)
- This is still in the text. Nice piece of text, despite lots of weasel terms, but the word military is crucial. In the context of the rest of the text working around the relevant core issues (Austria wasn't annexed, it joined jubilatingly, there are video documents of this) this reads like a npov-alibi. In relation to the size of the article I don't think it does the job. --Fenice 6 July 2005 14:37 (UTC)
- How about On the morning of 12 March the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the German-Austrian border. They did not face resistance by the Austrian Army — on the contrary, the German troops were greeted by cheering Austrians? I think facts were represented here quite accurately. Borisblue 6 July 2005 14:51 (UTC)
- There are some good phrases in it. But look at this, which is in the lead section: Although the Anschluss constituted a military invasion by the Wehrmacht, no fighting took place... And I don't think it could be npoved by adding another ethymology-section that says that invasion really derives from latin invadere and really honestly only means walking in...
- How about On the morning of 12 March the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the German-Austrian border. They did not face resistance by the Austrian Army — on the contrary, the German troops were greeted by cheering Austrians? I think facts were represented here quite accurately. Borisblue 6 July 2005 14:51 (UTC)
- The Anschluss can be misunderstood as simply a military annexation of an unwilling Austria, but this lends itself to confusion with other German military occupations of European countries. It also tends to conceal the culpability of many Austrians in Nazi crimes, most of all the Shoah, by perpetuating the myth of Austria as the first victim of Hitler's expansionism. Despite the subversion of Austrian political process by Hitler's sympathizers and associates in Austria, Austrian acceptance of direct government by Hitler's Berlin is a very different phenomenon from the administration of other collaborationist countries.
- I don't know how many thousands of active Wikipedian there are on this project. The number of declared Austrians among them is very small (there is a list somewhere - most are not active any more) and also the number of undeclared Austrians is probably small (the country has but 9 million inhabitants and there is a German Wikipedia for their needs, and also there is a language barrier to join controversial discussions in a foreign language). The number of people belonging to both groups and passing FAC was obviously zero or maybe not representative or attentative. It is a specific country-related problem not everyone can judge or is even interested in. The public stance of the Austrian government is that Austria was not annexed, and that the country carries part of the responsibility. It is this official standpoint and an accurate account of historical events that matters. (Most of the rest is contentious). There is no need for the pc mention that it could be viewed as an annexation (other than in a context clearly stating it was not). The article carefully avoids describing what actually happened (cheering), and it avoids the correct translation of the word Anschluss (joining, cf. Langenscheidt), but claims in the text that Austria was annexed. To me, leaving out 'annexation' altogether, is one viable alternative. The other option is to really take up the question and state that it was not an annexation. Or link to the little Heldenplatz-movie every time it is mentioned, but the image is very small and you cannot actually tell that people are cheering Hitler. Like this quote from the text: ...when around 200,000 Austrians gathered on the Heldenplatz (Hero's Square) to hear Hitler proclaim the Austrian Anschluss (Video: Hitler proclaims Austria's inclusion in the Reich (2MB)). --Fenice 6 July 2005 14:28 (UTC)
- Fair point, I didn't consider that there might be only a small number of Austrian wikipedians. But anschluss=annexation is also a commonly held point of view, GoogleAnschluss for instance and the second webpage on the list, after wikipedia is titled "The "Anschluss" - Annexation of Austria by Germany" (this is an austrian site btw). I still believe my edit on the definition is the most accurate. You have to at least mention that a lot of people take anschluss to mean annexation.Borisblue 6 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)
- I know that it is one of the commonly held views in Austria, both the annexation claim and the invasion theory. You are dealing with a nation of people whose Grand Dads were Nazis. No matter what the official position of the government, at the Heuriger people will tell you many of the things in the text. This is the definition of hearsay. And it is perfectly explainable if you consider the psychological background (guilt at best). But it is inappropriate in an encyclopedic history article. The fifth link in your goolge-link provides this .edu link. There is no talk of annexion. They use the word Anschluss and unification. If you do use the word annexion in the text it needs to be made perfectly clear that it wasn't. I think you may have gotten the misleading impression that the meaning of annexation is a common meaning of the German word anschluss. It is not. Anschluss means joining, and it can also mean union in a political sense. The meaning was twisted later, at the development of the victim theory, to make up for the guilt, see also cycle of violence. It is quite common for any kind of criminal to turn the tables or to defer guilt to the victim or the environment.--Fenice 6 July 2005 16:32 (UTC)
- The lead does say that "annexation" is not a literal definition. Besides if it's a commonly held view then doesn't it deserve to be here? Read WP:NPOV. Besides, encarta also defines it as annexation here: [1]Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:41 (UTC)
- If it isn't a literal definition then why give it to the reader in the first place? And why in the first sentence? Commonly held views are usually included at the bottom, and it is marked which group claims this. Like: you cannot start a stone-age article by saying, actually the stone age does not exist because God created Adam and Eve about 4000 years ago. Or starting an article on Abortion by: The Catholic Church thinks abortion is a sin. And omitting everything else. Like the literal translation, joining, in this case. As I have said several times, if you by all means cannot resist the temptation to put in annexation, then you absolutely clearly and factually acurately need to state that it was not, elaborate on why it was not.--Fenice 8 July 2005 12:36 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I do not aim to give a dictionary defintion of the word "anschluss", but rather the meaning of it in context of 1938. Both Encarta AND Britannica write that in the first paragraph, so why should we omit it?Borisblue 8 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)
- The lead does say that "annexation" is not a literal definition. Besides if it's a commonly held view then doesn't it deserve to be here? Read WP:NPOV. Besides, encarta also defines it as annexation here: [1]Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:41 (UTC)
- I know that it is one of the commonly held views in Austria, both the annexation claim and the invasion theory. You are dealing with a nation of people whose Grand Dads were Nazis. No matter what the official position of the government, at the Heuriger people will tell you many of the things in the text. This is the definition of hearsay. And it is perfectly explainable if you consider the psychological background (guilt at best). But it is inappropriate in an encyclopedic history article. The fifth link in your goolge-link provides this .edu link. There is no talk of annexion. They use the word Anschluss and unification. If you do use the word annexion in the text it needs to be made perfectly clear that it wasn't. I think you may have gotten the misleading impression that the meaning of annexation is a common meaning of the German word anschluss. It is not. Anschluss means joining, and it can also mean union in a political sense. The meaning was twisted later, at the development of the victim theory, to make up for the guilt, see also cycle of violence. It is quite common for any kind of criminal to turn the tables or to defer guilt to the victim or the environment.--Fenice 6 July 2005 16:32 (UTC)
- Oh, please do add the movie, btw if it's copyright status is OK. We need more multimedia in wikipedia. Borisblue 6 July 2005 14:51 (UTC)
- Fair point, I didn't consider that there might be only a small number of Austrian wikipedians. But anschluss=annexation is also a commonly held point of view, GoogleAnschluss for instance and the second webpage on the list, after wikipedia is titled "The "Anschluss" - Annexation of Austria by Germany" (this is an austrian site btw). I still believe my edit on the definition is the most accurate. You have to at least mention that a lot of people take anschluss to mean annexation.Borisblue 6 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)
- Going through the history I've come across this paragraph, it's from the old FAC'd edition (June 18 or therabouts) but i think is still in the current revision:
- I know you didn't participate. I just doubt whether my initial impressions of this article being major POV were correct. I was just wondering why, if this POV issue is such a big problem it wasn't screened during the process? Surely somebody would have found it out if it was on PR and FAC for a month plus, unless the POV missing is not a very commonly held one? And are you referring to this diff? your version actually isn't any more NPOV than the revert, I'm afriad, where at least the revert acknowledges Anschluss can mean both "connection" AND "annexation". I've edited the defintion a little to be more acceptable. Borisblue 6 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)
What do you consider bad faith? Can you express yourself more clearly?I eliminate that - I don't want to provoke further attacks.--Fenice 6 July 2005 10:32 (UTC)- Eliminated "attack". I just want to say I'd feel more comfortable about this FARC if it wasn't nominated by the same person who brought up those POV issues. Also, I'd think it would be better wikiquette if you had contacted User:themanwithoutapast first, since he nominated the article for FAC. I didn't want it to seem like an accusation, though sorry.Borisblue 6 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)
- Also, I am just curious: what is your background, what research did you do on current Austrian politics? --Fenice 6 July 2005 10:18 (UTC)
- My interest in this article is about WW2 history rather than austrian politics. I've done no research in current austrian politics. The entire current politics section could have been made up for all i know. All I'm saying is, if the stuff there is true, then it is indeed relevant; i don't think i need to be an expert in Austrian politics to see that. Borisblue 6 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)
- Borisblue, you explicitely claimed that you read the FAC and the peer review - I did not participate in that, check again. And please read my comment if you respond to it: I already hinted at the fact that only the authors participated in peer review. The tag was put up a few days late because it is common practise to see if there is not a consensual way of dealing with the problem - some editors try to solve the problem by just fixing it. The attempt to fix the problem was met by the start of a revert war by user themanwithoutapast.--Fenice 6 July 2005 10:10 (UTC)
- I think the question we all are asking is why didn't you, or any of the editors who feel the same way bring this up during the FAC or peer review? Peer review was started may 18, last comment on the FAC was June 17, A MONTH to bring up your concerns. If it was such blatantly POV even from the time even before the FAC, why was the tag only put up 2 weeks ago?
- Rigorous process? On the contrary: it was exceptionally lenient. If you have read the peer-review, I am sure you have noticed there wasn't one. These are just the authors talking among themselves. You have read the FAC: Some articles get reviewed by as many as 10 people, this article had four support votes (one of them by Martg76, who made only minor contributions, so I think it is fair to count her support-vote). Also, the Anschluss article is undoubtedly not up to the standards because featured article criteria officially do include NPOV, see here: Wikipedia:What is a featured article. You do acknowledge that the official stance of the government should be added (that is the acceptance of moral responsibility): as you have seen this article has been on here for quite a while... and it has not been added. (How stable do you think it was going to be if it were added?) Concerning the relevance of the extensive current-politics-section while leaving out important aspects of the historical event (text on first ballot, for instance): as I mentioned on the talk page of Anschluss: you can always argue that historical events are relevant to the present. Your inherent argument, I assume, is probably that the Schussel blunder from several years ago justifies half the article being on current politics. The main issue in current politics though goes much farther (denial of the existence of death camps), so why not move this section to death camp. The section on the victim theory in this article should be about one screen long. You have obviously read somewhere that journalists are a primary source. This may be true in certain cases, in this instance if the authors were to dig up papers of the time of the Anschluss and quote them - fine (for those who didn't look closely; the article in question is from 1998, the Anschluss was in 1938). To claim that the Wiener Zeitung is a better source for this article than historians is quite strange, I really don't know what to say to that. I don't agree anyway. (Do you know the Wiener Zeitung? All I can tell you about it is that I have personally never read it and I cannot report any hearsay on it because it is a running gag among Austrian academia that no-one can comment on the quality of the journalism in the Wiener Zeitung because no one reads the reports in it. (The Wiener Zeitung is a paper that exists mainly for the publication of Austrian laws.)) By the way: it can be assumed that historians do base their works also on journalistic reports (of the relevant time of course). --Fenice 6 July 2005 06:06 (UTC)
- Strong Keep after rereading the article, its FAC, and the Peer Review, I have come to the conclusion that this has indeed gone through the FAC process rigorously, and is deserving of FAC status. I don't get the impression that the article is trying to prove a point, and if it is missing the perspective of the Austrian Govt then by all means add it. The two other objections are baseless. Firstly, the relevance of the current austrian politics half is clear; i don't see how the article can remain comprehensive if it is removed. Secondly, WHAT exactly is wrong with using journalists as reference? They are a primary source, perhaps even MORE credible than works of historians (secondary source) Borisblue 6 July 2005 02:07 (UTC)
- This article was promoted 2 weeks ago. To quote the top fo the page -- Do not list articles that have recently been promoted—such complaints should have been brought up during the candidate period. →Raul654 06:47, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
- I'll take note of the formalities then. When does this period expire - when can I renominate it?--Fenice 07:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Because so much POV was added after the promotion, I'm not sure a new-kid-on-the-block immunity is appropriate for this article. I support removal (so it can be recast, perhaps starting with a translation of the German Wiki, and retaining some of the helpful graphics additions).--StanZegel 13:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Why not roll it back to the Featured version? Nathan256 29 June 2005 14:30 (UTC)
- Great idea! If that was only 2 weeks ago, it shouldn't cause too many problems Borisblue 30 June 2005 02:48 (UTC)
- I support this motion too! -- Rune Welsh ταλκ July 1, 2005 14:05 (UTC)
- I also support this idea. As the feature article discussion header says, " If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute." Obviously the people who inserted the POV issues disregarded this notice. The simple and correct thing to do is roll back the article.--Alabamaboy 1 July 2005 22:21 (UTC)
- I did take notice that there are formal problems for the removal before, Alabamaboy, see further up this page, and that even an article with nazism problems cannot be removed from the FA-list for a certain time period. I also did not insert any POV-issues, Alabamaboy, they were already there. (Rolling back to the time four people voted for this does not eliminate the POV.)--Fenice 1 July 2005 22:33 (UTC)
- Concerning the edits some people think should be rolled back: these are minor issues compared to the underlying general downplaying of the nazitime. The rewrite of the Haider section (not that it belongs in this article in any arguable way) by Mart76 was acutally a good one.--Fenice 1 July 2005 22:55 (UTC)
- The simple and correct thing to do, to quote Alabama Boy, is to acknowledge that we have a problem Wikipedia policy cannot solve.--Fenice 1 July 2005 22:57 (UTC)
- Comment: Reverting to the originally featured version would be counter-productive, since almost all substantial edits since then were intended to mitigate the POV problems the article arguably has. Martg76 2 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)
- Comment: Apologies for not having gotten back sooner, but I hadn't realised the conversation was continuing here and therefore didn't have it on my watchlist. Having written a healthy chunk of what is under contention, I take all of the points raised, although some with a grain of salt. Some of the objections can be rebutted or at least argued, others simply need to be addressed. Let's get that show on the road. As we have been told by an admin that we cannot have the article removed, I would prefer it we could move this conversation to the article talk page and concentrate on fixing the article. As no one has conceded to the argument that existing policy is insufficient and should therefore allow for removal, how about we at least get back to a substantial discussion of how to clean up the article? By the time Fenice is allowed to renominate here, we might as easily have an article that makes removal moot. If the policies need to be improved to reduce these cases going forward, some of them may become clearer in the clean-up discussion and work. Buffyg 7 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)
- Make no mistake about this, the page is still alive. Also there may be some problems with user:themanwithoutapast who resorts to reverting and not discussing, which may pose a problem in npoving the article.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:21 (UTC)
- If there's a problem with the article being reverted, isn't the article rather than the FARC page the place to raise this? There are in any case ways to deal with problems of that sort. I promise you my good faith in working out the edits. We've been told several times that discussion in this forum is a dead letter, why not focus on remedying the immediate problem, which is that we have an article that is substantially disputed? If there are policies implications, I tend to think it more productive to argue for remedy of the policies rather than the exceptional status of this candidacy, which does not appear to have a receptive audience. Please mistake me: the criteria I'm arguing are the likely outcomes based on available evidence rather than the virtues, and the available evidence is that the virtues you're arguing are precluded from short-term consideration. You can argue those virtues elsewhere, but why not make them moot for purposes of the article when that is an immediately available course of action? Buffyg 7 July 2005 08:31 (UTC)
- The point is: where a pov-warrior resorts to just reverting all wikipedia-policies fail and the possibility of npoving the article tends towards zero. (You can have the article protected. Great.) You are wrong, there are currently no ways to deal with problems of that sort. I have made that experience before. And unfortunately in this case we are not dealing with someone who is (appears so harmless now compared to the nazism problem) simply replacing content with bible verses.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:46 (UTC)
- Please don't exaggerate, User:Themanwithoutapast made ONE edit since the article got featured, and that was this one [2]. Hardly makes him a POV warrior does it? And besides, I actually think that the revert was better balanced and more NPOV than Fenice's version. Borisblue 8 July 2005 01:10 (UTC)
- Well I congratulate this person on actually making a single edit. Great. We'll be done with the article in about 500 weeks then. Claiming it's an annexation and not being able to argue that it was, is pov. Reverting in this case is unacceptable, there are policies and guidelines for that. No wonder he doesn't join the discussion because his pov really is hard to argue for. Your 'better balanced' refers to a pc remark to accomodate nazis and disguising the truth on top of that. If you absolutely have to maintain that there is the remote and twisted possillity that the word could be translated by annexation (when are you going to present sources for this claim. Which dictionary translates Anschluss to Annexation?), if you have to have your point and include the word annexation, you have to elaborate on whether this is historically acurate, which it is not. Leaving it out altogether would be the best solution. Instead, some more factual, historical detail could be added.--Fenice 8 July 2005 09:23 (UTC)
- Well, I have already given you my justification for my claim, and here's another one: [encarta] defines it as annexation. As I said further up, see[3] and the second link listed (after wikipedia) is titled "The "Anschluss" - Annexation of Austria by Germany"; and you can see thata large number of websites on the Anschluss define it as annexation. It is clear that in this context it CAN be translated as annexation, which is what the lead now says. I find it ridiculous that you accuse a user of being a POV warrior simply because he reverted ONE edit. Especially if the edited version is no more NPOV than the revert. Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:41 (UTC)
- I've sourced the claim on the article too, so I'll remove the NPOV tag unless you have further objections. And please don't complain that encarta isn't a dictionary; we all agree that the literal meaning is union; the dispute here is its meaning in context, which a dictionary is unlikely to carry. Encarta is also an extremely authorative encyclopedia. Borisblue 8 July 2005 11:45 (UTC)
- Well, I have already given you my justification for my claim, and here's another one: [encarta] defines it as annexation. As I said further up, see[3] and the second link listed (after wikipedia) is titled "The "Anschluss" - Annexation of Austria by Germany"; and you can see thata large number of websites on the Anschluss define it as annexation. It is clear that in this context it CAN be translated as annexation, which is what the lead now says. I find it ridiculous that you accuse a user of being a POV warrior simply because he reverted ONE edit. Especially if the edited version is no more NPOV than the revert. Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:41 (UTC)
- Well I congratulate this person on actually making a single edit. Great. We'll be done with the article in about 500 weeks then. Claiming it's an annexation and not being able to argue that it was, is pov. Reverting in this case is unacceptable, there are policies and guidelines for that. No wonder he doesn't join the discussion because his pov really is hard to argue for. Your 'better balanced' refers to a pc remark to accomodate nazis and disguising the truth on top of that. If you absolutely have to maintain that there is the remote and twisted possillity that the word could be translated by annexation (when are you going to present sources for this claim. Which dictionary translates Anschluss to Annexation?), if you have to have your point and include the word annexation, you have to elaborate on whether this is historically acurate, which it is not. Leaving it out altogether would be the best solution. Instead, some more factual, historical detail could be added.--Fenice 8 July 2005 09:23 (UTC)
- Please don't exaggerate, User:Themanwithoutapast made ONE edit since the article got featured, and that was this one [2]. Hardly makes him a POV warrior does it? And besides, I actually think that the revert was better balanced and more NPOV than Fenice's version. Borisblue 8 July 2005 01:10 (UTC)
- The point is: where a pov-warrior resorts to just reverting all wikipedia-policies fail and the possibility of npoving the article tends towards zero. (You can have the article protected. Great.) You are wrong, there are currently no ways to deal with problems of that sort. I have made that experience before. And unfortunately in this case we are not dealing with someone who is (appears so harmless now compared to the nazism problem) simply replacing content with bible verses.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:46 (UTC)
- If there's a problem with the article being reverted, isn't the article rather than the FARC page the place to raise this? There are in any case ways to deal with problems of that sort. I promise you my good faith in working out the edits. We've been told several times that discussion in this forum is a dead letter, why not focus on remedying the immediate problem, which is that we have an article that is substantially disputed? If there are policies implications, I tend to think it more productive to argue for remedy of the policies rather than the exceptional status of this candidacy, which does not appear to have a receptive audience. Please mistake me: the criteria I'm arguing are the likely outcomes based on available evidence rather than the virtues, and the available evidence is that the virtues you're arguing are precluded from short-term consideration. You can argue those virtues elsewhere, but why not make them moot for purposes of the article when that is an immediately available course of action? Buffyg 7 July 2005 08:31 (UTC)
- Make no mistake about this, the page is still alive. Also there may be some problems with user:themanwithoutapast who resorts to reverting and not discussing, which may pose a problem in npoving the article.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:21 (UTC)
- Here is another link to show why the article appears so imbalanced to me in its content, the German entry: de:Wikipedia: Anschluss (Österreich). Most literature in Austria, just like this one, presents the event exactly opposite way from what our entry does: There is usually extensive coverage of the events leading up to the Anschluss, starting at about 1933. This first part usually takes up more than half of the article/book. --Fenice 7 July 2005 08:37 (UTC)
- Relevance? You are talking about an article that is about a third as long. Where material isn't covered, please say as much. If you have objections to further content, please argue the merits of the content rather than saying that it shouldn't get more than a screen or takes up half the article. Buffyg 7 July 2005 08:44 (UTC)
- I disagree - balance, and that is length of one section compared to another, is absolutely relevant to a featured article, and a big issue regularly discussed there, see WP:FAC. Many of the points I make on the FARC-grounds I would not raise if this article were just a simple article floating in the wikipedia orcus.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:49 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I agree, the section covering events before the Anschluss in the english edition is LONGER than the German one. (Four [paragraphs to three). What information exactly is it missing? Borisblue 8 July 2005 01:02 (UTC)
- I disagree - balance, and that is length of one section compared to another, is absolutely relevant to a featured article, and a big issue regularly discussed there, see WP:FAC. Many of the points I make on the FARC-grounds I would not raise if this article were just a simple article floating in the wikipedia orcus.--Fenice 7 July 2005 08:49 (UTC)
Keep. Having a NPOV label is never good, but this is a very interesting article, and I would prefer to see someone work through the problems. If a full re-write is required, and it comes up less than a feature-worthy piece, then I will support removal. Harro5 July 7, 2005 23:11 (UTC)
- Read the article. I actually think it is already NPOV as it is, after my edits Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:59 (UTC)
- Just don't count on me to renominate this later. I cannot wait to get this unimprovable bit of writing off my watchlist.--Fenice 8 July 2005 09:30 (UTC)
- Is it an unimprovable article or one that you REFUSE to improve? Umm, since putting the NPOV template up you haven't done A THING to improve the article! All you have done is give easily fixable complaints on POV, most of which I have since fixed.[4] Since you consider yourself the Austria expert here, I find it strange that you couldn't handlde your own objections yourself.Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:59 (UTC)
- Yes, you understood correctly: it is unimprovable to me. Because I will not join themanwithoutapast in a revertwar, that is pointless, we can stop that here and now. (It is also not the way FARC usually works, (if you participate too much, you are viewed as an author and your vote doesn't count), but this goes for the article itself, even if it weren't featured.) It is unimprovable to others at this time because there are simply no 'human resources' here on this project to do that. I mean, dealing with Nazi-articles isn't my favorite way to pass my time and obviously nobody elses. This is an extremely difficult subject and an exceptionally bad article. I am offended by it as an Austrian, and many others probably also are. I will take it off my watchlist, others might never return to Wikipedia. Neonazis will love it and may even think it needs 'improval'. And if the points were easily fixable, as you say, they'd be fixed don't you think? I will type at least the main point in again, (the rest is listed above) which is the POV point: the article claims there was an annexation going on. It says, which is baseless, that Anschluß translates to Annexation. The article I presume does that because it is impossible to say: look here, reader, the events we are describing really are an annexation. So since there is no base for this in reality, the author resorts to claiming that if you search hard enough (and in what antiquated soft-cover dictionary would that be?) you might actually find one dictionary that translates Anschluss to Annexation. I do not deny that someone in this world who writes manuals for cheap products may have made a bad German-English dictionary that includes this translation. What dictionary are you using (you can claim it is incomplete) I'm just wondering? You claim you have rewritten the part in question, and it is not just any part, it is the lead section. The intro is unchanged, you added two missing words. The section 'the word' is glaring as ever.
- Most of the other issues on the FARC-grounds, bad sources if any, imbalance, need for expansion, are also still existent.--Fenice 8 July 2005 12:19 (UTC)
- I forgot to answer one thing above, somewhere in the middle of the text, about the pov in the lead section. I don't think encarta is a good source, and I could cite sources for that. (And to most users of Wikipedia the link is probably just a link to a subscription advertisement) I am wondering if we could at least put this directly in the text: Encarta claims that Austria was annexed by Germany. At least it has a source now. I guess even the Wiener zeitung is a better source than Encarta.--Fenice 8 July 2005 12:47 (UTC)
- Britannica also calls anschluss annexation [5]
- FARC policy says that you have to improve the article the best you can before you put it up for FARC as a last resort, something it is clear you haven't done. I also think you are advocating an uncommon POV, and hence your lack of support. I'm a bit puzzled.If this article is so offensive, why are you the only Austrian here complaining? You are the only person who thinks this article is seriously flawed, the rest of us, even those who voted with you at worst just think there are POV problems which are easily solved. And I'm sure I have solved them. I'm sorry to say I feel your demands are unreasonable, and if your standards are applied wikipedia-wide we would only have about 5 FAs. This article is extremely well-written; I'm certain most fair-minded wikipedians will agree with me that this is indeed one of WP's best work, and thus you'll be lucky to get a majority here to vote remove, let alone get the cosensus you need. This FARC will fail, so maybe it would be better for you to withdraw this nomination and offer constructive suggestions to improve this article, rather than go through this pointless process. Borisblue 8 July 2005 15:30 (UTC)
- Well, I can only repeat myself again: the suggestions are listed above and were not adressed. See, as an illustration, your ever so funny response to the balance problem: the section covering events before the Anschluss in the english edition is LONGER than the German one. (Four [paragraphs to three). Note that the English article is about four times longer than the German version. I agree, that not all FAs are optimal, but then they are just not on the Nazi-time. The subject is important in this case, and for me the reason to list it. Articles like Anschluss may well be what someone measures Wikipedia on. (There are other FAs that have pov-problems right now, which I did not list and won't list - because these authors are discussing.). To further adress your attacks: FARC-policy certainly doesn't require anyone to go into a revert war. We both agree that FARC might fail, what a shame.--Fenice 8 July 2005 15:54 (UTC)
- You were asked twice what information should be added, and you didn't respond. And there is no revert war going on. Your POV-biased edit got rightly reverted once, and you're trying to use this to gain sympathy. I've neutralised the POV four times and I haven't been reverted yet. Borisblue 8 July 2005 16:03 (UTC)
- Umm no, we disagree on that last point; the FARC will fail. So please, stop arguing against a definition that both Encarta and Enc. Britannica affirm.
- Well let's see if it gets reverted. Suspense is mounting. And: stop arguing is a very nice way of dealing with objections. --Fenice 8 July 2005 16:18 (UTC)
- So you want to argue some more? Have you discovered that Britannica is controled by the Nazis or something? I'm just saying please admit defeat now that I have shown authoritive sources call anschluss annexation.Borisblue 8 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)
- Comment I've removed the NPOV tag, having dealt with most of the POV issues. My only concern being, IMHO adquately addressed, I've changed my vote to "strong keep" above. Borisblue 8 July 2005 15:35 (UTC)
- Comment the tag has been reinserted Borisblue 8 July 2005 17:18 (UTC)
- You have reached your goal, (it was even quite clear from the very beginning that it could not be removed anyway) so you could stop your attacks, that is an option you know. I think your militancy is very embarrassing. We have all seen that the procedure will fail in this case, and that is not new, it was actually quite obvious from the start. On whether this is a good thing or not we don't agree. Again: no you have not shown that Austria was annexed, because that is impossible to show. You have also not offered a viable solution, that is mentioning annexation and demonstrating it wasn't one - which would be the obvious Wikipedia way to solve a dispute. Just to repeat the core point, not that there weren't tons of others to solve, see initial listing.--Fenice 8 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)
- I like your viable solution. See if my version is OK with youBorisblue 8 July 2005 17:11 (UTC)
- You have reached your goal, (it was even quite clear from the very beginning that it could not be removed anyway) so you could stop your attacks, that is an option you know. I think your militancy is very embarrassing. We have all seen that the procedure will fail in this case, and that is not new, it was actually quite obvious from the start. On whether this is a good thing or not we don't agree. Again: no you have not shown that Austria was annexed, because that is impossible to show. You have also not offered a viable solution, that is mentioning annexation and demonstrating it wasn't one - which would be the obvious Wikipedia way to solve a dispute. Just to repeat the core point, not that there weren't tons of others to solve, see initial listing.--Fenice 8 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)
- Comment I've removed the NPOV tag, having dealt with most of the POV issues. My only concern being, IMHO adquately addressed, I've changed my vote to "strong keep" above. Borisblue 8 July 2005 15:35 (UTC)
- So you want to argue some more? Have you discovered that Britannica is controled by the Nazis or something? I'm just saying please admit defeat now that I have shown authoritive sources call anschluss annexation.Borisblue 8 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)
- Well let's see if it gets reverted. Suspense is mounting. And: stop arguing is a very nice way of dealing with objections. --Fenice 8 July 2005 16:18 (UTC)
- Well, I can only repeat myself again: the suggestions are listed above and were not adressed. See, as an illustration, your ever so funny response to the balance problem: the section covering events before the Anschluss in the english edition is LONGER than the German one. (Four [paragraphs to three). Note that the English article is about four times longer than the German version. I agree, that not all FAs are optimal, but then they are just not on the Nazi-time. The subject is important in this case, and for me the reason to list it. Articles like Anschluss may well be what someone measures Wikipedia on. (There are other FAs that have pov-problems right now, which I did not list and won't list - because these authors are discussing.). To further adress your attacks: FARC-policy certainly doesn't require anyone to go into a revert war. We both agree that FARC might fail, what a shame.--Fenice 8 July 2005 15:54 (UTC)
- Is it an unimprovable article or one that you REFUSE to improve? Umm, since putting the NPOV template up you haven't done A THING to improve the article! All you have done is give easily fixable complaints on POV, most of which I have since fixed.[4] Since you consider yourself the Austria expert here, I find it strange that you couldn't handlde your own objections yourself.Borisblue 8 July 2005 10:59 (UTC)