Wikipedia:Featured article review/History of Jews in Poland/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 10:49, April 25, 2008.

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History of Jews in Poland

Review commentary

Notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jewish history, Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board, User:Piotrus and User:Jacurek

Article has several issues and no longer meets the criteria.

• Length (4): At 94 kB of readable prose it is too long.
• Lead (2a): The lead is too short for such a long article.
• Lots of external jumps.
• In parts a lack of citations (1c).
• The External Links section needs to be shortened.
• Inline citations need to be formatted.--Peter Andersen (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

When I have written it two years ago I was quite proud of it. Unfortunately today it's not to our standards (lack of inline cites). I will see if I have time to work on this again; I agree with most of the above comments - with the exception of length - we have quite a few FA around that size. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Piotrus, please let me know what can I do as far as improving this page. I would be happy to help bringing this article into the standards. I also agree with you that length of the article is necessary for a reader to have a clear understanding of a complex history of Polish Jews and especially relations of Jewish Poles with their Christian counterparts, which is too difficult to understand without being provided with wider information. There is so much interest in the cultural past among both Poles and Jews and a quality Wiki page regarding the subject is for sure appreciated by all. This project helps so much to combat anti-Polonism found among many Jews and plain stupid anti-Semitism found among many Poles. I have always been amazed at how twisted that history has been.--Jacurek (talk) 05:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not thrilled with the size, and would like to see better use of summary style. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The main part of the Interwar period 1918–39 section is Anti-Semitism. Many aspects of Jewish life should be described.Xx236 (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Janusz Korczak is referred here as a writer only.Xx236 (talk) 13:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrong: One famous leader was Janusz Korczak, the director of the Jewish orphanage...Besides, the article isn't about Korczak, so his full CV isn't required here.

Wrong? The sentence you quote is about the Holocaust and I mean pre-war Poland. Korczak wasn't a writer only, he was a social activists and his writing was based on his social experiences. The pre-war paragraph is biased, because it doesn't describe the Jewish life in Poland, eg. Korcak's activities, but rather the anti-semitism.Xx236 (talk) 09:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Menachem Begin was released from the Polish Army.Xx236 (talk) 13:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Movies

Jews produced many Yiddish films but also Polish nationalistic ones 1918-1939. In Communist Poland many directors were Jewish, also some movie stars were.Xx236 (talk) 13:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Jedwabne - the Jews were burned in a barn rather than beaten. Xx236 (talk) 13:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Józef Kuraś deserves to be mentioned. Xx236 (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is too long, at least twice the recommended length This is due, to some extend, to

• a flowery (pseudo)journalistic prose: Enthusiastic greeting of Soviet troops by Jewish residents, with flowers, kisses and pro-Soviet speeches was a common occurrence in almost every Polish town and village.[14] Jewish men offered gifts to the Russians while women kissed Soviet tanks.[15] Young Jews, often well-educated and from rich or religious families, now addressed each other as "comrade."
• to not sticking to the subject: The permanent council established at the instance of the Russian government (1773–1788) served as the highest administrative tribunal, and occupied itself with the elaboration of a plan that would make practicable the reorganization of Poland on a more rational basis. The progressive elements in Polish society recognized the urgency of popular education as the very first step toward reform. The famous Komisja Edukacji Narodowej ("Commission of National Education"), the first ministry of education in the world, was established in 1773 and founded numerous new schools and remodeled the old ones - what this has to do with the Jews??

The summary style, recommended above, would make the article shorter, but it seems that even when this technique is attempted, it does not preclude verbosity: the The Holocaust: German-occupied Poland section is about twice as long the the main article Holocaust in Poland
There also are minor technical points, easy to fix, for example:

• more than 80 percent of Polish Jews were easily recognizable, while 20 percent could be considered assimilated So, even assuming that every Jew was in one category or the other, we already have more that 100 percent of Jews :-)
• centuries should be described using Arabic, not Roman numerals: 14th century, not XIV century

Summary: Fail
Jotel (talk) 17:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Jotel, you made few good points.--Jacurek (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Some other problems - "With Endecja party influence growing, although they never held office." The Endecja article mentions the party winning seats in parliament. "It has been estimated that more than 80 percent of Polish Jews were easily recognizable, while 20 percent could be considered assimilated." This sentence was lifted without attribution from the Jewish Tribal Review website [1]. A quite controversial site, not affiliated with any academic or mainstream orgs. "For these Jews, Communism had an almost messianic appeal, while the Soviet Union was regarded as their natural homeland." Needs attribution. "The fight against these informers was organized by Armia Krajowa, with the death sentence being meted out on a scale unknown in the occupied countries of Western Europe." Needs attribution. Many statistics are unsourced. Novickas (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Novickas --Jacurek (talk) 19:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

"Many Holocaust survivors however have rather negative attitudes toward the Poles based on their experiences before, during and shortly after the war. Most claim that vast majority of Christian Poles were passive witness, sometimes even glad that the Jews were being removed and did nothing to aid their neighbours. It is hard to know how many Christian Poles, who were also victims of German barbarity[3], had sympathy for their Jewish neighbours but were paralyzed into inaction by fear.

Do you guys think this line is necessary and why ?(why not and why yes) If Yes, should this be in the summary ? Thanks.--Jacurek (talk) 18:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

First this needs citations.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Is this book a good source ? [2] --Jacurek (talk) 07:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There is information about Jewish parties in 1919 and nothing about the period till 1939. How many seats did Jewish parties obtain? Were there Jews among PPS representatives?Xx236 (talk) 10:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question. Until 1930 Jews were represented in the Blok Mniejszości Narodowych (the article notes how the party performed in elections in general, but we have no info on % of Jewish population voting for the party and the no. of Jewish members of parliament); I am not sure what were the Jewish voting patterns afterw 1930.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

http://wydawnictwo.sejm.gov.pl/publikacje/publikacja_337.html Xx236 (talk) 08:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC) http://czytelnia.onet.pl/0,1210800,do_czytania.html Xx236 (talk) 08:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it's too late to comment, but... Over the past year, there have been many unsourced additions to the article. There are large sections of the article without a single source cited (1c). The existing sources are a blend of footnotes and inline references (2c). Several editors have raised questions of neutrality in the article (see the Talk page or the article's edit history) (1d). There has been a lot of edit-warring, and it got so bad at one point that the article had to be protected (1e). — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 08:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean that the article is not anti-Polish enough for you ?

Over the past year article has been improved significantly, it is way better that it was before.--154.20.146.225 (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Polish character of some sections within last year article was quite striking …now it is more balanced.--199.175.219.1 (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for demonstrating what I wrote about allegations that the article isn't neutral. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Is anti-Polish "neutral" for you Malik Shabazz? As far as I remember last year opening of the article was blaming Poland being "somehow" responsible for the Holocaust. Is this neutral for you also ?--199.175.219.1 (talk) 20:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you finished ranting? If the article was "anti-Polish" last year and "more balanced" this year (note: more balanced but still not neutral or balanced), and editors are now arguing whether portions of the article are antisemitic, clearly there are questions about whether the article is neutral. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

...and the "editors" argiung about anti-Semitic (you must be joking !) nature of this article being you and MORDOR, right ?--24.85.253.221 (talk) 21:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It's rather only Jacurek and a couple of anon socks (previously banned proxy included) who insist on inserting on this unsourced, anti-Semitic OR. M0RD00R (talk) 21:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are length (4), lead (2a), referencing (1c), and formatting (2). Marskell (talk) 13:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Remove per nom. --Peter Andersen (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Remove: lacks citations, needs a copyedit and there are too many external links. The citations that are given are not formatted uniformly. There are long stretches of text unbroken by any images, and overall I would agree that it is too long. I can see that there is active editing but I'm not sure that anyone is determinedly working on it. DrKiernan (talk) 10:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like massive effort is going to be needed here just to clean up the references that do exist. The lead needs serious pruning. Not much happening, so closing. Marskell (talk) 10:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.