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Problems with Khmelnytsky Uprising category on Commons

A Ukrainian user, commons:User:Alex Tora, is adding commons:Category:Khmelnytsky Uprising to many images related to Cossacks or 17th century Polish history, and the same time, (in a few instances) removing the commons:Category:Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (diffs from 21-22 December). He mostly concerns himself with works of Józef Brandt. It is well known that Brand painted Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth history, hence this category is a good parent category for most of his pictures, to situate them in a spacetime frame. While Cossacks were a common subject of his, there is little proof that most of those paintings are related to the Khmelnytsky Uprising - they may be from any period of time in 17th century, plus minus a few decades (on the other hand, I fully support using the Cossack categories on them). Further, I am not sure if categorizing people who participated in the uprising (or lived through it) with this category is not appropriate (should Jan Kazimierz Waza be in this category? He is not in this category on en wiki...). Please comment.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 14:19, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Wesołych Świąt i Dosiego 2009

Merry XMAS from User:Piotrus. 00:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Piekna ta choinka, a ja dolaczam sie do zyczen. Tymek (talk) 06:14, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Liberation of General Government

Article on General Government in its infobox has dates for its beginning and ending, the latter is termed: liberation, 1945. Should we consider a more neutral term? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 03:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I would gladly second this motion providing that the new, more neutral term is supported by the recent Polish historiography, i.e. books published in sovereign Poland in the last decade and a half or so. Any ideas? --Poeticbent talk 19:42, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
In my experience it is sadly the word used. Some books do put single quotes around it e.g. Blank Pages chapter 5 is Soviet ‘Liberation’ Heralds Further Crimes and Norman Davies in Europe at War says official ‘Liberation’ was accompanied by civil war. If you have word in mind then I will see what books support it but I have doubts many English language books will support another word. Jniech (talk) 20:19, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Arthur R. Rachwald in his book In Search of Poland for example, uses the term Sovietization of Poland.[1] Conversely, we could use the term also for Sovietization of General Government. Here's what Rachwald means:

The Katowice Forum became an element in Soviet contingency planning, designed to create an outlet in Poland for criticism of the Polish communists. Should the Red Army invade, the political structure was ready to legitimize aggression and take over administrative functions. Moscow again applied a method used since World War II to take over smaller states. Preparing for the Sovietization of Poland in 1943, the Soviets had organized the so-called union of Polish patriots-the same technique used in 1968 before entering Czechoslovakia.

The term Sovietization of Poland is quite popular in Google,[2], used by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Collier's Encyclopedia and a plethora of Polish and American historians in relation to Polish modern history.

Meanwhile, Kevin Devlin, Radio Free Europe Research - Background Report 1982-1-19, [3] uses the phrase "military takeover in Poland" when referring to the imposition of martial law. Quote:

I believe that, to understand what is happening in Poland, it must be said that the revolution [there] was imported [from the outside]... and that the political system, of the monopoly of power by one party, was not created by the Poles, but was imposed on them.

The word 'takeover' is also used by Robert Pernetta, MA, in History of International Relations II.[4]
—I hope this helps. --Poeticbent talk 22:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem we are having is how to describe the Soviet actions of defeating the Germans. I feel that the word liberation is more about removing the Germans than the aftermath which Sovietization of Poland would describe. Could we not simply change the word ‘Liberation 1945’ to something like ‘German occupation ended 1945’. Also the Invasion of Poland could be renamed ‘German occupation started September 1939’. I feel the 1st September is misleading as not all the general government fell on 1st day of the invasion. Jniech (talk) 23:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually is September accurate for the creation. The book Poland in the Second World War states "On 12th October there was another decree from Hitler: this established the office of governor general" and later states "The General Gouvernement came into existence in fact on 26 October". Jniech (talk) 05:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Debate seems to have stopped. Is there any support for my last suggestion which is above? Jniech (talk) 18:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Polish losses in WW1

Since they were several Polish formations in WW1 and Polish losses are listed seperately from Russian or German ones by scholars dealing with WW1 I believe that the we should fellow their example and list seperate Polish losses in WW1. In what form and in what place is of course open to debate, but there seems to be opposition to naming Polish formations as such rather then French/Russian formations. The discussion is here and I would welcome any comments: [5] --Molobo (talk) 14:17, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

The losses of WW1 are listed under the flag the men served under. We cannot seperate the losses of each ethic group in the various powers in WW1. For example Irish in the UK forces, Africans in the French forces. Hungarians, Croations and Czechs with A-H. The Russian Army had Ukrainians and Latvians. The losses of Poland with the occuping powers belong only in the footnotes, Poland did not exist as a seperate nation from 1914-18--Woogie10w (talk) 14:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Please read this Wikipedia:Handling trivia. The losses of Poland in WW1 are borderline trivia in my opinion.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
While there is no denying Polish units fought (for the most part) under banners of other nations, if there is a reliable source for their losses, it seems relevant to mention it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:03, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Andrzej Chwalba notes that Polish ethnic losses in military are within 387-450.000. This certainly is not trivial number.--Molobo (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Poland and Czechoslovlkia did not exist as nation states during the war. They did not have armed forces. The casualties of the waring powers are reported for the nations that existed in 1914, not by ethnic group. An attempt to allocate casualties by ethnic group is a gross effort in trivial pursuit. Historians in the English speaking world do not allocate WW 1 casualties by ethic group.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Also when you refer to "ethnic Polish" that includes the west Ukraine and west Bealrussia.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand your comment ? Poles are a ethnic group, west Ukraine and Belarus were places were Polish minority lived in several areas--Molobo (talk) 16:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC).
That someting is trivial pursuit is your personal opinion; if reliable historians publish studies on it, I think they are more correct. Incidentally, I think we may consider splitting History of Poland (1914-1918) from History of Poland (1795-1918). History of Poland during WWI is certainly not trivial and has a corresponding article on pl wiki: pl:Historia Polski (1914-1918). Comments? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree-history of Poland during First World War deserves a detailed treatment and description, as well as its role in diplomacy of WWI by the Entented and Central Powers.--Molobo (talk) 16:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
You miss the point. Casualties are reported under the flag the men served under, not by ethnic group. You can't change the borders of Europe in 1914, that is how historians allocate the casualties--Woogie10w (talk) 16:44, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
You miss the point. There was no Jewish state (or Gypsy, or homesexual) in WWII yet historians still spend much time investigating death tolls of those groups. Sure, the first and most important estimate per war is that 'per nation'. But others, while usually less important, are still relevant. Should those be mentioned in article on World War I? Probably not. In article on World War I casualties? Certainly (if backed up by reliable sources, of course). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:51, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I have already made a post detailing Polish losses with the occupying powers--Woogie10w (talk) 17:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you ! --Molobo (talk) 17:02, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

58th NY Infantry in US Civil War

I knew something was very wrong when I saw that you claimed the 58th NY Infantry of the Civil War as a Polish Legion. In fact it was a unit composed of mostly immigrants, including Poles[6] The language of command and control was English, it was an American unit, not Polish. The I know a bit about this unit since my great grandfather served in the 107th Ohio which fought alongside the 58th at Cemetery Hill on the second day at Gettysburg. --Woogie10w (talk) 14:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

..."that you claimed"... Who is you? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:00, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
The guy who made that aka Polish Legion edit, I took the time to point out this error because I want to see the Polish pages improved. I like my coffee black, without sugar, try some.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Made the edit where? Ilink or diff would be helpful... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:49, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Here Polish Legions, please read this[7]--Woogie10w (talk) 19:24, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
A little mousework identifies this as an anon's artifact. If you are sure this is an error, please be bold and remove it; I have never read anything on that particular subject.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:12, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Adam Stanisław Grabowski

This 18th-century Prince-Bishop of Warmia has previously been the object of conflicting edits by Polish and evidently German editors. User 70.133.67.155 has now altered information regarding the Bishop's origins. Comments or edits by knowledgeable editors would be welcome. Nihil novi (talk) 09:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Deportation

Which deportations of Poles are Deportations, which are Population transfers or Ethnic cleansings? What about respective categories?

German picture in the Deportation is German POV for me. Aren't there any pictures of deported Poles to include here?Xx236 (talk) 15:43, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Good question. See related discussion at Talk:Repatriation_of_Poles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Please help find sources of the images or the gallery will be deleted (User_talk:Emax#Image_source_problem_with_Image:Panorama_Raclawicka0.jpg). Please note that works by Wojciech Kossak are not in public domain, as he has died in 1942 and his works are protected by law for 70 years after his death... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 13:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Polish culture during World War II

Please help address objections in this A-class review (this is not a vote!).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Grüssau Abbey

I am somewhat confused here. This article is confusing, but it seems to refer to a monastery in Poland, in Krzeszów, Lower Silesian Voivodeship (formerly, Grüssau). As such it should be renamed to Krzeszów Abbey. The article, however, seems to be written unclearly, since it also talks about an abbey (?) in a German town of Bad Wimpfen. It also has "expelled" neutrality issues. Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I found the article is written very clear, Grüssau Abbey was a (German) Lower Silesian monastery. The monks had to abandon their abbey after the area became Polish and moved to Bad Wimpfen in Baden-Württemberg. Thus a rename would be odd - the monastery never was in Poland, although the site of the abbey is now in Poland. Apparently, the former abbey in Grüssau was not in use after the rename of the site. And what "'expelled' neutrality issues"? Skäpperöd (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Update: a minute (literally) after I wrote this there was a comment made at the article's talk page that the abbey was "taken over" by nuns themselves expelled from their former abbey in Lemberg/Lwow/Lviv. So there are two (at least, the abbey was secularized in 1810) different convents with two different origins and histories in the abbey. If the current one is confirmed by sources and covered in the article (which is not the case now), and if the current convent is using exactly the same place as the former convent, one could think about a rename and have the article consisting of two sections, Grüssau Abbey and [current name] Abbey. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The article is confusing, as it is two articles in one. The first is about the monastry, the second about the German monks and their history after leaving Grüssau/Krzeszów. The article possibly should be rewritten. --Kgfleischmann (talk) 16:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Article should be named under current name of place - compare Bernardine Church, Lviv (now used by Greek Cathoilic Basilian Order, but name still in use - see: uk: wiki article uk:Комплекс монастиря та костелу Бернардинів). Perhaps other article might be written about pre-war Benedictine Commune, but on the other hand in Krzeszów Article could be only short mention about this community and rest of informations should be moved to Bad Wimpfen Abbey article? Radomil talk 20:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Already a year ago, I had pointed out the odd intro the article had back then: the article on Grüssau Abbey, which is far away from Poland, but close to where I live in Germany, currently starts with "Krzeszów Abbey (in German Abtei Grüssau) is a house of the Benedictine Order in Bad Wimpfen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The community was formerly located at Krzeszów, Silesia (ger. Grüssau), and previously in the Emaus Abbey in Prague." I've found out about that while editing German Wikipedia. I did not touch the en article, though. What would happen if I change the intro, and others would revert me, until I lose my temper and get blocked? Would any admin check the validity of my case against the claims of my opponents first? I doubt this very much judging from experience (note: fails to AGF against admins in a request to unblock, proving he is beyond hope), and have to say that verifying content seems to be of lower importance than enforcing policies, which is a very sad thing to say about any encyclopedia. QED. -- Matthead  Discuß   01:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

@Radomil: Simply renaming does not help: The article is about

  1. A house of the Benedictine Order in Bad Wimpfen (Germany)
  2. shows a picture of the Abbey church in Krzeszów (in Poland, not in Germany)
  3. tells the story of Benedictine monks, living first in the Emaus Abbey in Prague, Czechoslovakia; then in Grüssau (now Krzeszów),larer in the "Kloster Bad Wimpfen (Germany)".

It remains unclear if the monks named a place in Bad Wimpfen "Grüssau Abbey" or if the article tries to express a claim of them on the buildings in Krzeszów. As far as I can see it, very very confusing.

The German article about the Grüssau Abbey talks about "Die Abtei Grüssau ist ein ehemaliges Benediktinerkloster der Beuroner Kongregation in der Stiftskirche St. Peter in Bad Wimpfen am Neckar", a former (ehemaliges) monastery of the Benedictine ... .It also does not show a picture of the Abbey church in Krzeszów. You find the picture in the article about the "Kloster Grüssau" which talk about the monastery and its history in Poland. Greetings --Kgfleischmann (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried to make the lead more comprehensive. What is still missing is if the abbey in [current name of Grüssau] is still used, as user:Radomil said. Such a covent could of course not be entitled with "Grüssau", but should use the current name. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Consider: commons:Category:Krzeszów Abbey has two subcategories... are there two abbeys in Krzeszów?
May be relevant: old postcards/photos from Krzeszów: [8], [9]
Polish tourist guide to Krzeszów]
I will stub a related article from pl wiki: Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krzeszów. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Few comments:

  • Abbey in Krzeszów had many names before Gruessau - one of the first names was "Gratia Sanctae Mariae", from which came later names such as Grussav, Grissov, Grissowe, Grüssau.
  • the village itself, which was created after the Abbey was built, was named Krzeszobór - latin "Cressebor".
  • Grüssau Abbey should redirect to Krzeszów Abbey with reference/redirection under titel for Bad-Wimpfen Abbey in which information about use of old name Grüssau Abbey by monks there should be placed.
  • The Abbey in Krzeszów is still in use by benedictins Wroman (talk) 19:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Valentinus Smalcius#Name

Please see this naming discussion: should we use the latin version popular in English publications, or the less popular (but still used in English) name used by Polski Słownik Biograficzny ("Walenty Smalc")? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Michałowo

Michałowo, Podlaskie Voivodeship is one of five new Polish towns - according to our normal naming standards it should therefore be renamed to Michałowo, unless there's a particularly significant village or something else of the same name. I proposed this at WP:RM but it's being contested - please add your thoughts there.--Kotniski (talk) 18:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I am a bit confused: what do you mean by "five new Polish towns", and what are our "normal naming standards"? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Five former villages have been given town status as from Jan 1. By "normal" I just mean what I've observed in practice - I don't know if it's documented anywhere. Very few Polish towns have disambiguating tags on them (except where there are two towns of the same name, or where the name has another meaning as with Police). I think Kozieglowy is perhaps the only(?) exception. --Kotniski (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, from WP:RM; I'm the one who moved the page into the contested section. I have no real opinion over whether the page is moved or not, but the guidelines for establishing a primary topic should be considered. Also, WP:RM is not the place for continued discussion, that should be going on either here, which is more visible, or on the article's talk page. Parsecboy (talk) 05:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've put the proposal in the proper place on RM and started a discussion at the article talk page.--Kotniski (talk) 13:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Prehistory_of_Poland_(until_966_AD)#name

Suggestions for a better name appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Name of this page

I've noticed that from time to time people get confused as to the purpose of this page and why it's in portal space. (The issue has recently arisen at WP:RfD in a discussion about changing the WPP: shortcuts.) Is there any reason why we aren't doing this at somewhere like WP:WikiProject Poland and its talk page?--Kotniski (talk) 13:26, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

None, really. We can move the Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board to Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board, but we still have no content to put at Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Well why not simply move Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board to Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland (which redirects there in any case), thus moving this page to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland?--Kotniski (talk) 11:53, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
As long as it stays linked form the WP:RNB... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Any last-minute objections then? (Doing a simple move should ensure that all links, such as the RNB one, still work.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

That's done then. We are now a project :) As regards shortcuts, I suggest (and will make) WP:WPPL for the project page, and WT:WPPL for this talk page.--Kotniski (talk) 17:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
The main page (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland) needs to be redesigned to fit within the WikiProject manual of style.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Is there one? I see nothing about any obligatory style at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject or elsewhere.--Kotniski (talk) 08:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
We need to add missing sections from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/WikiProject#Create_a_project_page: scope and related projects are rather useful.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

GA review of Poland in the Early Middle Ages

I'm reviewing Poland in the Early Middle Ages for promotion to GA status. Everything I know about Poland in the Early Middle Ages I learned from reading this article. I would appreciate some feedback from the more knowledgeable members of the group on its neutrality. In particular, I would like to know if the mainstream scholarly positions on this period of history are fairly represented. Thanks. Wronkiew (talk) 06:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Number of Polish victims from Soviet repressions post 1944

Does anybody know the number of Polish victims who were killed by Soviets and their proxies in Poland past 1944 and onward ? --Molobo (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Towns/villages naming conventions

I've updated Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)#Poland, should anyone wish to take a look. I'm pretty sure it represents current practice.--Kotniski (talk) 06:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

History of Western civilization

The article mentiones Poland as a victim, it seems that Poland has never contributed to the Western civilization. Norman Davies has published a critical article about Western civilization courses, I don't have the article to quote here.Xx236 (talk) 09:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


Also I think most of the little information they have is wrong.

From The Early Middle Ages (AD 500-1000) section: A West Slavic people, the Poles, formed a unified state by the 10th century, and had converted to Christianity in the 11th.

But I would say Poland formed as a unified state and converted to Christianity in 10th century see Baptism of Poland. Perhaps it could be reworded

A West Slavic people, the Poles, formed a unified state by the 10th century and having adopted Christianity also in the 10th but with most Poles converting in 11th.

Then in the Absolutism and Enlightenment (1500-1800) section: However, the Ottomans failed to capture the Holy Roman city of Vienna after laying siege to it, and under the leadership of the Spanish, a Christian coalition destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Lepanto in the Mediterranean, ending the Ottoman threat to Europe.

But I thought the Lepanto was in 1571 and Battle of Vienna was in 1683 hence Lepanto did not end Ottoman threat to Europe but Vienna did. I suggest it be reword to

Under the leadership of the Spanish, a Christian coalition destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Lepanto in 1571 ending they naval control of the Mediterranean. However, the Ottoman threat to Europe was not ended until a Polish lead coalition defeated the Ottoman at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

What do the other editors think? Have I got the years wrong and the existing article is correct? Jniech (talk) 11:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you are correct, be bold and correct such errors on sight.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

As usual please accept my thanks for your valuable input. Article has been changed with references supporting the changes added. Jniech (talk) 22:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Notability hinges on Polish-language article

Foundation for Active Rehabilitation was recently reviewed for {{notability}}. An editor has added a link to a Polish-language newspaper article to demonstrate notability. I can't really read the article, although it appears to be a feature on the organization itself (that is, an ideal source for demonstrating notability). Can someone please double-check this? Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC) (who is not watching this page)

Well, Gazeta Wyborcza is one of the leading Polish national newspapers, certainly, although it looks like this article may only have appeared in one of its regional editions. I can't access the whole article (looks like you need to buy a subscription), but from the part that is visible it seems this would have been quite a major article focusing mainly on this organization.--Kotniski (talk) 21:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Excellent. Thanks! WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Pope John Paul II

Hi, I am currently working on the article Pope John Paul II, with an aim to raise it to back to 'Good article' and eventually 'Featured article' hopefully. If anyone is interested in contributing, they would be most welcome. Marek.69 talk 01:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Warsaw Uprising

I've nominated Warsaw Uprising for featured article review: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Warsaw Uprising. Please comment at the review page. DrKiernan (talk) 11:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

And here we go again... I am getting tired of saving this article by myself. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Polish spelling question

Would anyone happen to know the Polish spelling of the name Moishe Tokar? Kaldari (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Polish spelling of Moishe is Mojsze, but I cannot find any refs for "Mojsze Tokar".--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Looks like it's a dead end though (on Google at least). Kaldari (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone here know about the Polish Wikipedia GA process for a signpost article.

I'm thinking about doing a Wikipedia:Signpost article on foreign GA processes. I have the beginnings of an article at User:Peregrine Fisher/Workspace/. Is anyone familiar with the Polish Wikipedia GA process (or FA) and could you describe it on my workspace page? Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The process is described at pl:Wikipedia:Dobre Artykuły and pl:Wikipedia:Artykuły na medal but I am not familiar with them. Perhaps you could post requests on those article's talk pages (in English, since this is the language of replies you'll need anyway)? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Source information needed for File:Zygmunt Berling.jpg

I did a very nice restoration of File:Zygmunt Berling.jpg for Warsaw Uprising before I realized that the source information was incomplete. The file links to the Polish Wikipedia, but the file has been deleted there. I would appreciate any help in determining the author/copyright status of this image. It is tagged for eventual deletion, and I had to request deletion of my edit as well. Wronkiew (talk) 07:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it was deleted from pl wiki for the same reasons, and I cannot find original source on the web.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Poland 1944-1945

I've created {{Campaignbox Poland 1944-1945}}. I'd like to create a main article for the military operations - Red Army and Polish resistance - on Polish lands in that period, but I cannot think of a good name. Eastern Front in Poland (1944-1945)? PS. History of Poland (1939–1945) does not cover that topic, and neither does Polish wikipedia (other then with the timelines of pl:Wojna w Polsce - rok 1944 and pl:Wojna w Polsce - rok 1945).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Notable ? Polish families

In the aftermath of the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło Family (3rd nomination): I wonder about more AfDs:

The above is a carbon copy of Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło Family (3rd nomination). I just double-checked to make sure, and guess what? Not a single reference actually mentions their name! Not even one, out of five, including the Wikipedia's own i-link. Mind boggling. --Poeticbent talk 05:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and see this little monstrosity: Counts of Galicia and Poland. Comments? If there are no comments, I will AfD at some future points... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to transcribe all of that, but when it's said and done, it's a "List of..." article at best. I agree with Poeticbent's assessments of the articles above. We already have [[10]], it might not be a bad idea to have "First appeared in 1513" or some such as an annotation. PetersV       TALK 19:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Please note I've now prodded all of the above.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quote sure what the issues here are, if a family name is not "notable" you should at least have its etymology listed in wikipedia, if it is "notable" you should add what is notable about the family in conjunction with the etymology of the name. I have personally been put off by this "notability" nonsense which has pervaded Wikipedia, I have simply stopped editing. When I started on here Wikipedia was supposed to be a reference source for anything and everything, now your subject has to be "notable" which is capricious and arbitrary in my view. As far as the Chołodecki family being notable, their is a book dedicated to the family in whole and it is otherwise referenced in hundreds of works, just check Google Books.--Milicz (talk) 18:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I just went through all of the family articles above, I don't think any should be deleted as they all at least list the etymology of the name, and name etymologies can be referenced and are surely notable, unless now we're making judgment calls as to fields of research? Most of those families are surely referenced in Boniecki's work as well. Unless someone wants to make a gigantic name etymology article for non-notable Polish family names? I also enjoyed the list of Counts, it would be a shame if that was deleted. --Milicz (talk) 18:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a misunderstanding here taking place. Wikipedia is not, and has never been a "reference source for anything and everything"; rather, it is a compendium of available information drawn from readily available sources with a strong accent on their online reliability. Please familiarize yourself with the principles of WP:NOR, WP:V, and all subsequent links. --Poeticbent talk 22:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no misunderstanding on my part, Wikipedia aspires to "the sum total of human knowledge." You aspire it to be something quite different, that's to bad. By deleting articles based on some vague, laughable notion of notability we spend more time and pages discussing whether an article is notable then on actually fixing up articles (it's true, look it up). I wish we got rid of editors who want to Police the gates of Wikipedia (notability is still not a rule that requires deletion, fyi), and more that want to add more to that sum total of human knowledge, or actually fix the article instead of starting a pointless war aimed at deleting someones work. I'd rather learn more about the Radwan Dąbrowski-Żądło family, which I had previously not heard of, then waste my time on the principles of WP:NOR, WP:V, but that's just crazy old me.--Milicz (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I am afraid Wikipedia:Notability is one of our core policies. If you don't like it, that's too bad indeed. And articles that are not notable are indeed required to be deleted: Wikipedia:DELETE#Reasons_for_deletion, quoting point 6: "Articles whose subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline". Wikipedia aspires to be the sum total of human knowledge, but, my dear Milicz, knowledge =/= information, hence Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information, and Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory: "Wikipedia is not a directory of... genealogical entries." I have asked for specific clarification when it comes to families at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Families, but it is obvious that unless a family is notable by itself, and that claim is supporter by a reliable source, we should not have an article on such a group. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
No, it is not one of Wikipedia's core policies, some people would like it to be, it is what it is unfortunately. Eventually it will be abolished and I am waiting eagerly for that day. Till that day I do agree that Wikipedia is not a directory of genealogical entries, nor should it be, but why you would delete a history of a historical Polish noble family, or even a family names etymology, is beyond me. If people are using Wikipedia to make family trees, that is one thing, but these pages are not such examples. I will go to that talk page, but you sent me here which is why i am discussing the issue here.--Milicz (talk) 23:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Historical noble families are welcome here. Unreferenced families nobody heard of based on OR or even hoaxes are not. Please note that at Wikipedia:Five pillars the first pillar is WP:NOT, closely tied to WP:N.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I followed a trail of edits here, following a content dispute. After a few days of work on Chołodecki, and, I light-heartedly hope, helping Milicz (talk) a bit, I think the article, and its associated articles, are a bit better. Sadly, as I have no Polish whatever I am limited to the English wording, structure, and physical use of the links and other citations. I did pull the notability flag from the article, and if that was a mistake, I apologize, I certainly won't argue against its restoral...with the linked articles and various sources it is either a very convincing hoax playing on the language or as I see it, adequately noted. I did change the unsourced to refimprove as well. It still needs citation work, but it *seems* to a non-Polish-reader, much better. I wonder if it might not be better to pursue these in the Polish wikipedia, where there would be far better oversight of the Polish citations...but that is just idle thinking. I added refimprove'snofootnotes to the other family member articles as well. Hope the net change was improvement. :) All the best.sinneed (talk) 00:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Update: I've removed my prods from Baczewski as I've found some refs for them. Chołodecki was never prodded by me as after further thought I do think this family is certainly notable. It seems that all the other prods were deprodded (see Talk:Hryniewiecki). Two articles I nominated for prod on pl wikipedia seem to be defended (pl:Wikipedia:Strony_do_usunięcia/Poczekalnia#R.C3.B3d_Czaplic.C3.B3w).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm the editor who removed the PRODs by Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus and left a comment why I felt they were inappropriately made (mostly haste), see Talk:Hryniewiecki. May I quote from Wikipedia:Notability: ..the discussion should focus not only on whether notability is established in the article, but on what the probability is that notability could be established Power.corrupts (talk) 12:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
OK: then what's the probability that notability of those articles will be estabilished? In most cases, they were created by once time users, with a rather obvious agenda of spreading knowledge about their families (WP:COI), who have never bothered to come back and edit anything since.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Nazi "collaborators".

Polish forced labourers who worked for German industry during WW2 are listed as "collaborators" here[[11]] I just wondering what is your opinion on this and if anybody would like to dedicate some time to discuss it and maybe make corrections if necessary. Thanks--Jacurek (talk) 08:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

By the same logic Jews forced to work in factories by the Nazis were Nazi collaborators. "Collaborator" means of one's own free will and as someone who traitorously supports the political and material goals of the enemy. That is, not cooperating with an ulterior motive (which is not traitorous). PetersV       TALK 20:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
The description of the Poles pressed into service as "collaborators" comes from several reliable sources and was added to the article by Piotrus. [12] — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps Piotrus could correct that if others also think this is not O.K. to call them collaborators. In addition, the Blue Police or Ghetto Police in most cases were forced into collaboration by death threats or (Ghetto Police) desire to survive. In my personal opinion, they are not the same as Waffen SS volunteers for example, so perhaps this should be also indicated. Thanks.--Jacurek (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
As I wrote elsewhere, some sources give gigantic numbers for Polish collaborators (millions). To show the fallacy (lunacy...) of what they define as a collaborator, it is a good idea to clarify what they mean by collaboration - which is indeed anybody who wasn't an active and never wavering resistance fighter from the first till last day... and yes, as Peters noted, such a definition would include even Jews working in the concentration camps, not to mention in ghetto factories. Still, since some people insist on adding that number, I think it is only fair to include the definition. And if we can find a sourced comparison to Jewish workers, it would be a useful addition too.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Compare the Channel Islands paragraph of the same article. Xx236 (talk) 08:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Stefan Banach

At "Stefan Banach," 71.202.68.47 persists in seeking to turn Banach into a Ukrainian—in case anyone wishes to revert the alterations or to comment.

Would it help to place the article under partial protection? Nihil novi (talk) 09:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Try WP:RFP.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I reported him to AN/EW and got the IP address blocked for a month I think. If he keeps coming back under new IPs (as he's already done once), we'll probably need to at least semi-protect the article (and the others he keeps attacking).--Kotniski (talk) 07:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Banach is still listed in Lists of Ukrainians. Xx236 (talk) 10:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed (along with Tchaikovsky, which is another one our friend likes to try to co-opt).--Kotniski (talk) 10:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Bunchuk

Mayby some one wuld be good enogh to translate and add polish section to this article without making language monster... Materials:

Rozporządzenie Ministra Obrony Narodowej z dnia 20 września 2002 r. w sprawie wyróżniania pododdziałów i oddziałów wojskowych. (Dz. U. z dnia 3 października 2002 r.):

§ 9.

  1. Odznakę tytułu honorowego "Wzorowy Pododdział" nadanego pododdziałowi wojskowemu, który na podstawie odrębnych przepisów dziedziczy tradycje kawaleryjskie, stanowi buńczuk.
  2. Elementami buńczuka są lanca, proporczyk i ogon z włosa końskiego.
  3. Lanca metalowa niklowana o długości 2.700 mm ma grot o długości 300 mm oraz rękojeść, umieszczoną w odległości 1.150 mm od jej dolnego końca, oplecioną szarym sznurkiem na długości 200 mm. Przy górnej krawędzi rękojeści i dolnym końcu lancy są umieszczone rzemienie koloru brązowego. Na lancy mogą być umieszczone gwoździe okolicznościowe koloru srebrnego.
  4. Proporczyk z tkaniny w barwach Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, określonych w odrębnych przepisach, o długości 1.200 mm i szerokości 350 mm jest zakończony dwoma językami na wolnym liku; głębokość wcięcia języków proporczyka jest równa jednej trzeciej jego długości.
  5. Ogon z włosia końskiego barwy czarnej, umieszczony w siatce jedwabnej z frędzlami z trójskrętnego sznurka koloru srebrnego, przymocowany do metalowej niklowanej kopułki zaopatrzonej u wierzchołka w kółko, jest zawieszony wraz z proporczykiem przy grocie lancy. Ogon jest zawieszony na metalowym niklowanym łańcuszku złożonym z siedmiu ogniw, zakończonym haczykiem w kształcie litery "S"; całkowita długość łańcuszka wynosi 95 mm.
  6. Wzór buńczuka zawiera załącznik nr 5 do rozporządzenia.

Full text and annexes.

To be honest... It ried, but I gave up... Radomil talk 00:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Defiance (2008 film)

As this controversial (to Poles and Jews) movie hits the screens, we should monitor this article and related ones (Bielski partisans, Naliboki massacre) for vandalism and so on. If anybody sees the movie, please share your impressions (here) as well :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC) Next monday Gazeta Wyborcza will publish an article about Bielski partizans, a short version of the article is available. I believe that the Bielski partizans didn't participate in the massacre.Xx236 (talk) 14:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There has already been plenty of talk over the past year about the brothers. Here are some of the articles I found “interesting” [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. A friend of a friend saw an advance screening last November. He reported that “there are no Poles depicted in the film” Jniech (talk) 16:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Note that some users want to remove all Polish references from the article: comment here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Monarchs and Dukes

First, should we move Casimir III of Poland to Casimir III the Great, to fit other Polish monarchs? Most Polish monarchs are currently under a "Polish first name / numeral if applicable / cognomen. But Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) advises to use "of country" instead. In discussions past, we've decised as a rule of thumb that for Polish monarchs, first, cognomens are often more popular, and second, "of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" or "of Poland and Lithuania" for pre-1569 Jagiellons is simply too unwieldy. This, however, is not really reflected anywhere in the official rules. Should we try to modify them? See also historical artifacts: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Polish rulers).

Second, I feel somewhat uneasy moving articles on Dukes of Silesia recently created by Aldebaran69 (talk · contribs) (who in any case should be praised for creating a bunch of interesting and missing articles). Unfortunately he seems to ignore attempts to engage him in discussion, and although he doesn't revert often, I am not even sure myself if all my moves are indeed justified. In the case of Talk:Ludwik I the Fair I am pretty sure that my move was the good idea because of the disambig issues, in the others... I wonder if we should look at all of them case by case, or agree that my moves - to make them resemble the Polish monarchs - are correct? Third, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines are there to summarize wikipedia's practices, not dictate them. De facto, Polish monarchs are named "Forename Numeral Nickname" (the latter in English, though the first two Boleslaws I think should have their nicknames in Polish [preferably in Old Slavic, but this ain't done]). I'd be happy for Casimir to be moved, and probably some of the others too (though any Polonoform versus Angloform discussion is separate and should be held separately). Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Prehistory and protohistory of Poland

There is some discussion at Good Article Nominations about this series of articles:

All five were nominated as a set. The reviewers are having difficulty with them because the sources are mostly in Polish. If anyone has access to the sources used and can read Polish, your help would be appreciated. The main article has already been failed for other reasons. If you are interested in helping out, please respond at the GAN talk page. Thanks. Wronkiew (talk) 17:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

FAR notification for Władysław Sikorski

I have nominated Władysław Sikorski for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. D.M.N. (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

how many polish people got shiped to canada and what did they bring —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.111.138 (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Did Wajda film in Auschwitz?

Was Landscape After the Battle filmed in Auschwitz?Xx236 (talk) 15:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Germanic peoples

Thought it might be of interest to inform that there is a "discussion" on Talk:Germanic peoples about a the includeability of a genetics section the interpretation of which I'm not sure the article's editors can handle. Among the points suggested by innuendo is that northern Poland, Ireland and Scotland represent the purest blooded Germanic people. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Shoah (film)

Polish bystanders, once more.Xx236 (talk) 10:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Conventions page

I've started a new page on conventions for Poland-related articles: WP:WPPL/C. It might become a guideline in the future. It's based on what was at WP:Naming conventions (settlements) about Poland (that now links to there), and other things that have been agreed or simply developed up to now. Please expand, edit and/or discuss.--Kotniski (talk) 13:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent entry - Polish volunteers to Waffen SS (!??)

However, the Waffen SS did enlist ethnic Poles into the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian) Can Polish editors confirm the references for this recent entry here Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II. Ethnic Poles or Ukrainians with pre-War Polish citizenship ? Thanks--Jacurek (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC) and here also : [[20]]--Jacurek (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It's always possible that they were a few exceptions. It would help if you could cite the reference to verify here; your links are just to general articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 13:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually there were no ethnic Polish volunteers. I checked.--Jacurek (talk) 15:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I presume you'll remove the errors and monitor the articles? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes--Jacurek (talk) 19:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for lists of false friends in different languages

I posted this proposal on the False Friend talk page and was wondering what people here think. It wouldn't just apply to Polish of course. What do people think about starting some lists of false friends in different languages? Would it be warranted? For List of English-Polish False Friends, for example, there'd be angina (heart disease in Eng, a sore throat in Pol), actual ('real' in Eng, 'up-to-date' in Pol), absurd (an adjective in Eng, a noun in Pol)... My major reservation is that apart from dictionaries, there are not many good sources so it comes close to original research. Anybody think this is a good idea? All views would be welcome:) Malick78 (talk) 15:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC) Eventual (ewentualny)—in Polish, it doesn't mean "eventual" but "possible." A list of false friends could be very useful for bilinguals. Nihil novi (talk) 09:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the article List of false friends was deleted from en.wp (see dicussion here) - verifiability is indeed an issue, but sources are available if you are persistent e.g. [21], [22].
Alternatively, are you aware of the wikibooks project "False Friends of the Slavist"? It might be worth talking to the editors of that project to see if the would like to extend their own project outside Slavic langugaes, or collaborate in starting a new parallel project. Hope that helps, Knepflerle (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
This website is probably as comprehensive a list of resources and dictionaries as you will find, and would be a good place to start looking for reliable sources. Knepflerle (talk) 16:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that:) I've never done anything on wikibooks so maybe I'll investigate that path - but am I right in thinking that you think the list would be inappropriate for WP then? Re: the AFD on the previous list - the main problem it seems was that it was too big and therefore unencyclopaedic. Having dedicated lists for each language may help avoid this problem. I haven't got access to the books on that Lipczuk website so OR would still be a problem, but if someone else has then that would help. Malick78 (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
  • "am I right in thinking that you think the list would be inappropriate for WP then?" - not necessarily. It's hard to say what other editors will think, but if it's reliably sourced and well-maintained I personally see no reason why it could not have a place here. As for the books - I'm sure any decent library would be able to get hold of them. It might also be worth asking the people at wikibooks if they have access to any of them, though the Langenscheidt dictionary should be easy enough to find anywhere. Hope that helps Knepflerle (talk) 19:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Poles in Lithuania

Category:Articles with dead external links since August 2007 has only this one article left and the external link in question is marked as a Polish language link. Could someone here please sort this out? Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Dead_links has instructions on repairing dead links.--BirgitteSB 04:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Which of 62 links is dead?Xx236 (talk) 09:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Those marked with {{Dead link}} :) I fixed one, but one more remains: --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
  • (in Polish) Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006). ""Antypolski tekst K. Garsvy" (Anti-polish text by K. Garsva)". Commentary on K.Garsva article "Kiedy na Wileńszczyźnie będzie wprowadzone zarządzanie bezpośrednie? (When Vilnius region will have direct self-government?)" in [[Lietuvos Aidas]], 11 -12.10". Media zagraniczne o Polsce (Foreign Media on Poland). XV (200/37062). Retrieved 2006-01-20. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

The same link in Kazimieras Garšva and Vilnija.Xx236 (talk) 10:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

Article Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact may need some attention since it currently undergoes significant changes with regard to consequences of this Pact for Poland. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 15:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Piotr Stanczak

I have started an article about Piotr Stanczak, the Polish geologist who was murdered in Pakistan. If anyone has information about this man (such as his date of birth, place of birth, his career, etc.) I would encourage you to go to the article and add it. --Tocino 21:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Poland during World War I

I have created that article (based on History_of_Poland_(1795–1918)#World_War_I) as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War I task force/Centenary drive. Anybody would like to help? PS. The naming corresponds to the Category:World War I by country, where articles are named "country in/and/during World War I"; I however do wonder if the article shouldn't be named History of Poland (1914–1918) to correspond with articles in our Category:History of Poland by period (Polish Wikipedia corresponding article is named pl:Historia Polski (1914-1918)).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Lost and found: Polish resistance movement during the partitions

I've just discovered that in August 2008, an anon has created this article by forking History of Poland (1795–1918) (on a redirect, which is why it was hard to notice till just now). As this is a pretty important topics, review and improvement would be appreciated. In particular, we need to defork the anon's creation - currently both articles are very much the same. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation for Polish

At WT:IPA for Polish it has been discovered that the sound files which allegedly illustrate the Polish sounds are inaccurate, as they are just generic files for particular international phonetic symbols, not the true Polish sounds. Is anyone able to record and upload a native Pole pronouncing these sounds?--Kotniski (talk) 07:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Does Poland have a national bird?

Does Poland have a national bird? If so, is it the White Eagle like the one on the Coat of arms of Poland or is it the White Stork? OlEnglish (talk) 23:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

White Eagle, definitely, although I wonder how official it is... is the US bald eagle, for example, official? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
The legendary White Eagle of Lechitians
The Bald Eagle was made the national bird of the United States in 1782. The image of the bald eagle can be found on the Great Seal, Federal agency seals, the President's flag, and on the one-dollar bill.[23] The same is true about the Polish White Eagle since the 13th century, because that's just how things work in crown land (there's no better answer). The White Stork, on the other hand, has no official status. It is a stuff of many beloved legends among the Poles. --Poeticbent talk 00:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, according to User:Kpalion, Poland has no official national bird. See his answer to my question at Talk:Coat of arms of Poland. In addition, there's mention of the White Stork being the "national bird of Poland" in its article, but it's unreferenced. OlEnglish (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I have never heard the White Stork being called a "national bird". True, it is a relatively respected bird, but I am not aware of it being treated like a symbol of anything...? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It's sometimes believed that the bird is White-tailed Eagle but it's not an eagle. White Stork is used to promote nature of Poland, but Lithuania does do the same and some region of Spain, where white storks live in a town.Xx236 (talk) 09:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

So, what exactly is the White Eagle in the picture to the right? Did it go extinct? If the Polish White Eagle is not a living bird but a legendary one, than what is Poland's national bird? --Poeticbent talk 17:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Whether Poland has a statute that sets out the Polish national bird I don't know, but the crowned Polish white eagle had been part of Poland's coat of arms since the 12 century and is an official Polish symbol, and it has found its way onto coins, flags and other official seals etc. It's generically a white eagle from what I can tell and at one time it was based on some real bird, not necessarily an eagle. [24] --Milicz (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Everything you want is here [25].Xx236 (talk) 07:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

A good find, thanks. Perhaps somebody could incorporate this into our article(s)? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Jews in pre-WWII Poland

The main source is Celia Stopnicka Heller

Joseph Marcus not mentioned

This is not a place for book reviews. And if you mean something else, I've asked you several times to add context to your post, such as wikilinks to articles that you are concerned about. If anybody else knows how the above post relates to Wikipedia, please let me know.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The title of this paragraph is "Jews in pre-WWII Poland". As I have written before the subject is described twice:

containing almost the same text twice, which I find unacceptable. The History of the Jews in Poland should contain a summary rather than copy of other articles. Polish census of 1931 quotes both authors. A number of articles about history of Poland quote only Joseph Marcus. There may be some bias when authors select Heller or Marcus, because they like her/his specific POV.Xx236 (talk) 07:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, by all means, be bold and rewrite the articles; also point out the bias and errors on their talk pages.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
There is also Timeline of Jewish Polish history.Xx236 (talk) 08:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Updating list of szlachta

Please see Talk:List_of_szlachta#Purpose_of_the_list_and_criteria_for_inclusion for my proposal who is notable to be included in that list. Also, following a recent discussion on notability of Polish noble families, I've suggested a guide to notability of such families there. Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

List of Polish consorts

Hello! Can someone please take a look at List of Polish consorts article? User:Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy and I did the best we could, but we are not sure about the dates of birth and death of the duchesses and early queens, so we need help from Polish history experts! :) Surtsicna (talk) 17:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Polish nationalism

is a redirect to Slavic nationalism. Shouldn't this be its own scholarly article? It seems notable enough. It could include content from the articles listed under it. Anyone agree? Ostap 19:30, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly notable. I'd support creation it, with several remarks: the ideas listed as Slavic nationalism are hardly exhaustive or correct. Sarmatism dates to pre-nationalism era of thought and Prometheism was more of a foreign policy then nationalism. Far right in Poland would be correct, but hardly exhaustive. I am thinking endecja would be a good link to add.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 14:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Nationalists are frequently socialist, far right is frequently a hate speach rather than description.Xx236 (talk) 18:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC) Far right in Poland is one of the most idiotic texts in this Wikipedia. Can anyone write anything?Xx236 (talk) 18:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Lenz & Co. ?

Hello all,
I have just read a short story by Tadeusz Borowski called 'U nas, w Auschwitzu...' (English: 'By us, in the Auschwitz', probably). Borowski mentions there the name of the company in question in the following paragraph (translation from Polish into English by myself):

"Strange is the lot of the local company Lenz. That company built us the camp, barracks, halls, warehouses, bunkers, stalks [in the camp slang meaning: crematories -- TWK]. The camp was lending them the prisoners, and the SS was giving them the materials. When squaring up, the bill turned out to be so million-high, that not only the Auschwitz, but also the Berlin itself seized their heads."

— Tadeusz Borowski, U nas w Auschwitzu..., [in:] Pożegnanie z Marią i inne opowiadania. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Siedmioróg, 2008. ISBN 978-83-7162-792-7.

The original Polish version follows:

Dziwne są dzieje tutejszej firmy Lenz. Frima ta wybudowała nam obóz, baraki, hale, magazyny, bunkry, kominy. Obóz wypożyczał jej więźniów, a SS dawało materiały. Przy rozliczeniu rachunek okazał się tak fantastycznie milionowy, że za głowę złapał się nie tylko Auschwitz, ale sam Berlin."

— Tadeusz Borowski, U nas w Auschwitzu..., [w:] Pożegnanie z Marią i inne opowiadania. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Siedmioróg, 2008. ISBN 978-83-7162-792-7.

Rudolf Höß, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, mentions one of the bills in his autobiography Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. (again, translation from Polish by myself):

"It comes out of the bills for a 7 month's male– a 9 month's female prisoners work that the Auschwitz camp received a total amount of 12 753 526 [Reichsmark]."

— Rudolf Höss, Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz.

As they helped in building the Auschwitz, it seems it was a pretty big and well-known company in the Third Reich, so they could be notable, couldn't they? Tomasz W. Kozłowski (talk) 10:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC) de:Lenz & Co. was a big railroad company. German Wikipedia doesn't discuss the WWII period.Xx236 (talk) 11:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC) You mean Schlesische Industriebau Lenz & Co AG [28], [29].Xx236 (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Rummel about Poland

Please join Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Rummel's stories about Poland Xx236 (talk) 14:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Polish Barnstar of National Merit

I know that I am not a member of WikiProject Poland, but I took it upon myself to create the Polish Barnstar of National Merit Grade Two ribbon(first, second [below] is the Grade One): I was hoping that this simple idea would be fine, if not then feel free to say no, I have watchlisted this page so I will be following any and all conversation that goes on about this. Thank you for any consideration given. TARTARUS talk 03:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well then I hereby award you the first one! :) -- OlEnglish (Talk) 04:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Great job, thanks! By all means, add it to our front page! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you both for your support of this design, I have gone and been bold and put it onto the front page. TARTARUS talk 21:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

KPN - evil?

KPN is presented here as a far right, extremist party Far right in Poland. Confederation of Independent Poland isn't linked, so the author doesn't have any idea about the subject. The article doesn't say anything about party profile. The same Polish Wikipedia article. Do you have any sources about the party? It seems that the Makumba song is the main source of academic knowledge about the KPN. Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Karta Polaka

The article on Karta Polaka is currently at Polish Charter, which seems to me to be a mistranslation (though not Wikipedia's own). Please help decide on the right name for the page at Talk:Polish Charter.--Kotniski (talk) 13:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No responses so far, so I've moved it to Karta Polaka for now.--Kotniski (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Witold Pilecki

I have nominated Witold Pilecki for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Tom B (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Conventions page a guideline

Assuming there's nothing controversial there (it represents pretty standard practice), I've marked our conventions page as a guideline (you can use the shortcut WP:MOSPOL to get there). --Kotniski (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Kresy Castles

Interesting new creation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Silesian tribes

I would like to direct your attention on the article Silesian tribes. It was created by LUCPOL with the main idea to create a separate article from the Polish tribes. It was compleatly unsourced and based mostly on the creators personal opinions about the topic. I managed (after few deletions) to provide English sources that state that Silesian tribes are part of Polish tribes. Today I added two more English, reliable sources (One from Cambridge University Press 2006) and put a direct quote from it. It was nevertheless deleted by Lucpol. I, on the other hand, left his info sourced by works edited by Ruch Autonomii Śląska and by a webpage connected to it. I've put back the deleted info but I would like to ask you to take a close look at the article couse another attempt to delete this data maybe made. Best Wishes Opole.pl (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is created by the very existence of this article. In the 9th century (Bavarian Geographer's time) there was no Poland and no Silesia. There were Slavic tribes, and West Slavic tribes, not much different from other Slavic tribes. There were "Polish tribes" in the sense, that when united later by Mieszko, they constituted the Polish state. But before that they were no more closely related to each other, than to, for example, the Czech tribes. Thus the concept of "Polish" tribes is vague enough. Introducing "Silesian", "Masovian" or what have you tribes is splitting the hair, unless of course the whole issue is politically motivated. The tribes in Silesia as late as the 9th century were surely not Germanic, and not "Silesian" in any reasonable sense. They were just Slavic. The issue of ethnic history of Silesia could be covered in an appropriate article, but it makes no sense to speak of "Silesian tribes" as of a distinct entity.Orczar (talk) 23:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most things that you are saying. But in my opinion, from our point of view (a 1000 years later), we can call some of the tribes Silesian. Of course we schould add that those were just ordinary West Slavic tribes that later on, due to the territory they lived on, started to be called Silesian tribes. Also there is nothing wrong that togeather with the Vistulans, Polans etc we may call them one of the Polish tribes since that is the way those tribes are treated in Polish, English and other literature. I am not stating that they were already Polish or Silesian in the 6th or 7th century but we must agree that in a result, some time afterwards, they started to be treated as such. Opole.pl (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Article Alerts

I've subscribed us to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-02-23/Article Alerts - see link at the bottom of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Poland#Article_news. Let's hope it works. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Tadeusz Kościuszko

I guess it's that time of the year again: interested editors may want to discuss if he should be indeed described as "of Belorussian-Lithuanian origin" and such.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Kościuszko demanded forced Polonisation of peasants.Xx236 (talk) 07:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Source? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

[30] - says "stopniowej". BTW - Kościuszko allegedly wrote letters to his mother in Belarus language.Xx236 (talk) 07:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Kraków for GA

The article is very close to being a GA. We just need to take care of a few citation requests and a copyedit, see Talk:Kraków#GA_again.3F. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Dwór and Manor house

Polish pl:Dwór links to Manor house, which doesn't inform about Dwór. So the whole world of Dwór isn't even mentioned here.Xx236 (talk) 11:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

As I have written before - nothing about Poland nor Eastern Europe.Xx236 (talk) 07:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we need to translate Dwor into English. Of course Polish wiki has its own issues, as Dwor is indeed incorrectly linked to other articles which are about manor houses worldwide (in other words, just as en wiki often misses Polish POV, Polish wiki is very Poland-centric in its coverage). In any case, the best solution is to create the needed articles/section youself, posting here more than once is not likely to generate much action, I am afraid.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

a question

i was reading the articles about Wrocław and Lwów and i have a question: why does the Wrocław article use the name Breslau for the period the city was part of Germany while the other article uses Lviv all the time? Loosmark (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Read Vilnius, it's a masterpiece.Xx236 (talk) 07:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Sadly, the answer is related to modern day nationalist sentiments in various countries. The more nationalistic editors, the more likely WP:NCGN is going to be disregarded. Do note that that doesn't imply all or even majority of editors from a given country are nationalistic - but that at some point somebody rewrote an article to remove all "foreign" names they found "offensive". PS. Loosmark, have you tried asking this question at the German and Ukrainian noticeboards? I'd be interested in hearing the answers of those respective wikicommunities. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I have asked several times when the name Vilnius was registered for the first time, no answer yet. Xx236 (talk) 08:22, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Piotrus i asked the question on projectUkraine but nobody cared to asnwer so they probably aren't interested. Loosmark (talk) 00:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

Alleged expulsions from pre-war Poland.Xx236 (talk) 11:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC) "many ethnic Germans were forced to leave or murdered throughout the 1920s and 1930s" - from History of German settlement in Eastern Europe. It seems that Hitler was right murdering the racilaly lower Poles. Is this a Nazipedia?Xx236 (talk) 11:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Remove the idiocy and/or tag the articles or sections with {{npov}} and like. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

"Expulsion" articles are frequently edited by anonimous contributors, rather German but sometimes also Polish.

Post WWI migrations should be described, maybe in a specific article. It was an exchange of population between Poland and Germany, I don't know the numbers. Poland accepted also refugees from Russia, of many nationalities. Xx236 (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The word Expulsion as German nationalistic POV

The word Expulsion is a translation of German "Vertreibung". Usage of different words to name the same processes is POV, supported by the German state. It breakes basic rules of this Wikipedia.Xx236 (talk) 09:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

As you have been asked (repeatedly), could you please do the basic courtesy of presenting a suggestion for altering a specific part of a named article?
"Usage of different words to name the same processes is POV" - not true, in general. Knepflerle (talk) 13:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
"Usage of different words to name the same processes is POV" - not true? Excuse me? This Wikipedia is a project. If we use emotionally loaded words ("expulsion"), Soviet propaganda ("repatriation") and academically neutral to describe three comparable subjects, we create three realities, not one project. The same is with Far right and Nationalism - some parties are far right the other nationalistic, without any explanation. Any rational project demands that basic notions should be defined and used. If the basis is rotten, the whole biulding will collaps. Xx236 (talk) 14:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
What is suitable for an article or series of articles depends on the sources, issues and scholarly English usage. This is why posting cryptic general comments when you have a specific problem with an article helps noone - it almost impossible to help you unless you are clear.
So once more, help us to help you: which articles are the problem? Names please. What instances of which words are the problem? What do you suggest we should do? What sources would you like to use? Knepflerle (talk) 21:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
"Usage of different words to name the same processes is POV" I'll have to agree with Xx236, it can be POV if those different words suggest different judgements. But he draws the wrong conclusions. If there were expulsions of Poles, they ought to be named expulsions too, instead of introducing the same euphemisms he complains about into other articles. Anorak2 (talk) 10:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree, doing so can be a way of forcing a non-neutral POV, of that I am fully aware and in this particular case that could be what is happening. But to say that in general, no matter what the subject, we require absolute uniformity in wording across en.wp in order to ensure neutral POV is exaggeration. More valuable is to report what wording is used where, by whom and in which context and let the reader draw their own conclusions. This is why it is important to make clear exactly which parts of which articles are the problem - which still hasn't been done. Knepflerle (talk) 11:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the underlying issue is Talk:Repatriation_of_Poles#Move proposal. But I can only guess. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
The whole issue of expulsions versus repatriations is a grey area in postwar history. For example, those Polish citizens who found themselves living within the new borders of the Soviet Union (after the gulags, massacres of Poles in Volhynia and other calamities) were at first considered by Stalin as locals and routinely refused the right to migrate to new Poland. A lot of them went to great lengths to have their Polish nationality recognized by the Russians, especially on their journey from Siberia. But, were the Poles expelled from Kresy as well via official repatriation of Poles? Most of them were, regardless of will. By the same token, I don’t think most Germans wished to remain in Poland once Polish borders shifted westward. They must have desired to live among their own people for sure. --Poeticbent talk 19:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

All articles about deportations of Germans use the word "Expulsion". Articles about deportations of Poles use the word "Repatriation". "Repatriation" is generally nice thing, isn't it? The idea of Vertreibung/Expulsion was created around 1950 in Western Germany. Xx236 (talk) 09:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In cases where Poles were indeed expulsed and the corresponding articles use euphemisms to describe this fact, you ought to address this as POV in the articles affected. However such an imbalance is no justification to introduce the same kind of POV into other articles. The idea of Vertreibung/Expulsion was created around 1950 in Western Germany. That sounds plausible, but doesn't make it wrong. It's natural that the people affected by such an action are the first to complain publicly. Since the East German regime suppressed any public complaints by refugees living there, it was left to those living in West Germany to do so. As sympathy for Germany was low among other coutries at the time, you wouldn't expect support from abroad for such complaints. But even that doesn't make them wrong. Anorak2 (talk) 10:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
The problem is discussed here, unfortunately in Polish, some quotes in German: [31] Xx236 (talk) 08:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
My summary: "Vertreibung" is a moral opinion but not a name of historical event.Xx236 (talk) 09:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
If Russian/Polish forces/authorities ordered Germans to leave, and used force to make them leave (and orthodox history seems to say that these things happened on a large scale), then expulsion seems to be a perfectly accurate and neutral word to describe it. The same would apply to the expulsion of Poles from Kresy. Repatriation implies (to me) sending someone back to a home country they left, and so is misleading in a situation where it's the borders that had moved rather than the people.--Kotniski (talk) 09:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
You aren't obviously right. Read the quoted text - the German idea of Vertreibung includes the whole process since evacuation, the hard phase being only one part of it. The same you can call the 20 century WWII or Poland - Warsaw. The "Expulsion" includes economical emigration from Poland. The next step will be to call any illegal immigrants "expelled". Any Nazi criminal who served in Poland killing and torturing was "expelled". What a kind of language do you impose? Who give you the authority to destroy the language outside of Germany? You can only create your local "customs" of this type. [[Xx236 (talk) 10:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Regardless of whether "expulsion" is a translation of Vertreibung, I still think it is an accurate English word to desribe the subject of the article.--Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
"Expulsion" includes thousands of liberated German POWs travelling from Siberia to Western Germany around 1953 and German workers kept in Poland till 1970. It's not exactly what the English word means.Xx236 (talk) 10:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
That's my view, too. Maybe you can comment on Talk:Repatriation_of_Poles#Move proposal, and give the discussion there a new try? Skäpperöd (talk) 09:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
sending someone back to a home country they left, and so is misleading in a situation where it's the borders that had moved rather than the people.

Fritz Ries-a German industrialists, born in Saarbrücken; lived n Germany till 1939. Sent to Poland to oversee slave labour and production. Has expellee status, based on the fact that during his work there he took home as administrator of the works. So was he driven from his country or the place he lived for centuries ? Why does Germany have law that allows people like him to gain expellee status(it comes with many benefits from the state btw) and why don't they change it ? How many people like Fritz do exist beside him with the status of expellee ? --Molobo (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem with "Expulsion" is that the word is used as an equivalent of German "Vertreibung" and "Vertreibung" is a mixture of Flight, Expulsion, War Crimes, US/UK bombings and economical migration of 1970ties. Xx236 (talk) 07:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The post-1950 migrations to Germany are usually not termed expulsion/Vertreibung, although the respective German laws ruling social and financial aid for expellees (Lastenausgleichsgesetz, Bundesvertriebenengesetz) applied also to these migrations. I would however not assign the label "economic migration" to all of these, economy was one reason, perhaps the only one for some, but there were a lot of other, primarily political and cultural reasons, that caused these people to emigrate. Nevertheless, these people (though able to apply for expellee status based on the above mentioned laws) were not counted as expellees outside the application of these laws - expellee status in terms of the above mentioned laws was assigned to more than 18 million people (I don't have the exact figure here now, but I am pretty sure it was >18). Skäpperöd (talk) 09:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC) PS: The distinction between "real" expellees and expellees in terms of the above mentioned specific German laws IS made in Germany, in usage as well as in statistics. Skäpperöd (talk) 13:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A need for cooperation

We have reached an impasse in the negotiations on the issues of politically charged terminology originating from the Cold War era, making the corresponding articles written about comparable subjects seem like they don’t relate to each other. The only question is whether a balance can be found between conflicting policy guidelines discussed here by both German and Polish editors, namely, WP:V and WP:NC.

The issues revolve around the migration of Poles and Germans after World War II, euphemistically called “repatriations” and/or “expulsions” and/or “deportations” and/or “flight” and/or “displacement” depending on which side of the fence the sources originate from. In the process, we created conflicting realities within one project, all of them inflammatory and misleading. The only legally correct term for these events in my opinion is population transfers, as per definition of international law, and in accordance with academically neutral language applicable to all cases. Unfortunately, editors inspired by emotive eloquence of writers and historians from across the Iron Curtain disagree on many particulars, so I’m not sure if all of us can see the writing on the wall.

Liberated German and Polish POWs travelling from Siberia to new Poland and to new Western Germany were encountering similar challenges along the way, to a differing degree of course. A lot of them went to great lengths to have their nationality recognized by the Russians, who routinely refused them the right to migrate back to their countries of origin (with already redrawn borders). Stalin considered many of them as his subjects, while, at the same time, conducting massive operations across central Europe in accordance with the provisions of Yalta Agreement. The Americans, the French and the British were not around to significantly influence the process of forced resettlement, which was a source of much tragedy and distress for civilian Germans from Pomerania and Silesia as well as the civilian Poles from Kresy, Volhynia and Podolia. The similarities are striking, not only in terms of how it must have felt for many of them, but also, how the Wikipedia articles about the affected cities and towns are presented. We all know that there's no going back.

I would like to propose that the articles dealing with these matters were re-examined for neutrality and renamed, so they can fit into the same category within the postwar history of Europe and world. We can start with two corresponding subjects, i.e. the Resettlement of Poles after World War II, and the Resettlement of Germans after World War II, as they are two parts of one area of postwar history. Please express your opinion. --Poeticbent talk 22:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I like the word "resettlement". It's neutral enough and broad enough for both sets of articles. Another alternative would be "Forced migration", per article on Human migration. I do think that current "evacuation and expulsion" as in "World War II evacuation and expulsion" is too cumbersome and incorrect; there was some voluntary migration, repatriation, deportation, and so on. A neutral, general title is best for all of those articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree, the proposal of Poeticbent is logical and follows accepted international law standards. The post-war events were not WW2 expulsions but population transfers. Resettlement is a good choice. I agree also that those articles need carefull review, right now they are based on series of unreliable sources rather then on honest scholary books, and full of personal opinions. They also lack much information that is presented in scholary works(for example works by Ingo Haar or Detlef Brandes from Germany).--Molobo (talk) 18:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea to call this a "resettlement" is not new. "Resettlement" (German: Umsiedlung) was the label chosen and used for the expulsions by the East German Communists, just like the closely related term "repatriation" was the term used by the Polish Communists. These guys were not that famous for neutrality and truth. So I strongly disagree. If it was an expulsion, it ought to be called an expulsion. Skäpperöd (talk) 19:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

So Fritz Ries was expelled ? And please use sources and scholary material instead of your own opinions.
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Banishment or exile is a similar process, but is forcibly applied to individuals and groups.
Often the affected population is transferred by force to a distant region, perhaps not suited to their way of life, causing them substantial harm. In addition, the loss of all immovable property and, when forced, the loss of substantial amounts of movable property, is implied.
Population exchange is the transfer of two populations in opposite directions at about the same time
From Population transfer article.--Molobo (talk) 19:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
From your requesting scholary sources for post-war basics, I can only assume you are not familiar at all with the issue. For a start, the Communists in Poland coordinated the "repatriation" by a "Bureau for Repatriation" headed by Wladyslaw Gomulka, its Communist East German counterpart was "Zentralverwaltung für deutsche Umsiedler", "Bureau for German re-settlers". See also Michael Schwartz, Vertriebe und "Umsiedlerpolitik": Integrationskonflikte in den deutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaften und die Assimilationsstrategien in der SBZ/DDR 1945 - 1961. München 2004, p.3: "In der SBZ/DDR wurde offiziell der Terminus "Umsiedler" verwendet". I know this is not the best source to present to a Polish speaker, but if you do some research, you will find plenty of material on this. Skäpperöd (talk) 19:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
In my experience, resettlement when used in discussing this topic in English does not have the same connotations and associated meanings as Umsiedlung has in the German literature. It's hard to give hard evidence to justify this (other than personal Sprachgefühl), but I have the impression it is a neutral alternative in English. Knepflerle (talk) 00:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As to terminology used, I don't see that as anything strange that the post-war governments which were internationally reckognised used terms applicable to international law.Since you are so educated in those matters perhaps you will be willing to explain to me upon what basis Fritz Ries sent to Nazi Occupied Poland and responsible for overseeing Jewish slave labour was granted the Expellee status after the war ? If you don't know not a problem, I will reasearch it on my own. --Molobo (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the term "resettlement", it sounds good to me, I'd say yes to it. How about placing the proper adjective "involuntary" in front of it? Any objections (with a logical basis)? "Involuntary resettlement." Surely no one thinks they were voluntarily resettled. Dr. Dan (talk) 01:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I also object to "involuntary resettlement", since an expulsion is a special form of this. "Involuntary resettlement" would e.g. apply to the resettlement of the Baltic Germans to Warthegau - though they were forced to leave their homeland by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of them was assigned a definite area they would be resettled in, the resettlement was well organized, and most people were able to take their moveable belongings with them. With the late and post-WWI expulsion of Germans, situation was very much different. Not only in the early "wild" stage, but also in the post-Potsdam stage. People were basicaally dumped across the new border, dead or alive, without anything but some clothes (yes, the lucky ones had a suitcase, too). Those not expelled immediately were outlawed, subject to atrocities of all kind, their property was declared "post-German", confiscated and looted; in any case they had to work for the "new masters", either on their former land or gouped in brigades distributed somewhere else, or in detention camps, or as deportees far away. This was not just an involuntary resettlement. Let's spare that phrase for situations like the involuntary resettlement of village populations by local governments to make way for coal mining or an autobahn. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You seem to forget, that Poles were removed to make room for the "well organised" resettlement, some of them killed. BTW - some ethnic Germans weren't happy in occupied Poland, some of them were imprisoned by the Nazis, so maybe not so "well organised"? Xx236 (talk) 11:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
No, I haven't forgot that. The resettlement of the Baltic Germans was just an example to illustrate an in my view appropriate use of the term "involuntary resettlement", and I did not use that term in regard to the preceeding events concerning the Poles. Neither do I question that the Baltic Germans were subject to the same measures the Nazis applied to all other Germans, too. Btw, Nazi propaganda dubbed this "Heim ins Reich", literally "Back home to the Reich", resembling the term "repatriation" later used by Polish Communist propaganda. At least some parallels are striking here, most obviously that neither the Baltic Germans nor the Kresy Poles originated in the Third Reich or Communist Poland, respectively, and that the territory termed "home" or "patria" was only recently gained and we know what happened to the previous population of these territories, which of course were also labeled with propaganda names like "Recovered Territories" to make them look like they really were old integral parts of the "patria". But despite these parallels, the way the Baltic Germans were resettled differed from the way the Kresy Poles were treated, the latter in many cases were not allowed to take any substantial belongings with them, and once arrived in their supposed homeland, they were often enough dropped by the train with their bundle in the middle of nowhere and had to compete with earlier arrived Central Poles for the houses left or about to be left by the Germans, so overall they were much more ill-treated than the Baltic Germans, many of whom arrived to newly built villages. Of course, as always, there were exceptions. Skäpperöd (talk) 13:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
"newly built villages" - where exactly? Xx236 (talk) 15:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
[32] Skäpperöd (talk) 16:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You are using Nazi propaganda - a picture taken in undefined place at undefined day with a caption accusing Poles of burning houses. Are you a Nazi or rather naive?Xx236 (talk) 07:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should hold a RM straw poll, with people voting on more then one new name? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion about naming conventions

Some people are challenging our (OK, my) recently established naming guideline for Polish placse/people. Please join the discussion at WT:MOSPOL.--Kotniski (talk) 07:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Translation request

I have just (nearly) completed a total overhaul of Wikipedia's translation system. Previously, there was a very complicated method of posting translation requests. Now there are simply tags, such as {{Expand Polish}}, that can be placed on stub articles (or longer articles if appropriate). I have tried to review all previous translation requests. Many translation requests were very old and no longer seemed needed, because the English Wikipedia article had developed in the meantime. Other translation requests were fixed by adding tags to existing English-language articles. Other articles I generally could create stubs myself that I could add the tags to. But Wikipedia:Translation/Stanisław Jan Skarżyński I didn't think I could do well enough to withstand deletion. Hopefully people here can create a stub for this, and tag it with {{Expand Polish}}, so that translation can take place later. If you are interested in checking out other articles in need of translation (the ones that are properly tagged already), see Category:Articles needing translation from Polish Wikipedia. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I will stub this article. Thanks for the update on translation reform. Perhaps when a translation tag is added, it should be reflected at WP:AA? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Polish culture during World War II

FYI.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 05:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Polands last queen?

Was Elżbieta Szydłowska married to king Stanisław August Poniatowski? And if so, why was she not a queen? Was it a morganatic marriage, and if so, why? --85.226.44.201 (talk) 17:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It appears it was a morganatic marriage. I wonder if we should add her to List of Polish consorts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps she could be added, if it is a list of consorts; she was a consort, even if she was not a queen. But why was it a morganatic marriage? Is she not very known in Polish history?--85.226.44.201 (talk) 08:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Her and his article give different dates for the wedding; 1783 and 1789. Perhaps her article need attending to? Is it correct that it was a morganatic marriage, and that she was not a queen? Andif so, why was this? --85.226.44.201 (talk) 08:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
We need to find reliable source to verify that info, perhaps you could help and look for them? Google Print is a good source. When you find the correct info, be bold and correct the errors, citing your sources. Also, please consider registering. Thanks, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article review

I have nominated Battle of Warsaw (1920) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Novickas (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Geographic locations bot

I run a bot that adds geographic coordinates to articles by matching their names and categories to information in the U.S. government's public domain NGA GNIS database of places.

The matching rule is:

  • if the Wikipedia article can be identified as a geographic location in a particular country
  • if Wikipedia has only one place of that name in that country (ignoring any subnational region qualifier)
  • if GNIS has only one place of that name in that country (ignoring any subnational region qualifier)
  • if the country and feature type of that particular Wikipedia article and GNIS entry agree
  • ...and a number of other heuristic checks against false positives, too lengthy to go into here, are satisfied

then an article is geocoded with the matching GNIS coordinates.

However, I haven't been running it on Polish locations, because of the very high level of name reuse, and both Wikipedia and GNIS' spotty coverage of Polish places was leading to false positives, where only one of a large number of places with the same name would have been created on Wikipedia, and GNIS would also only have one entry, but the two would not actually correspond.

Since then, tens of thousands of new articles on Polish places have been added to Wikipedia, and I think it may be worth revisiting automatic geocoding on places in Poland. If the false positive problem has gone away, it should be possible to geocode around 3,000 articles in a single run, just based on the heuristics above.

Can anyone tell me how complete the en: Wikipedia coverage of Polish places is, or where to get a database of Polish placenames so I can generate lists of names that correspond to multiple places, even if GNIS and Wikipedia do not have all of them, or -- best of all -- whether there is any suitable public domain data available for the location of these Polish place articles? -- The Anome (talk) 15:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Our resident expert User:Kotniski should be replying to you soon, I hope - you may live him a note on the talk page; he is the one responsible for adding most new Polish locations to en wiki with his Kotbot... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the process of adding the Polish location articles is almost complete (just half of one province to go). It should be completed in a couple of weeks' time. As you note, there are a lot of duplicate names. I think we would have to develop an appropriate algorithm. For example, we can generate a table of all the village names that we have, and the known coordinates for places in the districts in which they lie. That way even if a name is not unique, we can hope to assign a given set of coordinates to the right place of that name, by comparing it with known coordinates for neighbouring places. There will still be occasional ambiguities to be resolved manually, but I think most of them should be handled automatically once we get the algorithm right.--Kotniski (talk) 11:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
That's exactly the sort of thing I have in mind. I propose starting with the easy cases of articles where there is only one place of that name in all of Poland (which I have already, but haven't yet run), then moving to articles where there is only one place of that name in a particular province (which GNIS at first glance appears to code correctly, but I haven't yet cross-checked for validity). Unique-per-district places will almost certainly have to be dealt with in the way you describe.
As a matter of interest, can anyone tell me why Poland in particular shows this very high level of name reuse? The nearest comparisons I can find are Japan, Canada and the United States, but even they show considerably lower levels of name reuse. Canada and the U.S. I can understand, because of the tendency of new colonists to re-use names from their old country, classical cultures, or allusive names like "Hope". I don't understand the reason for the high name reuse level in Japan, a country with, like Poland, an ancient culture of its own. Fortunately, the U.S. has easily accessible public domain geodata tagged by name/state/county, but Japan and Canada are still off-limits for my bot for now. -- The Anome (talk) 12:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you have statistics for the level of reuse? I wouldn't have expected Poland to have particularly more or less reuse than other countries - maybe it's just that we've created many more articles for Poland (and there would tend to be a higher rate of repetition among minor villages than among the better-known towns which most countries' WP articles are about).--Kotniski (talk) 12:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Britain stood alone against the Axis in 1940

There is a current discussion over at Talk:United Kingdom over who stood alongside Britain in 1940 against the Axis. There is a dispute over the need of the word "unoccupied" in the sentence: At one stage in 1940, amid the Battle of Britain, it was the only unoccupied nation in Europe fighting the Axis. At issue is whether the forces of occupied nations such as Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, etc. should be acknowledged, or whether Britain was the only nation in Europe fighting the Axis at that point in time. The discussion is at Talk:United Kingdom#At one stage in 1940, amid the Battle of Britain, it stood alone against the Axis.. Regards, --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Sandomierz Voivodeship (1939)

A topic largely unknown, in 1939 Polish government planned creation a new voivodeship, with the capital in Sandomierz. I am planning to DYK this article, help is appreciated. Please see Sandomierz Voivodeship (1939). Tymek (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Gminas without geocoordinates

I've just added {{coord missing}} to another 65 gmina articles, by using CatScan to identify the last few which lack both {{coord}} or {{coord missing}}.

With this addition, only roughly 400 of Poland's 2,478 gminas now remain to be geocoded by hand: see this link for the full list. However, if every gmina on this list can be geocoded, it should be possible to use the information derived from this to disambiguate many thousands more Polish place articles -- possibly up to 20,000 -- sufficiently to geocode them automatically from the GNS database. -- The Anome (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Those gminas that have coordinates generally have the coordinates of the town or village that is their seat. For many of those that remain, it may be that we have coordinates for some other village in the gmina. So it may not be necessary to have the canonical coordinates (the seat) for each gmina in order to map the GNS data. In fact, that data ought to provide the missing gmina coordinates, so we wouldn't need to do it by hand.--Kotniski (talk) 14:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I've tried a few examples at random by hand, with no useful results. See User:The Anome/Gminas for geocoding for a working set. I could perform a rather fancy ad-hoc global category graph vs. coordinates vs. names analysis to try to resolve both bottom-up and top-down constraints at the same time, but that would be (a) a lot of programming time, and certainly more effort than geocoding 400 articles by hand, and (b) would still potentially generate a lot of bogus data.
The advantage of knowing gmina coordinates is that it greatly simplifies the problem to be solved, and fully encodes all the necessary local knowledge: given the name and gmina, the gmina center can be used as a first guess for the location, and then if there is only one GNS place of that name within a predefined tolerance limit from that center, we can immediately geocode the article with that location. No global analysis, ad-hoc algorithm design, or elaborate calculation is required. -- The Anome (talk) 17:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
That's perhaps true, but even the gmina coordinates we have are not necessarily the gmina centre (I suppose in most cases they are, since the seat tends to be near the middle of the gmina, but there's no guarantee - for example the gmina I live in has its seat right at the edge). It seems to me that any coordinates known to be within a given gmina (i.e. the coordinates of any village in that gmina which we happen to know) ought to be about as useful as the canonical seat coordinate. I can probably quite easily generate a list of such coordinates - though I suppose there may still be quite a few gminas for which we don't have any coordinate (although for those it might turn out to be enough to know the powiat seat coordinate to get the gmina seat coordinate from GNS, then work from there...)--Kotniski (talk) 18:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree. If you could produce that list, I'd be delighted to take a look at it and see what I can do.
The reason for going for the gminas is that they not only have disambiguating power, but also, for most places, much higher precision that would be necessary for just disambiguation, so we have a chance of catching most of the inevitable errors, even if we simply assume that gminas are approximately circular areas of fixed size. Powiat data is much more likely to suffer from ambiguities about boundary shapes. I've considered using powiat data and the shapes from File:POLSKA woj pow gminy.png to make these unambiguous, but I don't know the projection, and it looks like a lot of work to reverse-engineer the projection from the map itself.
I've also put out a request for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. -- The Anome (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Replied at User talk:The Anome/Gminas for geocoding.--Kotniski (talk) 18:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Demographic estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe

The article quotes literally Erika Steibach's accusations toward Poland. I believe that the table should be removed from the article.Xx236 (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a good question to take to WP:RSN.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

History of Kołobrzeg

"German population which was left in Kolberg was expulsed or murdered by soviet and polnish forces after the victory." - the statement has been rewritten several times since 2006, but no source about murders linked.Xx236 (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Do tell us if you've fixed the problem, as I see you did. And do tell us what do you want others to do, since you've removed the unreferenced dubious statement anyway...? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Centre Against Expulsions

The article contains German nationalistic POV.Xx236 (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT I think is the relevant policy here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not able to fix tens of anti-Polish articles so I'm looking for help.Xx236 (talk) 07:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Then please be more clear: elaborate on the POV issues here, link the relevant discussion sections on talk of that article... if you make it easier for others to understand the root of the problem, and easier for them to join the discussion and/or fix the problem, they are more likely to help you. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:30, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Władysław Szpilman

The article was vandalised on March the 1st. I have resored the removed part but the article still needs references.Xx236 (talk) 13:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of the vandalism. The article is tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. Hundreds of thousands of articles need referencing, unfortunately. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:11, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Kriegsverbrechen der alliierten Siegermächte

Kriegsverbrechen der alliierten Siegermächte is a book written by an architect. Its reliability is low. I have asked to discuss the reliablility in Reliable sources/Noticeboard. German Wikipedia quotes the book only once, regarding Bucarest, not Germany.Xx236 (talk) 08:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Please provide context - where is this book used? Link to relevant thread on WP:RSN.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Reliability of the book is being discussed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.Xx236 (talk) 12:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Can you link the specific section? Thanks.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

w sprawie Barbary Radziwiłłówny

Is there any reference that Barbara Radziwiłł spoke Lithuanian or it's just another assumption of Lithuanian "historians"? It looks like Lithuanian nationalists are at work as one of the users commented article about Barbara Radziwillowna in the German-language wiki. Could you, please provide any link to it or any book title with the page (in English, German, French, Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Russian. etc) where prove of her proficiency in Lithuanian can be found? What is the language which is called in the article "White Russian"? And why the Polish name "Nowogrodek" but not Belarusian "Navahradak" is used in the text? This looks idiotically when one sees the name "Vilnius" (which appeared only in the 19th century (see Tomas Venclova "Eseje") in the same article? CityElefant (talk) 13:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest centralize the discussion by replying at Talk:Barbara_Radziwiłł#Lithuanian.3F.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

gen.Sikorski

should this new info http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/1938522,11,item.html be added to the Władysław Sikorski article? Loosmark (talk) 15:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably, provided it is properly attributed. It is, after all, just another unconfirmed theory.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Centre Against Expulsions article is propaganda

The article is BdV propaganda-the information about the truth that Nazi Germany soldier's daughter is being removed. Information that people removed support for this center is removed. Information about claims of the center is removed.--Gwinndeith (talk) 17:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Please link the article in question, and the talk sections with ongoing discussion. Thank you, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion[33] --Gwinndeith (talk) 23:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Help needed

Could a few of you follow Aldebaran69 (talk · contribs) around and help him. He does a lot of productive work translating Polish wiki articles on late medieval nobles into English (his first language actually appears to be Spanish), but this is mired somewhat by the fact his English is not really at the level needed to write text for an encyclopedia. Cheers, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 06:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I posted on his talk and on his articles, but he rarely engages in discussions with other Wikipedians. I am not sure how to help him; he seems to be doing a fine and uncontroversial job in his own niche of wikispace, and his articles will get copyedited in time anyway. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Is Category:Americans of Polish descent applicable to all Poles in US?

See Talk:Polish_American#Category:Americans_of_Polish_descent for discussion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Member cleanup

I've looked over members contributions and divided our participant list into appropriate categories, see here. I have developed the following messages (to be used in the future). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

For editors who are reasonably active, edit Poland-related discussions but don't seem to participate in discussions:

  • Congratulations. Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland has reviewed your contributions and decided you are an active member. Thank you for your encyclopedic contributions! But creating content by yourself is only part of the collaborative Wikipedia user experience, there is an active community of editors discussing how to better improve the Poland-related content; please consider joining our discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland. There are many editors who would like to work more closely with you, benefit from your insight, and help you with their experience! PS. Please also consider editing your entry in our participants list to state your areas of expertise/interest.

For editors who occasionally contribute to Poland-related articles but are mostly inactive (roughly, less then 10 edits per month in the past three months):

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland is now dividing our members into active, semi-active (have not edited a Poland-related article in more then three months or have 10 or less edits per month on average) and inactive (have not edited at all for three months or more). You occasionally edit Poland-related articles but have few edits in the past months; we are moving you to semi-active members category. Please consider participating in our project activities again in the future, we would love to work more closely with you again!

For editors who are mostly active but have not contributed to Poland-related article in the past three months or so:

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland is now dividing our members into active, semi-active (have not edited a Poland-related article in more then three months) and inactive (have not edited at all for three months or more). You are active on Wikipedia but I see you've not edited any Poland-related articles in in many months; we are moving you to semi-active members category. Please consider participating in our project activities again in the future, we would love to work more closely with you again!

For inactive editors (no edits to Wikipedia in three months or more):

For editors who are or where very active but never signed up for the project (second invitation):

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland has awarded you a status of a honorary member. Thank you for your Poland-related encyclopedic contributions! Please consider officially joining the project by moving yourself from the "Honorary members" list to the "Active members" list here.

Request for expert assistance on the last few Polish county articles without geocodes

I've made a list of the last 26 Polish counties that need geocodes at User:The Anome/Powiat needing geocoding. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone with local knowledge could add geocoordinates to these. I assume that they are each named after their county seat, that the county is somewhere in the middle of the county, and that no county contains another, but I can't be sure; I've read that (for example) some gminas don't contain their county seat, and I know that quite a few villages in Poland reuse the same names, and I really don't want to get this wrong.

Once this is done, and I've re-scanned the coordinates, I should eventually be able to use the official place-hierarchy data, combined with the NGA GNS database, to automatically geocode quite a number of places in Poland. -- The Anome (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll fill in those missing county coordinates sometime. I'm still working on the listing of gminas with coords - within about a week I should be able to come up with a table of data you can use, so I"ll let you know when I'm ready and we can discuss what format you'd like the data in.--Kotniski (talk) 08:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Piast Dukes articles

Hi to all the WikiProject Poland members and thanks for noted my work. I a fan of the medieval times and the Piast dynasty was one of my favorites themes. Some time ago I began to work with all the non-existen articles and improved others. I tried to finish all the Silesian branch (descendants of Wladyslaw II the Exile) and continue with his younger brothers' descendants.

If you can make better my articles I really appreciate... and sorry for my bad english!!!! :) Aldebaran69 (talk) 03:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow! I am so impressed! A user from Peru, and a fan of the Piast dynasty. Wikipedia keeps on surprising me. All the best, Aldebaran. Tymek (talk) 23:51, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Privislyansky Krai

Please see my comments at Talk:Vistula land#Name and purpose. This article needs attention, and I am honestly not sure what to do with it... was it even an official Krai? Please comment there, if you can. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

PS. Disagreement about the scope of relevant articles unfortunately gave rise to an edit war on the following articles: Congress Poland, Vistula land, Administrative division of Congress Poland and Privislinsky Krai. Please comment and help stabilize the issue! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me list the issues of contention, as I understand them:

I hope this summarizes the questions and unclear issues that lead to this debate. I hope we can solve it here to everybody's satisfaction. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


Here's the main points:

  • Vistula land is a post-1867 unofficial name for the area that pre-1867 was unofficially called Congress Poland
  • The official name for Congress Poland is Kingdom of Poland
  • As a result of the January Uprising the Russian Tsar enacted a set of reforms in 1867. The goal of the reforms was to prevent further uprisings in the future by stamping out all traces of Polish culture (language, customs, religion, etc.).
  • The new name for the area was Privislinsky Krai.

New Article Structure:

  • Vistula land, et.al. should point to Privislinsky Krai. This article should contain information from the 1867 to 1915 time period. It should include the discussion of russification. The penultimate statement of the article would link to Ober Ost and Kingdom of Poland (1916-1918)
  • The existence of separate Administrative Division articles is questionable. There are enough changes during 1815-1867 to warrant a separate article Administrative Divisions of the Kingdom of Poland (1815-1867), but during the 1867-1916 period the configuration is mostly stable with few wholesale changes.

Ajh1492 (talk) 13:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

So we agree that Vistula land and Privislinsky Krai should be merged. The current article on Vistula land has a longer history and should be the one PK is merged to; then a WP:RM can be started on its talk and we can decide on a proper name. Same procedure (RM) should be used for Congress Poland. I suggest keeping administrative division in the current article on Administrative division of Congress Poland and moving it to Administrative division of Congress Poland and Privislinsky Krai or Administrative division of Congress Poland and Vistula land or whatever the name of that article after RM will be. Agreed? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:03, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources, please

The whole discussing erupted for the sole reason that neither of wikipedias has valid reliable references that "Privislinski Krai" was the official name of the entity. Failure to follow this basic wikipedia policy leads to waste of other people time. If there is a difference of opinions, reiterations you your opinion is useless, unless you provide independent proof of what you are saying. Piotrus has valid concerns, since in Russia the term "Krai" was user rather liberally. - 7-bubёn >t 17:03, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources

  • [Poland] Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geographical and Spatial Organization, p.539, [34]
    • [Polish] Mimo wprowadzenia oficjalnej nazwy Kraj Przywiślański terminy Królestwo Polskie, Królestwo Kongresowe lub w skrócie Kongresówka były nadal używane, zarówno w języku potocznym jak i w niektórych publikacjach.
    • [English] Despite the official name Kraj Przywiślański terms such as, Kingdom of Poland, Congress Poland, or in short Kongresówka were still in use, both in everyday language and in some publications.
  • [Germany] Rudolf Jaworski/Christian Lübke/Michael G. Müller (Hrsg.), Eine kleine Geschichte Polens. Frankfurt/Main 2000, S. 269.
    • (Original German) - Der westliche Teil der vom russischen Reich besetzten Territorien der ehemaligen polnisch-litauischen Adelsrepublik trug in den Jahren 1815-1864 die amtliche Titulatur Königreich Polen (Carstvo Pol’skoe) und hieß nach 1864 offiziell Weichselland (Privislinskij kraj). Nach der Niederschlagung des polnischen Januaraufstandes von 1863 vermieden die zarischen Behören jeden Hinweis auf die polnische Staatstradition. Vgl. dazu u.a. Rudolf Jaworski, Das geteilte Polen (1795-1918),
  • [Netherlands] gnatius Adversus Valentinianos?: Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, By Thomas Lechner, Published by BRILL, 1999, ISBN 9004115056, 9789004115057, 370 pages
    • p. 491
  • [German] Alltagsgeschichte der unteren Schichten im russischen Reich (1861-1914): kommentierte Bibliographie zeitgenössischer Titel und Bericht über die Forschung, By Angela Rustemeyer, Diana Siebert, Published by Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, ISBN 351506866X, 9783515068666, 279 pages
  • [French] Il existe un dossier sur ces plaintes issues du kraj de la Vistule (kraj privislinskij), soit de l’ancien Royaume de Pologne : RGIA, f. 1290, op. 10, d. 70. Un article à propos de l’enregistrement des uniates a paru dans Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 302, 1896
  • [German] Stadt und Öffentlichkeit in Ostmitteleuropa, 1900-1939: Beiträge zur Entstehung moderner Urbanität zwischen Berlin, Charkiv, Tallinn und Triest, By Andreas R. Hofmann, Anna Veronika Wendland, Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas, Contributor Andreas R. Hofmann, Anna Veronika Wendland, Published by Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3515079378, 9783515079372, 308 pages
  • Popular references in Polish
  • Polish Newspapers
    • Rzeczpospolita Polska's Archive . . . [36]
    • Gazeta Wyborcza's Portal . . . [37]


Ajh1492 (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that a lot of the English sources are contaminated by EN:WP Ajh1492 (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Polish sources are up, including a definitive quote from the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geographical and Spatial Organization -

  • Despite the official name Kraj Przywiślański terms such as, Kingdom of Poland, Congress Poland, or in short Kongresówka were still in use, both in everyday language and in some publications.

Ajh1492 (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Please note my message in the previous section. I did some checking on Polish encyclopedias:
  • Interia POWSTANIE STYCZNIOWE: "po upadku powstania zlikwidowano ostatnie elementy autonomii Królestwa Pol. (łącznie z nazwą), przekształcając je w "Kraj Przywiślański" i rozpoczęto zdecydowaną rusyfikację;"
  • Interia POLSKA. HISTORIA. ODZYSKANIE NIEPODLEGŁOŚCI: "zniesienie resztek odrębności Kongresówki przemianowanej na Kraj Przywiślański"
  • INTERIA KRÓLESTWO POLSKIE , Kongresówka, Królestwo Kongresowe: "1864, po upadku powstania styczniowego, została ostatecznie zlikwidowana wszelka autonomia; wprowadzono generał-gubernatorów, a nazwę K.P. zastąpiono określeniem Kraj Przywiślański." but also "Mimo zniszczeń dokonanych 1915 przez" - confusing, did or didn't the Congress Kingdom exist in 1915?
  • PWN Królestwo Polskie, Królestwo Kongresowe,: "1915–18 pod okupacją niem. i austro-węgierską; K.P. przestało istnieć po powstaniu II RP (XI 1918)." - so quite clear that Congress Poland existed till 1918
  • WIEM Królestwo Polskie: "Królestwo Polskie po powstaniu styczniowym: Nazwę Królestwa Polskiego zastąpiła, w urzędowej terminologii, nazwa Kraj Przywiślański." but also "Po rewolucji 1905-1907 w Królestwie Polskim ..." and "W latach 1914-1916 Królestwo Polskie stało się...".

So while it indeed appears that the name Vistula Krai (or a variant) was official, sources are confused on whether Congress Poland was indeed replaced in 1864 by the Vistula Land... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


I'm going with the Polish Academy of Sciences. It (Kingdom of Poland) ceased to exist after the Reforms of 1867. Congress Poland was only ever an unofficial name for the area.

Ajh1492 (talk) 22:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am adding a infobox with a note clarifying that sources are unclear two articles on Congress Poland and Vistula land. I am open to having a WP:RM discussion about their proper names. Please note that all the sources cited give the year 1864, not 1867, as the year of possible change from CP to VL; please also read my comment above from 18:03, 12 March 2009. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
One source (Norman Davies, God's Playground, volume II, Columbia University Press, 1982) says (p. 82) that "The Russian Partition... [a]fter 1864 absorbed the Congress Kingdom of Poland, which, renamed Vistulaland, was ruled as part of the Empire."
On p. 364 Davies says: "In 1864, both the Kingdom and the name of Poland were formally abolished. The Tsar relinquished his duties as King of Poland, and Warsaw became the capital of the Privislinsky kray (Vistulaland)."
Nevertheless, the term "Kingdom of Poland" continued to appear unofficially, as in the name of the political party, "Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania" (formed as late as 1900: p. 541).
I would, however, differ with Davies regarding English terminology. To my ear, "Vistula Country" sounds much better than "Vistula land" or "Vistulaland," which sounds like one of the divisions of Disneyland. And certainly, whether "Land" or "Country," in English the word should be capitalized. Nihil novi (talk) 07:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

If "Vistula Land" were the correct English rendering, then the original name should have been "Privislyanskaya Zyemlya" in Russian—"Przywiślańska Ziemia" in Polish. But the name was actually "Privislyansky Krai" and "Przywiślański Kraj," respectively—that is, "Vistula Country." The article's title, and the name of the geographic entity, should accordingly be corrected to "Vistula Country." Nihil novi (talk) 05:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

New Article: Poland–Belarus relations

I would like to inform members of this new article that they are welcome to edit and help improve this new article. Regards Ijanderson (talk) 20:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it was badly needed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Also:Poland–Czech relations

I think this was also needed, currently its only a stub, but please feel free to help improve this article. Regards Ijanderson (talk) 07:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent source of information

PIOTR EBERHARDT POLITICAL MIGRATIONS IN POLAND 1939-1948 [38] It's in English and gives an excellent, neutral overview of the various events as well as much data. Piotr Eberhardt himselfs seems like a very interesting person. Since we often deal with this topic on Wiki I recommend it as source for many articles.--Molobo (talk) 14:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Treatment of Polish citizens by the occupying powers

Please see proposal to split part of the content of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945) into a subarticle: discussion is here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:01, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

WWII anniversary improvement drive

70th anniversary of WWII is coming in just a few months (1st Sept...). It would be great if by then we could improve the existing core articles related to WWII and Poland. Please suggest articles for improvement below, and list their quality class (from talk page), how popular they are (this stat can be taken from new option in the history page of each article), and suggest what improvements need to be made.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge Territorial changes of Poland after World War II

Territorial changes of Poland after World War II should be merged into the straight, Territorial changes of Poland. All the information in the WWII article is just copied from the Territorial changes of Poland article and the Territorial changes of Poland article goes into greater detail. Also, the article isn't really about Territorial changes of Poland after World War II its more Territorial changes of Poland after World War II to a few months after World War II as it does not go into the border adjustments of the 70s or those with Slovakia. So please give your opinion on the Talk:Territorial changes of Poland after World War II page. -- Esemono (talk) 02:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How is the name Juspeczyk pronounced?

At Characters of Watchmen there is a dispute regarding how Juspeczyk, a Polish name, is pronounced. What is the IPA for it? WhisperToMe (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

[juˈspɛt͡ʂɨk] ("you-SPETCH-ick").--Kotniski (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! :) WhisperToMe (talk) 13:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

RM notification

To interested Wikiprojects (Polish, Lithuanian, Milhist): Talk:Battle_of_Vilnius_(1655)#Requested_move.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Polish culture during World War II/archive2

The Polish culture during World War II article has now reached MILHIST A-class, and I've nominated it for a FA class. Feel free to comment. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Obituary for Andrzej Stelmachowski

Could someone here possibly find an obituary for Andrzej Stelmachowski? I've been looking, but the only ones I can find are in Polish. I don't want to add those, because I'm not sure which are best or what they mean. Hope someone here can help. Carcharoth (talk) 02:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello? Is anyone watching this page? Carcharoth (talk) 04:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC) OK, I could have waited more than 2 days...
I am, unfortunately, I am somewhat busy :( In theory, the project has 40+ members who should be watching this page. In practice, I am often as disappointed as you are :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
No problem. Thanks for the reply. Carcharoth (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Dealt with by User:Radeksz. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 11:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

German Nazi concentration camps

I invite you to participate in discussion about changing name of category:Nazi concentration camps an subcategories to more adequate German nazi concentration camps etc. It should avoid many errors in international media about so called Polish concentration camps or Polish death camps. [53] Mathiasrex (talk) 07:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all Wiki Project Poland participants. Mam nadzieje, ze koszyczki juz poswiecone. Tymek (talk) 15:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Wesołego jajka! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
No i naturalnie radosnego "Alleluja" oraz Paschy świętej. --Poeticbent talk 19:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Otloczyn railway accident

Help is much appreciated with this interesting article, and future DYK nomination. See Otłoczyn railway accident. Tymek (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Rywin affair

Hi there. I just declined a speedy deletion on this article but it needs some sources, which seem to exist in pl:Afera Rywina. It would be nice if someone speaking Polish could transfer some of them to the en-wiki article. Regards SoWhy 21:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Rywin affair was a major event in Poland, it basically changed so much about perception of the so-called elites of the nation. It is good that you have declined deletion of this article, I will try to look into it in the near future. Tymek (talk) 00:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

My contributions to the Projest

During the last couple weeks I contributed with following articles: Polish 1st Light Cavalry Regiment of the Imperial Guard, Society of Motherland Friends, Wici (call to arms), Battles of Medieval Poland, and Battle of Yevenes (I also extended Battle of Ciudad-Real, which was a very Polish battle). Two of them are FA in the pl-wiki. Untill now only the first was properly corrected. I think I will need some help with the remainings before I could applied with them for TDYK and class nominations. belissarius (talk) 02:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Real-life Polish heroines in American media

Irena Sendler's story is to be aired on CBS television on Sunday, 19 April 2009, in a made-for-TV film, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. She saved Warsaw Ghetto children during World War II.

The story of another Polish Holocaust resister named Irena—Irena Gut—is currently playing on Broadway: Irena's Vow.

This favorable presentation of Poles in American media is surely unprecedented. Nihil novi (talk) 07:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I saw the adds for that. Along with the quite good CNN documentary on the Warsaw Uprising [55] it does look like the coverage is getting better.radek (talk) 07:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Yesterday's article in the "New York Times" is very critical, and another one, in the "Washington Post" is quite enthusiastic. belissarius (talk) 02:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Could you link them? PS. Talking about new articles in popular press, check out this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
New York Times and Washington Post. Free registration may be required, or use BugMeNot.com — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 17:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

commons:Category:Maps of the history of Poland

We need to clean this up more. I wonder about category names: should we have commons:Category:Maps of the Piast Poland, commons:Category:Maps of the Jagiellon Poland, commons:Category:Maps of the communist Poland and commons:Category:Maps of Poland after 1989? I don't really like those names that much. Better ideas? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Categories for victims of political repression

Since a similar CfD was annouced here recently: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_April_21#Victims_of_political_repression. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Polish death camp controversy

I've raised some questions concerning the use of examples in Polish death camp controversy. If you're interested, the discussion, which started here, is now at the NOR noticeboard. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Names for articles for Polish small seaports

I want to talk about translation of names of small seaports in Poland. First of all, I'll introduce a Polish sithuation in Poland. So in Polish law there is two type of seashelters (maybe it's better to say harbours). One name is "port morski" (a seaport) and second "przystań morska" (small harbour). Seaport can constitute only Minister responsible for marine economy. In PRL, name function was Minister of Sailing, later Ministry of Marine Economy, now Minister of Infrastructure. Harbours can constitute only director of marine office (there is 3 in Poland). A seaport (port morski) can be a very small fishing seaport like Mrzeżyno or big trade seaport like Port of Gdańsk. A harbour (przystań morska) could be a small yacht harbour in some small town or village, but also (what was very funny for me) it could be a pier (Międzyzdroje, Niechorze) or really same safe area of sand where fishermen can leave there boats (Dębki). Not every village with that area has that kind of "harbour". For now I have no idea why they have it. I had a problem to translate names of small ports into English becouse of many different names of harbours, ports in the English language World:) So I want to ask You what to think that I'll translate for example "Port Mrzeżyno" in the Port of Mrzeżyno. Or it should be a Mrzeżyno Harbour? When it will be a Mrzeżyno Harbour, it will be a problem with the Port of Gdynia, becouse in Polish law they have equal status. I want to say that it's more often that every of that Seaports has his own authority. Of course there are others differences like the Port of Kołobrzeg has his own Captain, but the Port of Mrzeżyno has Boatswain. I wonder how translate "przystań morska" into English becouse I want to create a Commons categories for them. Maybe harbours? When I have been talking with my Polish guys advenced in English, the most of them said that it should like that: port morski -> Port of ... , przystań morska -> .. Harbour. Feel free to give suggestions or questions. See commons:Category:Ports in Poland and discussion there. JDavid (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

That (port->port, przystań->harbour - or harbor in American English) sounds reasonable to me.--Kotniski (talk) 07:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Commons Picture of the Year

The voting is almost over. Go check out the pretty pictures and vote at commons:Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2008/Voting! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Holocaust Page Help needed

We have a problem on the Holocaust page, there is an blatant attempt to whitewash the German occupation during the war. Please Help--Woogie10w (talk) 22:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It would help if you could link directly to the discussion section(s). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Rant: Why I try not to bother writing articles for Polish Wikipedia

In addition to small size, lack of NPOV and poor referencing standards - because it not a very friendly environment :( See my rant at pl:Wikipedia:Kawiarenka/Artykuły#GhostNet (in Polish). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Tak, z tym, że tu też nie najlepiej. Dyskusja hasła Holocaust, by nie sięgać dalej, dobitnie świadczy o tym. A jeśli mowa o "poor referencing standards", to w czym jest niby lepsza en-wiki od pl-wiki, gdzie za "szwoleżerów" dostałem medal, a tu nawet się przez "start class" przechnąć nie mogę (nawet na WikiProject Poland), mimo, że prawie każde zdanie zostało uźródłowione? Tymczasem mało znaczący art Battle of Yevenes doczekał się i TDYK-a i "B Class". No nie wiem. Zaczynam się zastanawiać, czy warto było... belissarius (talk) 04:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Sa plusy i minusy (i chyba raczej zgadzam sie z Piotrkiem ze na Polskiej wiki te minusy sa duze). Na En-Wiki jest tak duzo artykulow ze czasem wszystko idzie wolno. Wiec wiele zalezy na kogo sie trafi. Tak naprawde to oba i BoY i szwolezery powinny byc B-class (przynajmniej) ale facet popatrzyl na artykul jak jeszcze byl dosyc nowy i dal ocena na tej podstawie. I teraz musisz czekac az sie znowu komus zechce (tak naprawde to prawie kazdy moze oceniac ale jako zaangazowany editor nie chce tego zrobic). W duzej mierze to trzeba wyrobic wyczucie na jakie rzeczy beda patrzyc. W En-Wiki o wiele bardziej wazne sa zrodla. Pisanie artykulu to tak naprawde 1/3 roboty. 2/3 to szukanie wsparcia w zrodlach zeby nikt sie nie czepial.radek (talk) 05:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Nowe Miasto in Upper Silesia?

I've posted a query on alternative place names, based on an earlier one on the Ref Desk. Help appreciated on either. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 10:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Polish Air Force order of battle in 1939

In my opinion there is a problem in the article Polish Air Force order of battle in 1939, the section which explains the names of the squadrons states the following:

"The name of each of the squadrons was usually preceded by the number of the air regiment the unit was attached to in the peace time. Hence the III/1 dywizjon myśliwski (composed of 111 eskadra myśliwska and 112 eskadra myśliwska) was in fact the 1st Fighter Squadron of the 3rd Air Regiment."

I believe that the explanation of the III/1 designation is incorrect. In September 1939 the Polish Air Force had the following fighter squadrons: III/1, III/2, III/3, III/4, III/5, III/6, IV/1. If the explanation in the article is correct, than it would mean that 6 of the 7 fighter squadrons would be from the 3rd Air Regiment. (3rd Air Regiment was located, i believe, in Poznań). This doesn't make much sense to me as it is highly unlikely that the other Air Regiments had no fighter units. Instead I think that the arab and not the roman number indicates part of which air regiment was the squadron prior to the 1939 mobilisation. Thus we have III/2 originating from the 2nd Air Regiment in Kraków", III/5 from the 5th Air Regiment in Lida, III/6 from the 6th in Lwów and so. But i'm not sure what does the roman III mean, maybe simply it was an indication that the squadron was a fighter squadron. What do you think? Loosmark (talk) 20:40, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a nice template at Polish Wikipedia: pl:Szablon:Lotnictwo wojskowe II RP (airforce of the Second Polish Republic). III/1 means "III Dywizjon Myśliwski 1 Pułku Lotniczego" which translates to "3rd Fighter Division of the 1st Air Regiment" (so the first numeral is for the division, second for the regiment, and it appears that in Polish Airforce, division was smaller then a regiment!). As far as I can tell, fighter units were assigned to the III Division, and 1st Regiment had two fighter units - III and IV. Bomber divisions had various numerals: II, VI, X and XV. And no, I have no idea what was the logic behind such numbering. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Piotrus i'm pretty confident that the division in Polish is dywizja not dywizjon. Given the number of airplanes in the Polish dywizjon i think it is a unit equivalent to the English squadron. I'm only speculating here but maybe the PAF adopted the French terminology because they used eskadra for sub-squadron level unit which surely comes from the french escadrille. But anyway the template at Polish Wiki confirms my suspiscion that the article Polish Air Force order of battle in 1939 got it wrong. I'll try to fix that later. Loosmark (talk) 18:18, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
My bad. pl:Dywizjon links to Wing (military aviation unit). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Polish armoured trains

I created stubs for the armoured trains Danuta (armoured train) and Śmiały (armoured train). I also made a template for the Polish armoured trains: Template:Polish Armoured Trains. There was an existing template Template:WWIIPolishAFVs which includes the armoured trains which were used in WW2 however i think it is useful to have another template for the trains only, then later the armoured trains from The Polish-Soviet war and from the Silesian Uprisings can be added. Loosmark (talk) 17:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

See also Polish wiki template: pl:Polskie pojazdy wojskowe 1939. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Polish losses due to German bombing

Question-does anybody know Polish losses due to German bombing ?--Gwinndeith (talk) 23:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Try asking User:Molobo. If he doesn't, I don't think any of our other editors has readily available info :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
The Polish losses due to German bombing are unknown. We have to talk about campains of 1939, 1941 (parts of Poland annexed by the USSR in 1939), Soviet campaign 1944-45, and Warsaw Uprising as well. I think nobody has any numbers... belissarius (talk) 06:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Irena Bobowska

I created a stub on Irena Bobowska-a remarkable young Polish woman, poet, confined to a wheelchair who fought German occupation and was murdered. Please help improve the article and add links to it as it a bit orphaned now.--Molobo (talk) 15:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Truce term

Hi. I'm writing an article on truce terms and would like to know what Polish children use. Truce terms are words used by children, usually under the age of about 11, to call a temporary halt or respite to the game to do something like tie a shoelace or discuss the rules or take off a jacket. I really need a source as well. They're often mentioned in etymological or regional dictionaries.Fainites barleyscribs 19:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I dont recall anything like that, but there is saying "pobite gary" (lit. "broken dishes"), used when game "rules" has been broken, and continuing a game will be unfair for some of players. 83.8.17.196 (talk) 22:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if this is cultural. When I first came to US as a kid I thought this whole "Time Out!" thing was weird and a bit of a wuss out.radek (talk) 00:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I remember also words as "skucha" (slang for "mistake"), and "pokój" ("Peace") belissarius (talk) 06:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm trying to find out if its cultural really. It s pretty universal in English speaking cultures. In England every town or area has them. Some of the words are very old. Some are specific to just one town. I've found some European countries that have a word, such as France, but no non-European countries yet - except Israel. But that of course may be British or other European or English-speaking culture influence. Apparently in Israel they say poos which is reminiscent of the french pouce or the word pause.
On the other hand I don't recall an English equivalent of broken dishes. Children just say its not fair!!!!.Fainites barleyscribs 10:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
In Poznań I've heard "PKP" (pronounced [pɛkapɛ]) used in the fainites sense. This is the abbreviation for Polish State Railways; I presume it arose as a corruption of "pokój" because PKP was a very commonly heard abbreviation. Can't vouch for its being widespread.--Kotniski (talk) 10:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
PKP and "pokój" sound like the business! Now - next question - does anyone have a source? Often they're found in regional or etymological or dialect dictionaries. Fainites barleyscribs 12:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
You won't find it nor in the Polish etymologial dictonaries (which are usually quite short and focused mainly on etymology of the common vocabulary), nor in dialect dictonaries (in Poland dialects are spoken mainly among villagers and elderly people, so the dialect dictonaries also concern such things). But there are some specialized academic publications focused on the children vocabulary, where (probably) You can find more. I found a book Słownictwo dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym: listy frekwencyjne by Halina Zgółkowa, Katarzyna Bułczyńska (a frequentive dictionary of the children vocabulary in Poland); Rozwój słownictwa nazywającego uczucia w języku dzieci i młodzieży by Urszula Kopeć (a book on children vocabulary expressing emotions); Słownictwo uczniów : problemy, badania, wnioski by Edward Polański (a book on vocabulary of the Polish pubils). You can probably find many more books on children vocabulary, but all of them are in Pollish and probaly not easily available outside Poland. So the task is really hard. Laforgue (talk) 21:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Here's an on-line dictionary of "slang uczniowski" ("slang of students"), but it deals rather with the vocabulary of a bit older children and youths. Laforgue (talk) 21:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Do any of those books actually mention truce terms?Fainites barleyscribs 21:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I had a quick look in the university linguistics library and failed to find anything of relevance. (Incidentally, I presume you have the Opie work on truce terms in Britain in the 1950s? Wiki-email me if not and I can send you a copy.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks very much Kotniski. I do have Opie and such limited up-to-date research as exists. I've also been able to find some sources for english speaking cultures like Oz, NZ and the USA. Its the rest of the world that's the problem! People give me personal reminiscences which is great, but I can't use them in the article.Fainites barleyscribs 14:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but in a week or two I'll try to check it in my university library. But I've got another idea: why won't You write an email to a Polish linguist? (Besides of private and official emails) there is a place in the internet, where professional linguists answer questions on the Polish language: Poradnia Językowa PWN ("Language Advice Board of PWN" - PWN is a major Polish scientific publishing house). There everybody can ask a question on Polish language, but there are also some restrictions: 1) The message has to be short; 2) There is a limit of questions, which can be asked a day, so You'll probably have to wait a day or two; 3) The questions must not be formulated like a student- or schoolhomework 4)Answers are delivered usually within a two or three weeks. You can also ask a question in the similar Advice Board of Jagiellonian University: [56]. In both cases, most of the answers are published on-line and you can use them as a written source. If You want to choose this possibility, I'll help You to send the message (and translate Your message into Polish, if needed). Laforgue (talk) 14:19, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh wow! What a fantastic resource! I'll formulate a question this weekend and get back to you. Thanks! Fainites barleyscribs 22:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Extensive copyright concerns have been noted in this article. Since it is listed of "high" importance to your project, I wanted to request your assistance in evaluating & address this, since it seems likely that sections of this article will require rewriting. The article has been blanked from publication to allow time for this matter to be addressed. The contributor who detected the issue has included a list of potential problem areas at the article's talk page. For more information, please see Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#At History of the Jews in Poland and Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Several pages containing text copied verbatim from a website. I am also listing this problem at the article's other primary project and have already listed at Wikipedia WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. Traditionally, the article would remain blanked for a week and a day to allow the regular contributors time to address the matter before admin closure. Thank you very much for any assistance your project can offer. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Julian Koltun

Could someone please dig up some paper sources (or websources we missed) in Polish to indicate the notability of this person? - Mgm|(talk) 09:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for a 200-WikiProject contest

A proposal has been posted for a contest between all 200 country WikiProjects. We're looking for judges, coordinators, ideas, and feedback.

The Transhumanist 00:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

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