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Group of WPP:Poland members accused of "unhelpful" edits

See, [1]. - Darwinek (talk) 19:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was going to inform about some outrageous remarks made there as well as the whole initiative of some users, whose aim is to get rid of Piotrus, one of the most creative members of the whole project.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 2, which started as a series of complaining about User:Piotrus (whom you I am sure all know), has now expanded ([2]) with claims that our Project/Noticeboard is a "cabal" and that all Polish editors are biased and likely support Piotrus in some terrible plan to undermine Wikipedia. Example arguments include: "...there is a small group of Polish nationals on Wikipedia"..."It has been happening all over Polish articles, with topics that they never edited before suddenly being besieged by Polish editors, and rules everyone else follows being swept aside by their block voting"..."Since Piotrus has a vast array of IRC and IM friends, happy to blindly revert to Piotrus's edits I doubt that it would work, but we can try"... Among other things, Gadu-Gadu is portrayed as a vehicle for cabalism :) It looks like about half of members of this Project/Board are mentioned there as contributing in some shape and form to the Piotrus-led Polish cabal - if you've ever interacted with Piotrus, you may find that and other diffs presented there as proof you are a member of his cabal. This would be funny if it wasn't serious (some editors who have been harassing Piotrus, and to a lesser extent, me and other members of this project) want to ban Piotrus and portray our WikiProject as an evil cabal. I hesitated to bring this issue here since at first it was about Piotrus, not our WikiProject, but now I think the line has been crossed. I am not very familiar with ArbCom, but I believe good places to post are:

• offer an outside statement at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 2
• present evidence and/or defend against evidence of others at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 2/Evidence
• comment on proposed decisions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 2/Workshop; in particular, Piotrus proposals at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus_2/Workshop#Asking_for_input_is_not_canvassing_or_forum_shopping and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus_2/Workshop#There_is_no_Polish_cabal_or_tag_team are very relevant to our WikiProject. Tymek (talk) 17:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

An anti-Polish witch-haunt. Who will be the next after Piotrus? Xx236 (talk) 05:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Witch hunt ?

People, shouldn't we take it easy ? They have read that Poles are evil and someone told them that GG was a tool of Satan so all is quite understandable. ;-) Kpjas (talk) 07:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Halibutt. User:Lysy. User:Balcer. User:Appleseed. All gone, because editors who now harass me have targeted them and they couldn't take it. It's not a witch hunt. It's a long term campaign of character assassination, targeting editors who dare to stand up to certain tag teams. PS. Don't confuse ArbCom party with ArbCom. The request might have been bad faithed, but ArbCom is composed of smart and neutral editors who have seen such tricks in the past and have seen through them, assuming they are shown the correct, unbiased evidence and background. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I was away for quite a while. This is very saddening to see such things happening in Wikipedia and such outstanding users like Halibutt harassed and driven away by despicable maltreatment. If this is an organized and orchestrated campaign we should stand up and resist in a calm but steadfast manner. You have my full support for responsible and coordinated action that you deem necessary. Kpjas (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Certainly responsibility and consideration is important. A lot of what have happened since you were gone was radicalization. Your input, comparing what's going on now with how it was in the beginning, would be priceless. If you have time to read through the ArbCom, I am sure many would love to hear your thoughts.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Because slandering accusations have been brought against users of the Poland-related Wikipedia notice board I think we might consider making a statement to the ArbCom and the Board. Kpjas (talk) 05:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I have also noticed this new phenomenon. Piotrus calls it radicalization of users, but I think there's something more sinister taking place here. When Wikipedia was new, many users from similar backgrounds were editing at random, because they didn't know each other. It is only recently that many returning users finally got to know and trust those with similar views. They’ve learned who is who, which in turn enabled them to form a kind of Einsatz Gruppen for political and moral assassinations, and successful enforcing of extreme prejudices. I read about this worst case scenario online long before now, but it is only now that this scheme finally became possible. I’m not sure what is going to happen, but personally, I’m beginning to seriously worry about the outcome. --Poeticbent talk 23:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Nothing new for me. Many places in this Wikipedia stink, some nations and some views are better than others and Poles are frequently underdogs. Very Christian Gazeta Wyborcza model of admitting all possible crimes doesn't work here, probably other nations don't have their Gazeta Wyborczas. Xx236 (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh people, didn't you noticed that there is a new phase of Wikipedia and it is already being edited by special interest groups (i.e CAMERA), movements and influenced by intelligence community ? The days of enthusiast editors are mostly gone in areas of interest to politics. --Molobo (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, but I'd still hope that such real cabals/tag teams are a small minority, not a rule. But then, I was always an optimist... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Special interest groups... Quite interesting, I have always been wondering when that will start. As some influential person said on April 19, 1996: Poland will be publicly attacked and humiliated. Tymek (talk) 16:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

prohibition to speak Lithuanian (...) on phone until in the fall of communism in 1990

Poosible under martial law, but not till 1990. Xx236 (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh. Isn't this something to raise on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lithuania instead? And what article are you talking about - if any? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Lithuanian minority in Poland. Do you know a cooperative Lithuanian editor? I don't.Xx236 (talk) 07:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Renata3 is, while not friendly, usually neutral in content matters. I am afraid I don't know of any others. PS. You can also post a general notice/question/link to this discussion at WikiProject Lithuania I linked above and see who replies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Kšyštof Lavrinovič and Darjuš Lavrinovič

I believe that both of them were imprisoned, now only one article informs about it. Xx236 (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no article about them. LINK articles you are discussing, please. Wouldn't this belong on Lithuanian noticeboard? I've never heard of them... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

They have a Polish father, which started several disputes, also around Poles in Lithuania.Xx236 (talk) 06:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

FAR: Virtuti Militari

Virtuti Militari has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:17, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there an official position in relation to this kind of wording?

From the Białogard article:

The Red Army occupied the town on March 4, 1945. As a result of the Potsdam Conference following World War II, Belgard was placed under Polish administration in 1945; its German population was expelled and replaced with Poles, many themselves expellees from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union.

This is a jarring style to me I'd re-phrase that as integrated into Poland's territory in 1945. Uncontroversial and neutral.
I'd also prefer removed to expelled and populated to replaced. Kpjas (talk) 15:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

See my changes to the article; not quite what you suggested (I think integrated implies too much, and I don't see anything wrong with expelled), but hopefully an improvement.--Kotniski (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

OK looks quite acceptable now, there's however some discrepancy with the Polish Wikipedia version which says that Belgard was conquered by Russian-Polish troops on the March 5, 1945 (no verifiable source given though). Kpjas (talk) 15:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Official reaction? Other than us finding such non-neutral wording, restoring NPOV, and often fighting for years with certain POV pushers bent on stressing some POVS... no, not really.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

To answer the question raised in the section's title: Yes, there is an official position in relation to this kind of wording:

The phrase "placed under Polish administration" is the (almost) exact phrase used in the Potsdam Agreement where it reads "shall be under the administration of the Polish State". A re-phrasing should thus not be necessary, eg "integrated into Poland's territory" would be a more troublesome wording as this could be challenged, you all know that the de facto status was quiet clear after the war, but the de jure status was not, and there are different POVs about whether or not it was "Polish territory administered by Poland" or "German territory administered by Poland" back then. What was and is unchallenged is "only" the "territory under Polish administration" (isn't that sufficient?). Given the scope of the article, it would be best to follow the phrasing of the Potsdam Agreement instead of using the "Polish territory" term, that way one must not further debate that issue getting forced by WP:NPOV to represent the different POVs. The phrase "expelled" is also the widely accepted term for the removal of the former German population, so why change?

Now what I don't get is what you mean by POV-pushing and non-neutral wording. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Would Postdam wording be superceeded by later treaties (Treaty of Zgorzelec, Treaty of Warsaw (1970), Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, German-Polish Border Treaty (1990))? It seems to me that insistence on 60-year old wording is a bit... outdated, at the very least, and borders on border revisionism (questioning the stability of modern borders). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Skäpperöd, Looking back and pasting literal phrasing from various non-effective treaties concerning European history into Wikipedia articles is not obviously the right thing to do. We are here to write the best possible encyclopaedic articles - Wikipedia's good is our goal not creating justifications for political decisions of superpowers from over 60 years ago. Kpjas (talk) 19:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Well we were talking about 1945 events, and about the official wording for these events, weren't we? And until the various border treaties that Piotrus mentioned were drawn, the Potsdam Agreement was the only legal basis. Border revisionism? Justifications for political decisions of superpowers? Calm down, what are you talking about in the first place? Skäpperöd (talk) 20:17, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

When we write about the Bible, we don't use original statements from few thousand years old. In article about the Postdam Agreement, original quotes may be acceptable (if clearly marked as such). When we write about German invasion of Poland in 1939, we go beyond original German justifications for it, even if we write about the days before Polish or Western commentators issued their counter-justifications. In that case, just as when we write about modern Polish-German border, wording accepted by most modern scholarship should be used.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand you mistaken the Potsdam terminology for a unique historical phrase only used in this agreement meaningless to all further phrases used. That is not the case, this wording was and is used to describe the 1945+ events (see eg Condi Rice et al, 1997, find others via web searches), and no this is not used in a POV sense but merely to most accurately describe the situation without an interpretation. The rendering of the term to express a certain POV was done by (a) attributing the term "temporarily" (West German government POV) or (b) basing a final territorial claim on the Potsdam agreement ignoring the explicit postponing of this matter to a "final peace settlement" which never was drawn (Polish government POV), and that was only substituted by the 2+4 treaty prior to German reunification and the respective PL-GE-border treaties. I am not interested in using only contemporary phrases to describe historical events, which indeed would not make sense, but instead I am interested in proper adressing historical issues.

You see I am trying to be most neutral, and I am astonished of you not bothering to study the matter first and instead yell POV and border revisionism at me. For the controversity I mentioned above, see eg Ryszard W. Piotrowicz et al, 1997 who gives a small overview stating a little more detailed what I summarized above, there are other books going into much more detail if you really are interested. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Purely from a language point of view, "placed under Polish administration" implies to me that it wdidn't become part of Poland, just that Poles were acting as the authorities there (as in certain parts of Iraq and Afghanistan recently). It may have been the language used in the original treaty, but the facts of the matter result from much more than just that treaty. Unless we are going to go into great detail about the circumstances of the border change in every article about a town in these territories (which seems undesirable, when we can just link to a general article), we should summarize the facts as the reader will best understand them. For me "became part of Poland" does that best - maybe someone can do better. One thing to avoid is giving the impression (as some articles of this type do) that the town or village in question was a specific issue in the post-war negotiations, rather than just a part of a much larger region that changed hands.--Kotniski (talk) 09:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

As a result of the Potsdam Conference following World War II, Belgard (Białogard) became part of Poland. - for me mentioning and linking to the Potsdam Conference is enough as a historical/political background. It'd be going overboard if we had to give more detailed explanations in every article about a town or village in these territories. Kpjas (talk) 10:16, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

To go into much detail is just what I want to avoid, we have consensus on that. The aim is to find a terminology that does not express a POV and is immune against challenging, so we have a stable, NPOV version without detailed information that would violate WP:UNDUE. I think we have consensus about that, too.

@Kotniski: "Purely from a language point of view, "placed under Polish administration" implies to me that it didn't become part of Poland, just that Poles were acting as the authorities there" That is exactly what happened. And after the administration was turned over to the Polish authorities by the Red Army, the Polish authorities did integrate Belgard into the post-war Polish state, unlike the situation in eg Afghanistan today. Yet it is questionable if they were legitimized to do so by the Potsdam Agreement, there we have different POVs (in literature as shown above, please don't make that a personal issue). So either we let out the Potsdam Agreement as the cause of the integration into Poland, or we mention the Potsdam Agreement as a cause but let out the "part of Poland". Or we mention the Potsdam Agreement saying it placed Belgard under Polish administration, which it did (no more no less). The current (?) terminology used in the article, "became Polish", is also perfectly alright, yet you asked for the "official" one. Skäpperöd (talk) 10:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we'd do better not to mention the Potsdam Agreement specifically, since that was just one part of the process by which these regions became Polish. Maybe it would be better to say something like "as a result of the post-war boundary changes B. became Polish/part of Poland." Then readers know where to go for full information, and are not misled in any of the various ways that they might be when we say that it happened "because of Potsdam".--Kotniski (talk) 13:23, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

As I said above that's one way to do that. "Post-war boundary changes" is a good choice, it combines all changes de facto, de jure, by force, by treaty, without going into detail about that or mentioning actual dates for which the situation would have to be described more accurately. The question is whether to wikilink that to Territorial changes of Poland after World War II as this seems to be a low-developed merge candidate, or rather to Oder-Neisse line which bears much more information, but is not in best shape either. (Maybe it won't really matter to which article we link at all because all the respective articles are interlinked...) Skäpperöd (talk) 14:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Because there has been no further input, I assume consensus and changed the line in the article accordingly, linking this discussion in the edit summary. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Polish Righteous among the Nations

This article is now at Good Article Review. Interested editors are asked to help address objections at talk.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

strong tradition of antisemitism in Poland

Read all about it in increasingly destabilized Żydokomuna article... see talk for relevant discussions. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Stefan Knapik

Hello. I was asked in my discussion to translate this into English (it's now in Polish), but I checked on the wikipedia-pl on IRC, and admins there were not overly enthusiastic. He is not in the pl wiki or referenced there. The opinion (to be fair, of one Silesian admin) was that the biogram was unlikely to pass muster on the English Wikipedia as notable.

So I punt this project over to you. :) --Mareklug ^talk 14:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

if he really has an entry in Polski Słownik Biograficzny as one of the ref implies he is notable. A few users from the Polish Wikipedia could look it up. Kpjas (talk) 21:48, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

For now, I suggest moving it to pl wikipedia. It can be copyedited there, and translated later to en.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done :) --Mareklug ^talk 04:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

DNA testing

Do you find a standard behaviour to declare that an editor confirmed his nationality with a DNA testing? I find such statement racist and totally unrelevant to editing this Wikipedia. In this case it was allegedly a non-Polish DNA (what is it a Polish DNA ?), but I wouldn't like any such declaration about any nationality. Xx236 (talk) 07:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Such statement looks like nationalistic (or racist) and very close to hate speech, so not a good thing to the Wikipedia community. However I suppose that from scientific standpoint it is completely senseless - it is impossible to claim that you are 100% Polish, German, French or whatever. What is the nationality after all ? One can say that his/her genetic makeup is in, let's say, 70% concordant with DNA shared by a population consisting of nationals of a given country. Kpjas (talk) 15:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

In what context was such a statement made? Diffs? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sołtanowicz hoaxes return?

Franek Dolas (talk · contribs) seems to be engaging in creating a series of Sołtanowicz family hoaxes similar to those of the blocked Potocki (talk · contribs). I've left him a message on his user talk; how long should we wait before mass revertions and blocking? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

For hours at best. He can always request an unblocking. Mieciu K (talk) 16:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In that case, will you do the revert/delete/block honors, where appropriate? Or shall I? :) The user is inactive since Oct 5 and has not replied to my message on his talk (and his email is inactive). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Those articles have no relaiable sources and their notability is doubtful. He should start by adding such semi-notable characters to Polish wikipedia first, only if they are notable to stay there should they be included into English Wikipedia. I'm not an admin (on en wiki) and the deletion process on en wiki is long and complicated so could you just speedy delete those articles? Mieciu K (talk) 17:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like proof of vandalism [3]. Jan Ocieski existed [4]. Mieciu K (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

For some reason I thought you were an admin here. Have you considered applying? Speeding them now.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I will apply in the future. Mieciu K (talk) 14:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Translation request

I'd like, if I may, to put in a request for a translation of pl:Kościół św. Rocha w Białymstoku - I fell in love with it when I was in Poland, but alas my knowledge of the language is so poor as to preclude any decent attempt at translating on my own. Also I'd like to see an article on the priest who served there, if possible.

Dziękuję! --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 14:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

"Polityka" 11th october 2008

I encourage everyone to get a copy of the current "Polityka" weekly magazine. There is a very interesting article about hunger in post-WWII Poland. This article is very interesting in the context of Polish post-war antisemitism (for eg Kilece Pogrom could be explained as baisicly a food riot.) and the failior of post-war anti-communist resistance can be viewed as a result of apathy caused by hunger. Mieciu K (talk) 16:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Bishopric of Ermland / Warmia

Please see Wikipedia:Ethnic_and_cultural_conflicts_noticeboard#Bishopric_of_Ermland.2FWarmia: IP wars in progress, input from experienced editors needed.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Spelling Czeslaw

There is a new article on Czeslaw Lejewski. Trying to find related sources, I saw the given name spelled somewhere with a Ł. Is it always the case? Is it in his, anyway? If it is correct, the article should be moved. trespassers william (talk) 13:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's indeed always the case (some non-Polish sources will omit the diacritics, but our convention is to use them). I've moved the article.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Polish-Jewish ethnicity in lead

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Polish-Jewish_ethnicity_in_lead.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)