Talk:World War II

At this late stage...

Recently, Comunicat has been lamenting that attempts to change this article "at this late stage" are futile. Checking the history, I found an old copy of the article from late 2001. That was only the oldest copy still available. So, the article is probably MORE than 10 years old. Communicat, my friend, we're not at any more of a "late stage" than we were in January when you started editing. This article will continue to be edited as long as Wikipedia exists. We don't have to worry about a deadline after which no more edits can be made. The article should be continually edited and improved. We won't have a final version unless they pull the plug on Wikipedia. So, the removal of dubious sources and the addition of other POV sources (or, preferably, NPOV sources) can and should continue, with vigorous attention to detail for many years to come. Once more into the breach my friends! --Habap (talk) 14:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're gonna quote me, please do so in proper context and with relevance. My "lament" pertains to topic entirely separate and different from commendable revision of lead as currently underway. Said revision has my full support. In fact, and modesty aside, I believe it was I who instigated the currently ongoing revision in the first place (see topic sections Flawed Lead etc originated few weeks ago, somewhere above). So I'm certainly not complaining about any "late stage" in that particular context. Get over it.

As for your stated intention to add "other POV sources etc", good luck to you. My own experience has been that when any sources are submitted that deviate from the conservative / Western / mainstream paradigm, they are rejected, obstructed, or dismissed arbitrarily by certain self-styled "senior editors" using an unconvincing variety of pretexts / excuses / "justifications" etc,. The numerous marxist, Western revisionist, and other non-mainstream sources that I have submitted are all contained in foregoing sections where you can find them at your own convenience if you're really interested and want to put your bibliographic talents to good use. Communicat (talk) 20:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC) PS: The "late stage" I was referring to, and in relation to which you have quoted me completely out of context, was in fact the late stage of your entry into discussion, without your being properly aware of the facts and matters at issue. Why have you started this particular topic section here, with its curious heading, immediately below the ongoing lead discussion (to which you've evidently not contributed in any way), instead of commenting at the appropriate section in which my quote applies? Are you still busily trying to discredit me? I think so. Communicat (talk) 23:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Geez. I was trying to reassure you that there is plenty of time for changes, not trying to discredit you. You have sounded as though you lament any chance of making the article NPOV and I had hoped to reassure you that it is possible.

I did not include this in any of the other threads because it was intended to be a separate point and a reminder to all parties that continuing change in the article is certain and that no one should walk away out of frustration. The lamentations and despair are seen in many of the threads above. I have confidence in the editors here.

I have not contributed to discussion of the lead because I did not feel I had anything to add. As much as I like to hear myself speak, I did not feel cluttering the discussion was useful when others were handling it ably. --Habap (talk) 14:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Very well then. How 'bout putting your money where your mouth is? Just try coming up with some non-Western majority position sources and/or Western revisionist significant-minority position sources and/or any other sources that deviate from the dominant conservative mainstream position, and you'll see how the Old Guard reacts. Communicat (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at what you've previously posted, it appears that much of it was rejected only because of the link-spamming of Winer's book.I will begin looking to see if I can find any of the works you cited in that 8 August entry. --Habap (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there's quite a lot that you've misinterpreted, and which it seems you're slowly coming around to understanding. While you're at it, have a look at the article reference to No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger, relating to "brutal North Korea." As the title states clearly, it's a memoir; memoirs are not allowed. Yes, I know, it was co-authored by an American journalist, but that was simply to overcome English language writing difficulties on the part of the Korean. Three down, 24 to go.

Or, if you're desperate to keep the "brutal North Korea" part, how about some balance by mentioning the brutal American-sponsored covert assassination programme that killed thousands of South Vietnamese civilians, viz., "Operation Phoenix". Or the American-inspired brutal massacre of around one million civilian communist suspects in Indonesia? All very well documented. No sourcing problem. Communicat (talk) 23:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Topic still active. Don't archive for the moment. Tks. Communicat (talk) 17:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to mediation committee + parties

Mediation request was filed to mediation committee on 21 August 2010. Request cites intertwined threads on discussion page. Some of the threads have since been moved to archives on 22 August. (Archiving dormancy procedure was suddenly reduced from 20 days to 15 days and now 10 days). Movement of relevant sections to archives may make it difficult and/or complicated for cohesive mediation request assessment and parties' participation, if any, relative to past discussion as referred to in request for mediation.

For ease of reference, the interrelated dispute elements are contained either wholly or partly under various talk topic section headings, either archived at archives #38 and #39 or still on this current page (as at 22 August), are as follows in more or less chronological order:

Link to www.truth-hertz.net

WW2 origins of Cold War

Flawed overview -- para 3

Anti-communist prejudice

USSR and USA at the top?

German surrender

Editing Dispute -- expressions of interest invited

Duplication / cleanup

Lead: problems

Communist-led resistance

At this late stage...

Communicat (talk) 17:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh you did make a mediation request. You probably should have told so here so that the involved parties can tell the committee whether they think mediation is in order.

I had a look and found your request here: Wikipedia:Request_for_mediation#World_War_II_.28overview_article.29

The following editors were mentioned as involved parties, so if your name is here, have a look at the link above.

1. Communicat , filing party
2. Nick-D
3. Arnoutf
4. Paul Siebert
5. White Shadows
6. Moxy
7. Hohum
8. Habap
9. Binksternet

I will do so soon Arnoutf (talk) 17:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The mediation committee itself notifies named parties within two days Arnoutf, likely to give them time to see if the request is valid. See WP:Requests_for_mediation/Guide#After_filing. (Hohum ^@) 18:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I use to notify users if I involve named persons myself, but fine I'll wait for their invitation then. Thanks Arnoutf (talk) 18:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

For those who might have missed it, here is Observation by mediator: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) Communicat (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Himeta's quote

One of the sources mentioned by Communicat as dubious was the quote on casualties from Mitsuyoshi Himeta that came from Sharon Linzey's speech to the Kurdish National Congress of North America with a citation directly to the study by Himeta. One down, 26 to go? --Habap (talk) 21:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Source so-called "dubious" in so far as it does not conform to alleged requirements demanded by some wiki editors in respect of "self publishing" without peer review mechanism. You will note that Kurdish National Congress is self publisher and apparently without academic peer reviewers. Meantime, before jumping the gun (again), how about waiting for committee to decide whether or not mediation request is admissable? Communicat (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Restoring Habap's full talk entry, with "Kurdish National Congress" as posted. Communicat, do not refactor others' talk posts, not to correct facts or spelling or anything. Per WP:TPO, only very specific changes can be made to others' comments. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Refactoring was not intentional. I'd meant to copy and paste words, but in late-night haze I copied and cut by mistake. Thanks for fixing & pointing it out to me. Communicat (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

A better reason than self-publishing for removing it was that it was not a direct quote of Mitsuyoshi Himeta. If you search for Mitsuyoshi Himeta on the internet (I happen to use dogpile for my searches, since I prefer it to google), you'll find more than a dozen speeches and papers that all use the same quote from him. From a historian's perspective, it's better to quote directly from the source (i.e use a primary source) than to use a secondary source for what he said.

I'm trying to fix the article. You've stated that one of the problems is that there is a double-standard for evaluation of sources. I think that there isn't and it's just sloppiness. I think you said there were 27 self-published works quoted. Since they are likely dubious sources, I am trying to find them and replace them with sources that are not dubious.

Do you want the article improved or do you want to "win" at mediation? I think our goal should solely be the improvement of the article. --Habap (talk) 14:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Note the subtle difference for the use of a primary source for a direct quote (as is the case here) but a secondary source to use for interpretation of these statements; as interpreting a statement is original research (but a direct quote is not). Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Winning" some stupid argument doesn't come into it. The whole point of going to mediation is, among other things, with a view to improvement of this and related wiki articles, as also to prevent any future fractious and time-wasting NPOV and similar disputes of this nature.

As for questionable sources, I don't have time to go into all that right now. It's a major undertaking which might or might not be handled in the fullness of time. You don't need me for that right now, if you want to make a start on your own. Maybe commence with checking out the several "Illustrated Histories", which use visuals to back up unverified and unsourced text, which text in turn is then quoted in WW2 article as supposedly reliable secondary source. I've mentioned this before; seems you missed it. (WW2 article, IMO, has vaguely similar problem: i.e. strong on visuals, fotos, graphics etc, but text is grammatically and stylisticaly a bit of a mess, even if highly sourced. All those irritating ellipses, for example).

Re Arnouft comment above: Can't make much sense of it. Rules are fairly clear in banning the use of primary sources. Communicat (talk) 19:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No they are not banning primary source, the rules state you should use utmost care and caution to use primary sources and only use them for non-controversial facts and not analyse their content. A verbatim quote (without analysis) is clearly non-controversial as a fact (because easily verified by looking at source, whether you agree with quote or not is of no relevance). Quotes are however often misinterpreted and therefore in the specific case of quotes (without analysis) the primary source in that specific circumstance is often more reliable. For example, if I were to quote the line "to be or not to be" (without further analysis) should I source that with Shakespeare play Hamlet (primary source) or any of the hundreds of analyses of the text (secondary source). I hope you agree the sourcing to Hamlet is far superior to "my high school textbook on English literature". Arnoutf (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have already done the hard work of identifying 27 dubious sources, listing them will be trivial, so that they can be checked, and the article improved. Thank you in advance. (Hohum ^@) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies for introducing the terms on sourcing. It has obviously confused the issue. The speech stated that Himeta said there a certain number of casualties. Rather than providing a citation to the speech, it is much more correct to point the citation to the article that Himeta wrote, so people can read what he actually said instead of a partial quote and interpretation of what he said. --Habap (talk) 21:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

To all the above: Okay, I'll read the primary source rules again. Must have misunderstood them in relation to what user arnoutf is now telling me. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re "hard work" of identifying 27 questionable sources, no it wasn't hard work. Most were self-evident from just a quick scan. By the way, I actually said "at least 27" questionable sources. There are possibly more, if one makes the effort and takes the time to analyse in depth each and every one of the source notations. The alleged dubious sources in question didn't make their appearance overnight, but accumulated gradually and fragmentarily over a period of 10 years, and they have become so ingrained in the fabric of the article that it's gonna take a lot of time and effort to clear them up. I'm not over-enthusiastic to become more involved in such a clearing up operation at this particular moment in time because, as you can see, dissecting even just one questionable source has already accounted for the expenditure by Habap of considerable time and number of words. Imagine what it's going to be like with 27 or more such questionable sources. In fact, I'm starting to regret I even raised the matter in the first place, but I guess someone had to do it. Communicat (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

So, there is no list? --Habap (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It would seem not. I ran through the sources yesterday (my time) and could only see one which appeared unreliable - I replaced it with a reference to the Oxford Companion to World War II (and tweaked the text as I couldn't verify in the several sources I checked that Hitler ordered an end to the bombing of England on 11 May 1941; the sources I consulted said instead that the bombing campaign largely ended in this month as bomber units were transferred to support the invasion of the USSR but that limited bombing of England continued). 23:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Re habap's, "So, there is no list". Read my posting properly and/or stop wasting my time. Where are all those NPOV alternative sources YOU were bragging about earlier? Communicat (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I stated that there must be some Soviet sources written by authors who perused the Smolensk archive. I do not read Russian, so have no way of reading them. I only own Western sources, so have to get to the library to find "other POV" sources. While you have stated that it should be obvious which are the dubious sources, it would be easier for everyone involved if someone created a list and we could all go through it, removing the dubious ones and replacing them with valid sources. I recently read someone posting that NPOV was "not a lack of viewpoint, but is rather a specific, editorially neutral, point of view." --Habap (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I posted that, about POV, which conforms in all major particulars with my own understanding of the rule.

Re Smolensk, not only Russians have perused the archive. Among others, a professor of defence studies at Edinburgh university also perused them, and if my memory serves me correctly, his findings are quoted on the basis of a personal interview in Winer's now apparently banned online book. So unfortunately that quote can't be used. But I digress. Yes, I agree, it would be easier if "someone" created a list for the purpose stated. But that someone is not going to be me at this time, because the list and the arguments for and against each case on its own individual merits would take up more time and trouble than I can presently afford to volunteer. Not to mention all the further discussion and debate necessary if/when any discovered reliable Soviet sources are ready to be appropriately reworked into article text. I'm snowed under with other, equally challenging projects in my other life.

What I can do, however, is feed you with bits and pieces of existing questionable sources, as I've done with a few already, (including the various "illustrated histories" already mentioned in talk). How about this one (ref 32): Chaney, Otto Preston (1996). Zhukov. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 76. ISBN 0806128070. It is a biography. Biographies are disallowed. As for the incorrect spelling of Georgy (Zhukov) in the aftermath pic caption, and also in the infobox, it should in fact be Georgi (source Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, (2 vols), Moscow: Progress 1985), and no I'm not citing in the text a biographical source, just trying to prove spelling, because I'm fairly confident the author knows how to spell his own name. The text sentence to which said ref 32 refers is also incorrect in so far as part of it is contextually digressive and irrelevant (viz., "avoiding sacking"), and the rest is incorrect in so far as Zhukov was not only involved in defence of Moscow, but played a central role along the entire Russian-German front (or "Eastern" front as it is generally and confusingly referred to in the West), and other fronts too (e.g. Russo-Japanese front).

I correcteed the spelling of Zhukov's first name a few days ago, which you then reverted. If I remember correctly, you said it first had to be corrected in another article somewhere, before being corrected in the main article. So, I'll leave it for you to do the honours with correcting it wherever it appears, which will save me the time of having to look for it in other articles which you're already familiar with. (I still can't get my head around the concept that an inaccuracy in one article needs to be repeated in another for the sake of consistency. But that's just me.) Communicat (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PS I also use dogpile. I've seen they list several items near the top about Soviet historians relative to recent stuff about role of USSR in the Pacific, which I don't have time to follow up. Might be worth pursuing if you have the time and interest. Communicat (talk) 23:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PPS I will await your response to above, and also your response to Korean memoir source referred to at 23:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC) in section "Late stage" above, before proceeding to provide further instances of questionable sources on a case-to-case basis.

I would of course have been happy to prepare a fully itemised list with explanatory notes for mediation committee, had my mediation request not been blocked by Nick-D and others opposed to open mediation in this matter. Your voluntary initiative to go into the breach alone is appreciated by me, for one. I'll do my best to help on a case by case basis until such time, if any, that it becomes essential to provide a full, detailed and itemised list. Communicat (talk) 16:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

aftermath

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I've made new 2nd para, no changes otherwise. RE clarification requested, will do when edit conflicts subside, and will also fix ISBNs if/when ref numbers revert to sequence, for some reason current sequence gone all over the place. Can anyone tell me consistent ISBN policy, i.e. 10-digit, 13-digit, spaces and/or dashes between numbers? Communicat (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

For complete coverage it would be interesting to add how the denazification / war crimes programs of the USSR developed after the war. Is there any source information about whether the USSR similarly used high end former nazis in relevant postings and thus diluted their denazification programs in the same way UK and US did? (I know they were interested in Werner von Braun, but the Americans got him) Arnoutf (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't have sources for USSR. Why don't YOU look for them, seeing as its your idea? (You might want to add that USSR wanted British bombing of German civilians to be included in war crimes trials). Communicat (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

A minor clarification, and some page numbers are needed. I have fixed the ISBN syntax. 10 or 13 digit ISBN work, 13 is preferred, WP:ISBN is the relevant wiki page for ISBN presentation. (Hohum ^@) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I did have a look and found a few interesting publications. Russian denazification lasted from 1945-1948. Older sources accuse the Russians of political cleansing of anticommunist sentiments, but modern sources (Vogt) does not agree and sais that denazification was relatively fair albeit slow. March 1948 denazification was halted/ called complete. All 'remaining' nazis were no longer pursued. So apparently no conscious Soviet intention to employ high level nazis in the new governmental structures, but acceptance that the task to continue finding "small" nazis could take forever and would disrupt the new situation, hence a stop on active persecution. In other words, the Soviets applied a similar kind of realpolitik as the US/UK except for those few case where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals. [www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/Vol4Denazification.doc] [1] [2] Arnoutf (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. So, why don't you work it into topic with ref?

Re your "...few cases where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals": No, there were not a few cases, especially in relation to US. Try reading the readily available works I've cited. Entire US-sponsored Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty network, operating from US, was run by numerous former Nazis including war crimes suspects. Plenty of sources, but the three sentences I've provided are sufficient to the task at hand, without needing to make a fullblown article out of it -- (but of course you're free to do so yourself if you're that way inclined). Communicat (talk) 21:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Collapse previous reflist

I've just removed the para. The lack of page numbers is highly unsatisfactory, and I'm not convinced that it's either neutral (as other sources emphasise the harsh treatment of Germany in the post-war years and Germany's rehabilitation as a democracy) or about topics notable enough to be covered in this high-level article on the war (and not its aftermarth). As per the convention, it should also have been discussed here first. I've posted the para below to aid further disussions of it.

When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik. Germans who were classified as ardent Nazis were chosen by the American secret services to become "respectable" American citizens. Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.

In addition to the clarification request, and page numbers. Links to Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim would seem relevant. Were Nazi Scientists gathered by the USSR too? - I believe Bower's The Paperclip Conspiracy covers this as well. The text starting "Secret arrangements were..." to the end of the paragraph goes into too much detail for an overview article IMO. (Hohum ^@) 23:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D you could see that at the very time of your deleting my contribution, I was in the actual process of working on the paragraph you were busily deleting. If it wasn't for all the edit conflicts I was experiencing as a result of your interference, the required page number and "clarity" query would have been completed.

I have read and understand the rules and therefore see no need to first discuss with you what I propose to edit, except in the case of significant changes. I have not performed any significan change to existing text. I have inserted three sentences of new content, which editors can examine at their leisure and respond accordingly, as Hohum and others were in the process of doing before you butted in and acted arbitrarily without discussion. You're being extrememly objectionable and obstructive, and this latest instance will also be brought to the attention of arbitrator, in addition to other matters already filed today, of which you are no doubt aware, and of which you will no doubt be hearing further. In the meantime, please stop being retaliatory; you're only damaging your own case. Communicat (talk) 00:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. That is not a lot of edit conflicts. The WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal practice. Please stop making threats, knuckle down, and discuss edits constructively, like anyone else manages to do. (Hohum ^@) 00:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

re Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. Exactly. Isn't it quite odd then that he should remove my edit just a few minutes after I'd filed items containing edit summaries that made it obvious I was in the very process of methodically fixing the section at issue (page numbers, clarity query)? Coincidence is all very well when it happens, but this, given the circumstances, was IMO no coincidence.

Besides which, his remark about "aftermath" in relation to the article is quite incoherent. I've read it several times and still can't figure out what the blazes he's talking about. Perhaps he knows what he's talking about? Never mind.

By the way, I'm not making threats. I'm making promises. Arbitration request has already been filed. In the meantime, the aftermath item is easily fixed on basis of your observations, and I was in fact doing so before disruption ocurred. Doesn't seem much point in proceeding further with that edit under present conditions. I'll just let arbitration run its course before attempting any more wasted effort here. You can do what you like with Tom Bower et al. If the boss lets you. Communicat (talk) 00:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I wish you spent your time on improving edits instead of non-constructive argument and tilting at windmills. (Hohum ^@) 01:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, if you genuinely wish to discuss changes to articles it would be helpful if you'd stop your personal attacks on other editors - I'm not going to engage with them. Nick-D (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

If we want to go further with this para I would add a line immediately after the first: "Followed by an end to denazification by the Soviets in early 1948 " In any case, if we discuss the denazification we should fairly discuss US, UK AND USSR efforts otherwise we give an incomplete image which necessarily leads to a POV by omission.
I would also be perfectly happy to drop it, as I think the aftermath section is already very long for a high level overview article like this. So my preference would be to shorten rather than expand it. Arnoutf (talk) 07:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Dropping it is my preference. If Germany is covered, all the other Axis countries need to be covered and this topic isn't particularly relevant to the subject of the article (the war). Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, in case you didn't check that RfA, please read Wikipedia:TINC. I found it amusing and quite relevant. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:OWN. As for Rfa decision, read Response to assertion in statement by Nick-D regarding "... proposed changes to and complaints (by Communicat) about the World War II article ... are generally not supported by the balance of mainstream sources ..."

The article relies exclusively on mainstream sources, to the total exclusion of other available non-mainsteam sources / positions, and this is the specific reason why NPOV dispute arose in the first place. See Observation by mediator in this specific regard, which is as follows: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010)

As Moxy has recognised, there are some wide and advanced issues involved here, and I'm definitely not gonna let it go. Sorry to disappoint you all. Communicat (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It's an overview article. It should rely on reliable mainstream sources. Further exploration should be on the hundreds of linked articles. (Hohum ^@) 19:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Lame excuse. Tendentious reasoning. Read the rules that require alternative positions to be stated in interests of NPOV, which rules I've already cited several times. I'm not going to repeat them endlessly for the benefit of a few editors apparently exhibiting "I can't hear you". It's clear the issue cannot be resolved via discussion with editors of that ilk, otherwise it would have been resolved a long time ago. I see not point in trying to discuss it further, and will pursue my options, of which there are still one or two. Communicat (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Currently, every other editor who has expressed an opinion disagrees with you on your novel interpretation of wikipedia policies and guidelines. You are flogging several dead horses simultaneously with your current behaviour. (Hohum ^@) 20:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You have evidently missed my posting, (two postings above), re Observation by mediator, now repeated again for your edification: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ...." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) In short, if as alleged no other editors agree with me, the quoted mediator for one does in fact agree with me. If you don't like it, take it up with the mediation committee.

As for your tendentious "It's an overview article." Firstly, wherever did you people get the idea that it's an 'overview'? Nowhere is it said in the article itself that it's an "overview". The article is a main article, with various separate sub-articles. As a main article it should contain the main points about WW2, regardless of whether or not the sub-articles elabortate further, and if they don't, it's the sub-articles' problem, not the main article's problem. And a main point, among others, that should be mentioned in the main article, is that significant alternative positions exist as to the causes and courses of the war. The article itself need not go into a fullwinded saga about the alternative positions. That's a separate story. For the main article, just mention that fundamental difference exist between Western mainstream, Western revisionist, and non-Western i.e. Soviet positions. That's all that's needed. No more than two or three sentences with reliable sources, as I've already provided and which were rejected out of hand.

Secondly: your "(the article) should rely on reliable mainstream sources." You're defeating your own argument. "Reliable mainstream sources" to the exclusion of reliable alternative and/or revisionist position sources is vcompletely out of line with NPOV, and even Habap has recognised this by now. And so has the mediator as quoted above.

So how come you're still having so much difficulty in grasping this very basic historiographic concept? I would suggest it's because of ideological conservatism on your part and on the part of some other editors; conservatism by its very nature is highly resistant to change; and that includes editorial changes to the article by any editor with a fresh perspective, in this case me.

You conservatives, having achieved "good article" status, now apparently want to rest on your laurels and protect "your" territory against perceived intruders like me, i.e. anyone who proposes any meaningful and progressive change to "your" article. Well, I'm not intimidated by your sort. Communicat (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

AGK was clearly talking about the process of collaboration and not the content, of the article. And I would perfer to work together, but I think we should first agree on some basic issues about this article.

1. This article covers the whole of WWII. WWII was an extremely complicated conflict. To cover all of it and keep it at a readable size each issue should be treated extremely briefly.
   
2. If there are conflicting interpretations/theories, the most dominant should get more attention more or less in proportion to how dominant these are in todays literature. This is overall an encyclopedia where an overview of the body of current knowledge is presented and not a scientific journal where new opinions are advanced.
   
3. Since the issues are treated extremely briefly (point 1) there is limited scope to present minority views unless these are very broadly supported. The more detailed articles can be used to present these theories in more detail.
   

Can you agree to these arguments? To be honest, if you cannot I do not see how we can cooperate. Arnoutf (talk) 17:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

All I wanted to know re my posting above, was whether or not it was appropriate for me to submit the page numbers earlier requested by Hohum as supported by Moxy.

I don't agree with your interpretation of the mediator's observation re "the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article". Communicat (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

ATG clarified on his talk page that he was saying that the "approach to editing is partisan", and wasn't commenting on content. (Hohum ^@) 23:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

@Communicat and others, with my 3 points above I am trying to come to agreements within which I think we should be able collaborate. Can you please respond whether you agree to these 3 points. (Looking back to the past and what AGK said (or intended) is not helpful to the future in any case so I would prefer to leave that be.) Arnoutf (talk) 07:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Arnoutf's three points. I agree. To keep this already long article as brief and readable as possible, we can't go into much detail, this means leaving most alternative viewpoints to their main articles (and linking to them), yet keeping the wording open enough to encompass them here without being over specific, if possible.

Re page numbers. Even if a whole book is about a point being made, there will doubtless be an identifiable reference on a particular page, or a few pages, which should be used as a reference. (Hohum ^@) 12:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you, or do you not want the page numbers? That's all I want to know. At this stage I do not want to be further involved in the aftermath topic nor any other WW2 topic until such time, if any, that certain ongoing policy matters are finally resolved.

As regards AGK clarification of "partisan editing", I have posted the following at AGKs talkpage:

Thanks AGK for clarifying what you meant by "partisan editing". The primary matter at issue as stated in my mediation request concerned partisan editing, so I surmised on that basis your comment was in direct reference to the issue of partisan editing, and not the now clarified "approach to partisan editing".

I agree with your disappointment that mediation was not allowed to take its natural course, viz., was blocked by those who did not want impartial mediation to occur. If mediation had indeed proceeded as intended by me, you would also have become better acquainted with the different points of view that exist on the article in question. You might further have understood how and why there is no discernable desire on the part of those who are opposed to mediation to consider alternatives or compromise, relative to partisan editing as complained of by me. Communicat (talk) 17:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

In answer to my direct question to you I interprrt this as that you do not explicitly agree with the 3 points above (and choose not to edit WWII anymore.) Arnoutf (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Read my posting properly. Communicat (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I asked a direct question, and in none of your posts do you explicitly respond. So clearly you do not explicitly agree. Your tendency to confuse your own posts by lengthy texts with little relevance to the issue does not hide that. But I can ask you again. Do you agree to the 3 points I raised above, a simple Yes or No will do. Arnoutf (talk) 15:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised to see that the para has been restored to the article before there's agreement on whether it should be included, how it should be worded or even page numbers for some of the references. I still regard it as a POV mess - in essence it argues that the west quickly papered over its opposition to the Nazis in order to gain access to German technology and intelligence networks. The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany is ignored, as is the continuing western military-led occupation of the country. Moreover, it leaves out the substantial transfers of technology to France and Britain. The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted and war crimes trials of individuals continue to this very day (including many conducted by Germany during the 1950s and 1960s). The statement that "large numbers of former Nazis" moved to Britain and the US is also very dubious - what's a 'large number'? All up, this para is attempting to push a fringe interpretation of post-war events and I still think it has no place in the article. Nick-D (talk) 00:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it needs a fair bit of work. It is possible that the editor reintroducing it is having trouble finding the right thread on this cluttered and rambling talk page. (Hohum ^@) 03:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just in case there's any confusion about the unnamed editor and/or further discrediting of myself: I was not the mysterious editor who reintroduced the evidently disputed material. The editor responsible, more than likely, was the esteemed Hohum, who rightly observes that the talk page has become practically unmanageable.

As for Nick-d's observations: apart from selectively quoting out of context etc, his level of insight seems to be reflected by his own words: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany ..." Post-war Germany consisted of Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and German Democratic Republic (East Germany), each of which disputed the legitimacy of "democracy" in the other. Neither of them turned out to be truly democratic. (Sources available) Nick-d himself does not source or define his own meaning of "democratisation".

Semantics aside; regarding Nick-d's assertion The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted ... Those prosecutions were essentially token prosecutions and they were conducted on a very selective basis. (Copious Sources available). Consider for instance the celebrated case of Kurt Waldheim, who went on to become secretary-general of the United Nations. Another celebrated case is that of the war criminal (can't remember his name right now) who went on to become head of Interpol, and other very well documented cases for which numerous sources are also available. And speaking of sources, I have repeatedly offered to submit reliable sources and clarifications as requested by Hohum before Nick-d objected to the topic and reverted my edits while I was in the process of providing clarification and page numbers. I then repeatedly asked whether or not it was worthwhile providing the said clarity and page numbers, to which no response was forthcoming.

Re Arnoutf posting above: I seem to recall you're the same feller who earlier told me to "SHUT UP" (sic) and "find another forum". Now you are laying down itemised preconditions for my continued participation. I am unaware, (unless I've missed something), that you Arnoutf have any authority whatsoever to dictate to me or anyone else any conditions or preconditions for participation. I have already made it clear, and I repeat: I want nothing further to do with editing the aftermath or any other WW2 topic until such time as certain key policy issues are conclusively resolved. The rest of you, including especially you Arnoutf, are free to fight it out among yourselves. There is an unfortunate tendency, when descended upon by the equivalent of a pack of editorial wild dogs, to reduce oneself to the same level. You don't emerge intact from such attacks by being Mr Nice Guy; and I for one am thoroughly fed up with having to reduce myself to that level. It's all yours (for the time being, at any rate), and good luck to you. I trust I've made myself clear. Communicat (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

So, I have accepted the reprimand from the uninvolved admins and tried to involve you into a reasonable discussion by trying to suggest some boundaries within which I am confident we can collaborate. If you read back on this talk page and its archives you can easily find that it is indeed I who lowered myself to your level after a frenzy of unjustified personal attacks and extremely incivil comments on anyone daring to disagree with you (even if facts were presented). In spite of that I have made the effort to find common ground and being called a "wild dog" in response is utterly unwarranted and yet another example of the personal attacks that appear in a significant part of your comments. Arnoutf (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

PS I should not have said "shut up" and should have kept a cool head after after your extremely polite and constructive remark "Arnoutf, you are irritating and disruptive. Please stop your personal attacks on me, assume good faith". Arnoutf (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nazis in Western and Soviet service

I have archived the presiding discussion, as it has turned into personal matters and is no longer useful in improving the article.

In the article itself I have added a paragraph with links to the main articles Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim, Reinhard Gehlen and Gehlen Organization. Feel free to improve the wording or provide better references.

On the question posed by Nick-D, it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War. A Soviet decision to stop prosecution of Nazis played no such role – on the contrary, Soviet prosecution of collaborators was a major irritant in the West. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so I've come out of hiding (for the moment). Only to point out that wiki rule doesn't allow use of links to other articles to serve as references. I note that Petri (nor anyone else for that matter), does not give any ref sources.

However, If anyone does want to pursue some of the numerous documented sources available on this topic, I'd suggest Stan Winer's Between the Lies (2nd edn) London: 2007, which provides a detailed, very well researched and sourced chapter (re the Cold War recruitment of nazis) that is of direct relevance to this topic. Milhist censors have of course banned the book from use as a reference source on wiki. But, as Paul Siebert has pointed out in earlier discussion, (now archived): "... the facts and sources he (Winer) cites are correct and reliable." --Paul Siebert (talk) 18 Aug 2010. Since Paul states on his user page that he has a Phd in History, he probably knows what he's talking about.

For my part, I'll not be engaging with any resultant talk arising from mention here of the book's disputed merits. It's a deadhorse for wiki discussion. The book is nonetheless out there for whoever wants to consult the correct and reliable references contained in it. I am not the author or the publisher of the book. Communicat (talk) 21:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Petri, if that's the case (which, to be frank, I very much doubt, and particularly the 'key role' part) it should be stated plainly and be supported by appropriate reliable sources. The current text and references do not support the position. Nick-D (talk) 00:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "...it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War". I would say, the casual linkage is inverted here. Western countries abandoned denazification because the Cold War started.

"In the following pages denazification in the American zone of occupation only will be analyzed. As to the Soviet zone, it might be claimed that denazification has been a success, in the sense of the second group referred to above, since it was used to eliminate social groups like big land owners and industrialists, i.e., groups which to a large extent had been responsible for the access of Nazism to power, and whose continued power might conceivably facilitate seizure of power by a neo-Nazism in the future. However the wholesale political use to which denazification in that zone has been perverted precludes it from being considered genuine denazification in the sense originally understood by at least the Western partners of the anti-Hitler alliance."

"It seems significant that not only in Germany but everywhere in Europe such policies as purges of fascists and prosecution of Axis collaborators have by now been "coordinated" under the impact of the bipolarization of power in the world. They have thus been perverted into tools of the power politics of the two major blocs.

Thus, in the Soviet sphere, purge of Nazis and Fascists soon became the tool for indicting any opponent of Communist totalitarian rule and for eliminating him as a " fascist collaborator", whether or not he had been one under the Axis rule. Was it necessary, then, for the Western countries to welcome as " allies" in their anti-Communist stand not only those democratic non-Communists, on whom Communists undeservedly place the stigma of " collaborators" , but also the real former collaborators and Fascists? This may, indeed, have its advantages from the standpoint of power politics. As a German put it the other day: "After all, we are experienced Russenkampfer." If so, the moral superiority of the nontotalitarian West is " expendable ". Even from the standpoint of an apparently realistic power politics, however, this policy, in the specific instance of Germany, seems not to be without risk."(John H. Herz. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1948), pp. 569-594)

However, in any event, there was a deep linkage between CW and abandonment of the denazification policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

By "the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations" I mean not the lack of "denazification", but the role collaborators like Ain-Ervin Mere played in operations like Operation Jungle. None of this was public knowledge in the West in 1948; the Soviets however knew all about it. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If I understand correct, Operation Jungle and similar events were a part of already ongoing Cold War. They just further deteriorated Soviet-Western relations, that had already become bad. In other words, these events hardly triggered the Cold War, although they could significantly contribute into the growth of tensions between the USSR and the Western Allies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

As it appears that there's no consensus to include the para, I've just re-removed it and posted it below to aid discussions/further work on it. I continue to regard it as being both unnecessary and inaccurate. Please do not re-add it to the article until there's a consensus to do so. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip, and Osoaviakhim. Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes and policies of denazification in favour of realpolitik, leading to large numbers of former Nazis being allowed to emigrate to these nations and their dependencies. Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.

Re " both unnecessary and inaccurate" Please, explain, what concretely is inaccurate here. With regard to "unnecessary", please, keep in mind that the whole American Moon program became possible due to Werner von Braun, so the mention of Paperclip is definitely needed (cannot tell anything about Osoaviakhim, because the contribution of German scientists into similar Soviet programs seems to be much more moderate). Abandonment of denazification is also important, as well as the mention of ex-Nazi collaboration with the West. The para is probably too wordy for such a summary style article, so let's think how to make it more laconic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've done so above Paul (in this edit). Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Protection of Nazi mass murderers and criminals by West Germany like Heinz Reinefarth definetely served as major source of animosity with Poland. Also see amnesty law issued by Adenauer:

[3] "As of January 31, 1951, the amnesty legislation had benefited 792,176 people. They included people with six-month sentences, but also about 35,000 people with sentences of up to one year who were released on parole. Frei specifies that these figures include a bit more than 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 other Nazi perpetrators sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and about 5,200 charged with "crimes and misdemeanors in office"". --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 12:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I still regard it as a POV mess - in essence it argues that the west quickly papered over its opposition to the Nazis in order to gain access to German technology and intelligence networks." Not completely correct. The para states:

"German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip, and Osoaviakhim."

which by no means implies that cessation of denazification was connected to transfer of technologies. According to the para, the technologies had just been transferred (btw, both to the West and East. I see no POV here.). With regard to realpolitik, this statement seems to be supported by reliable sources.

Re: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany is ignored, as is the continuing western military-led occupation of the country." The fact that something has been left beyond the scope is not an argument. The missing facts can be added; let's discuss that.

Re: "Moreover, it leaves out the substantial transfers of technology to France and Britain." If you think it was important, let's discuss how should this material be presented in the article.

Re: "The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted and war crimes trials of individuals continue to this very day (including many conducted by Germany during the 1950s and 1960s)." I see no nonsense here. The fact that key Nazis were prosecuted after the war does not contradict to the fact that the denazification program had been partially abandoned later. This para's statement has been supported by the reliable source, I also presented the source confirming that, and I can present more. If you believe it is not a mainstream POV, please, provide a source confirming your point.

Re: "The statement that "large numbers of former Nazis" moved to Britain and the US is also very dubious - what's a 'large number'?" This piece of the text seems to be too detailed for this article, and I agree it should be made shorter.

Re: "All up, this para is attempting to push a fringe interpretation of post-war events and I still think it has no place in the article." I am still unable to understand what part of this para is fringe. The fact that German technologies were massively transferred to the West? Disagree. The fact that denazification was abandoned? Yes, it would be more correct to say that it was abandoned partially, so the para needs to be modified. The fact that ex-Nazi provided very significant help to into British and American intelligence during the Cold War? That fact is well known, although, maybe, we don't need to go into these details is this concrete article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

With 170Kb this is already a very long article. So let's be extremely careful not to add more detail than absolutely needed.

If we consider the whole aftermath section if is built from the following paragraphs (extremely abbreviated)

• Foundation of UN
• Descent into Cold War
• Soviet power over Eastern and Central European countries
• Denazification / move of nazis to the west (the discussed para)
• US influence over Japan & foundation of NATO (the latter is a bit weird first better with cold war para I guess)
• Peoples republic of China founded (communist take over)
• Korea war (*)
• Decolonization
• Economic restoration programs
• Quick economic recovery in France, USSR and Japan (*)
• Lagging recovery in China, big leap forward (*)

To be honest, reviewing all this I think there are several paragraphs that are in this section that are less imporant than a brief one about denazification. I doubt especially whether the Korean war requires much attention. Also, while the economic restoration programs are clearly relevant, the follow up in the two paras after that seem to hold too much detail. (I marked these para with a (*) above).

Of course we need to decide what we want with this section. If we want the immediate aftermath we need to include something about denazification (e.g. including reference to Nuremberg trials), if we are more interested in the long term consequences we should say more about the other issues. My preference would be to keep it to immediate aftermatch rather than a broad series of consequences, as that could fill many articles in itself. Arnoutf (talk) 10:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the 'Aftermath' section is over-long (particularly as it's longer than any of the sections on the phases of the war, which is the actual topic of the article). The section is also European-centric, and devotes little space to events in Asia. I'd suggest that (at a high level) the coverage of Europe be trimmed as part of an effort to reduce this section to four or five paragraphs. As a start, the Korean War para could be either removed or reduced to a single sentence (the war started 5 years after the Japanese surrender) and the coverage of the on the post-war economic situation should be written at the global level and be reduced to a paragraph (rather than the current three or so paras covering events in different countries). Nick-D (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

How about building the aftermath in the following four paragraphs

• Global recovery of economy (Soviet Industry, Marshall Plan, Japan)
• New geopolitical organisation (foundation of UN, NATO, Warsaw pact and similar)
• Political changes in Europe (occupation and denazification of Germany (Nuremberg trial?), Soviet dominance over Central and Eastern Europe, decolonisation of European powers)
• Political change in Asia (American occupation of Japan (demotian of divinity of emperor), communist state of China emerges)

I think that would put a more global view on it, with one paragraph for each of the main theatres (Europe and Asia) and the other 2 truly global. What do you think? Arnoutf (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Just asking

What triggered the Japanese to attack the Pearl Harbor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.255.215.222 (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Good question. The article didn't tell about that clear enough. The attack was triggered primarily by the US oil embargo. I fixed that, and now the article says:

"German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina. The United States, United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war."

Thank you for pointing my attention at that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Page numbers

Page numbers are really helpful for verifying what a writer actually wrote. If the "entire book narrates content of relevant sentence text", then, surely the thesis of the book is in a sentence or paragraph on some page. Provide that page number so that people can go to the book, look and say, "Ah, yes, he does say exactly that!" Otherwise, you force someone to read an entire book and decide if they interpret the author's meaning in the same way. You'd never be able to submit a paper for a history class and simply footnote it with "entire book". --Habap (talk) 21:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you say the ones that are missing because i see page numbers all over.Moxy (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Up in the aftermath section, Communicat cites several sources without page numbers, as he did in this diff, stating that page numbers are unneccessary because the entire contents of the books support the statement, kind of like the British library comment above. --Habap (talk) 01:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

O i see ..It has been removed ...yes we should have them for a 501 page book. (as as per Wikipedia:Citing sources#Identifying parts of a source) ..they also need to be in the proper templates. However that said this can simply be fixed in most cases and if not a tag added as done here will do or replace it all together......i Dont believe they should be removed (if not replaced) because an editors is not up to speed on layout...However this additions are part of a greater issue as see above, that i have backed away from some time ago...Moxy (talk) 02:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

What is the current situation here? If I understand it correctly, Moxy says my aftermath contribution should remain. HoHum, took the trouble to fix the ISBNs for me, before Nick-D butted in, so he appears to be implicitly in favour of the sentences at issue. Nick-D of course disagreed at the very outset and tried to strangle it at birth. Others seem noncommital. I would like to see it remain, since IMO it's a key aftermath issue. So, what to do? Should I take the time and trouble to provide relevant page numbers without pondering the probability or possibility of the whole thing being undone again? (as per usual) Communicat (talk) 18:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Please ask Moxy to confirm your interpretation of what you think was said. I read Moxy's response as a context free statement that edits should not be merely removed because page numbers are missing. However, page numbers were not given as reason for removal, so in my view Moxy does not comment on this specific removal. Of course Moxy would have to clarify. The same with HoHum, correcting stuff can also be noncommited and in my view is not support of a sentence (but also no clear objection). Here we need HoHum to ake the interpretation explicit. Arnoutf (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You are correct in your assumptions of what i was saying Arnoutf ...thank you for making it clear for others :) ..Moxy (talk) 03:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixing the ISBN links meant that I prefer to have working links to enable easier verification of sources. I made more explicit suggestions regarding content at the time - In essence, I think a sentence mentioning the US and Soviet attempts at grabbing Nazi scientists is relevant, but not exactly essential, the rest was too much detail for an overview about WWII. (Hohum ^@) 22:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Describing other editors actions as "butting in" and to "strangle at birth" is not assuming good faith, and hardly helps to repair relations. (Hohum ^@) 22:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat and fringe-POV pushing

(copied on Talk:World War II and Communicat's talk page. Please primarily respond on Talk:World War II)

Having reviewed the Arbcom case filing and the talk pages here and at the Strategic Bombing article that Communicat also was intensively involved in last month, I am intervening as an uninvolved administrator.

Communicat - It is evident that you are disrupting the article here. It is also clear that you do not understand or will not agree to abide by our policies on neutral point of view (one of our core / pillar values), and to some degree our policy on original research. Out of those flow our policies against overly emphasizing minority viewpoints (WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE). You are steadfastly fighting against normal community application of our reliable sources policy here and attempting to insert fringe viewpoints.

We are not here to post original research or be a battleground or advocacy site for new ideas. We are an encyclopedia. We reflect consensus (in verified, reliably sourced external publications and references) of what the world has already concluded.

Additionally, Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It's an encyclopedia that everyone edits together. We value both our core policies and values of community discussion and working together to improve articles and build a better encyclopedia. Using process and discussion as a stick to attempt to push radical change, ignoring all feedback given and refusing to discuss in good faith, is disruptive activity. It's inherently disrespectful to the rest of the community when you do that.

Nobody has yet complained (that I noticed) on an administrators noticeboard such as WP:ANI, however there's no reason for us to wait for that to happen. The conversations with you have gotten increasingly nasty, you're attempting to use process as a stick (the Arbcom case filing), it's evident that you don't agree with Wikipedia's core values and aren't respecting the community here. The short description for all that is "Disruptive editing". Disruptive editing is a blockable offense here on Wikipedia. We don't do it lightly, and we are particularly aware of not wanting to club minority viewpoints into submission or interfere with content discussions arbitrarily. But there are limits, when things become disruptive.

Communicat - you are nearing or at the limits for acceptable behavior now. I would like to warn you that you need to at least tone down your behavior and reconsider how Wikipedia works, and whether your goals in coming here match our goals and core values of producing a neutral encyclopedia. If you continue down the confrontational course you currently have set, I or another administrator may well block you from editing for disruption. That is not my goal or intention. It would be much preferable if you reconsider on your own, and continue engaging in a less confrontational and more collaborative manner. I don't ask or expect you to change your historical opinions. But you can hold them and edit collaboratively and collegially, cooperating with everyone else here.

If you chose not to, again, this behavior is disruption, and disruption is blockable.

I respect your interest here and want to be honest here. You deserve the chance to stay engaged and do so in a more cooperative manner, and to work with us to understand what our community standards are and how to do so. If you are willing to listen to criticism going forwards you are likely to succeed within Wikipedia.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest and for your comments as an uninvolved administrator. On the face of it, there seem to be some things with which I am not entirely in agreement, but I shall study your posting more carefully and respond accordingly in due course. In the meantime, just to ensure that we're both on the same page, I'd be much obliged if you could clarify for me the following:

(1) Am I correct in assuming that you are not a formal arbitrator or formal arbitration reviewer?

(2) Am I correct in assuming that you have no forml history or military history qualification? (Your userpage does not mention any).

(3) I'm a bit baffled. You refer to "intensive" contributions that I made to Strategic Bombing article. I have no recollection of any such contributions, with the exception only of a brief submission quite a long time ago, around maybe six or more weeks back, citing author Max Hastings. Can you kindly clarify specifically which other of my contributions in that article, if any, you are referring to? (I shall meanwhile endeavour to study the bombing article and its editing history myself). 19:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not on Arbcom. I'm just one of the many (thousand-ish) administrators. Very few issues go to Arbcom, most are handled within the community or by administrators.

Formal training in history, military or other? No, not particularly, though I'm reasonably well read in the field.

The reaction to your source and edits at Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Link to www.truth-hertz.net were relatively enthusiastic. I count 14 edits by you to the talk or article there. It was for a while your major point of contribution. If you disagree with the description as "intensive" that's fine; the wording is immaterial to the larger issue.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Not to be overlooked - general breakdown in collegiality

In response to the Arbcom case filing, AGK has noted that there has been a breakdown in collegiality on the article talk pages in general, and he made the comment with a wide brush and about many not few contributors.

Having reviewed here (and the Strategic Bombing article) I also wanted to agree with AGK's comment on that issue. Our policy on collegial, civil, and collaborative editing expects that people will treat the community here - and all editors within it - with respect and by default assume good faith about their contributions. Even in the face of significant disagreement, we expect people to continue to be graceful and cooperative.

This is necessary to keep the community and collaborative aspects of Wikipedia working smoothly.

I can point to recent edits by Communicat here on this talk page which show the breakdown. I could also list at least a dozen, probably as many as 50 other diffs by other editors between this page and the Strategic Bombing talk page. This breakdown was general and not one-sided.

We expect better of everybody. The point of having uninvolved administrators is that when things start to break down, you come get us, and we work to calm situations down. Since we're not already tangled up we can be fair and independent arbiters. We are here to keep the encyclopedia working, the community working, and to keep the big picture in mind. Writing a great article tomorrow is no solution for communications degrading so that we can't write good other articles next week and into the future. We need to be able to do both.

Please keep this in mind. I don't think I need to do any warnings for personal attacks; but there's a wide range of behavior that corrodes and degrades the community and makes it harder to solve problems and move forwards, that falls short of personal attacks.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for these and the above comments George - I agree completely. Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I shall respond in due course, upon receipt of your valued answers to my queries at bottom of above section "Communicat and fringe-POV pushing". Communicat (talk) 19:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PS: Please don't get me wrong where I inquire above regarding your formal historical qualifications. I'm not trying to be a smart-arse. I'm trying to establish the level of your understanding of historiography, so that I may choose my words appropriately in responding to your comments. Some technical and advanced concepts may be involved. Again, thank you for your interest and concern. Communicat (talk) 22:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

For the purposes of this discussion, I am not a professional historian (military or otherwise) but have on the order of 250 military history books in my personal collection, have read a number more, have done some original source research in documentation and interviews on points of interest. I am a defense and military analyst part time. I am also reasonably well read in geopolitics and modern military policy areas. I have not studied the process of doing academic or analytical history at a university, per se. If you're referring to technical concepts of the process of doing historical research you need to explain it in general terms for the well-read, not professional jargon. If you're referring to the output materials, in terms of actual military or geopolitical history writings, you can use the terminology found in them and assume I can follow. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. A man after my own heart. Your book collection is noted with envy.

I've checked the strat bombing edit history, and see you're referring in fact to a few edits of about six months ago, not last month as stated. The intensive editing to which you're possibily referring was even before that, concerning article Western Betrayal which morphed into "Controversial command decisions, World War II" and which was then AFD'd and reverted back to original Western Betrayal by Nick-D et al -- despite well-founded objections from the late Tony Judt who described my edits at that time as "valuable work". (His view was supported by at least one other respected editor). The beginnings of current furore can be traced back to that time. Of which more later. I'll soon be making my position clear, when I have some breathing space. Communicat (talk) 01:04, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to "uninvolved" intervening party

Georgewilliamherbert, in response to your postings above of 23:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC) & 00:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC), I am unable to accept your intervention is that of a neutral and impartial party.

Your stated intervention, at the very outset, alleges "fringe-POV pushing" by me, thus supporting unequivocally the claims of other involved parties, as though those claims are a settled and unquestioned premise, which they are not. In so doing, you have prejudged the issues at hand, and you obviously support the views of those opposed to me, which views I contest. Nor, before jumping to your own wrong conclusions, have you invited my point of view in relation to the partisan editing of the article as complained of by me.

Moreover, you have not familiarised yourself with the full recorded background to this dispute, which runs into many thousands of words. Nor have you exhibited any discernable desire to establish why the editors opposed to me are not prepared to compromise their unyielding positions or to consider alternative historiographic positions, which positions are at the heart of the dispute.

In addition to prejudging the matter and exhibiting bias and prejudice even before acqainting yourself with my side of the story, you have come into this dispute with all guns blazing, in an intimidating fashion and issuing loud threats to ban me. For these and other reasons, you have made it very difficult for me to assume good faith on your part, or to engage with you in reasoned discussion. Communicat (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I spent about four hours reading and looking at diffs; I'm not sure how much more familiar you want or expect. Most admins would have waded in with far less due diligence.

If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here. I intervened due to behavioral issues, and in the process concluded that you're not providing adequate evidence to establish that you aren't working from a fringe viewpoint.

You are welcome to ask additional uninvolved administrators to intervene here. However, I am what you have now. Administrators aren't disqualified by dint of having established an opinion on the incident or behavior they are responding to. They're only disqualified if they have been personally involved beforehand either with the articles or with the persons involved in a significant manner. In this case, I have not been previously involved in any significant way in either manner.

Your statement that you find it difficult to engage in reasoned discussion is somewhat at odds to our perfectly reasonable exchange where you asked additional questions of me. You asked entirely appropriate context setting questions and I think I answered entirely reasonably. I am perfectly happy to keep discussing reasonably; your response above is somewhat discouraging but doesn't rule out ongoing constructive engagement.

If you would like to continue arguing the underlying issue of whether you represent a reasonably mainstream or sufficiently well supported minority viewpoint on the underlying history issues, please feel free to do so. That discussion should ideally be on article talk and not article edits per se, until you are able to find some consensus on the points you are supporting. I would especially like to see more survey evidence and a widening of your presented references and resources, rather than continued arguing over single sources. Good information usually is multiply reliably referenced, with multiple reinforcing sources in areas of both factual data and critical commentary regarding the conclusions. There has been a lack of healthy breadth to the source discussions here so far. If you'd like to open it up that would be an entirely reasonable way to discuss things going forwards.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Your effort is very much appreciated, and from your balanced, nuanced comments (with fair criticism on all parties involved) the first time around it became clear you spent a lot of time looking through this murky issue. Thanks for all the effort. Arnoutf (talk) 15:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I stand by my statement above. But I shall endeavour to try just one more time. If there's no constructive and conclusive outcome within 48 hours, I'll refer the matter to arbitration.

Firstly, it would he helpful if you could acquaint yourself with the fundamental precepts of historiography. (There's a useful summary of the subject near bottom of Cold War page. This might obviate future allegations of "fringe POV-pushing" directed at me. But to save you the trouble in the meantime, suffice it to say that historiography basically concerns METHOD. The method of revisionism (or "fringe POV-pushing" as it is falsely described by some editors and by yourself) is basically the revision of pre-existing historical accounts. This method in military history relies frequently on declassified official documents that were previously classified secret and withheld from the public domain. Now, these are my main points:

(1) WP:FRINGE, (and probably other wiki rules as well), states that: "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical prominence (and) ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." Please note that the rule does NOT state: Wikipedia should always give prominence to established WESTERN lines of research found in reliable WESTERN sources." Yet this is exactly what the existing WW2 article does do. Not even one non-Western source is cited among the 340 odd sources cited. This reflects clear POV bias through omission, which may or may not be due to personal political preferences, which have no room in accurate and objective editing.

(2) Moreover, not even highly authoritative Western revisionist works such as Professor FH Hinsley's, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its influence on Strategy and Operations, (4 Vols), London: HMSO, 1977-1988 are to be found in the article's source citations. Perhaps this is because Hinsley's work contains some uncomfortable truths, which ultra conservative individuals may find difficult to accept. The same applies to other reliable Western revisionist accounts, a number of which were submitted by me as sources, which were then summarily rejected as "commie propaganda", or "there's not enough space for them", or even more outrageously, the submission of the sources was simply subverted and/or reverted, as was the case recently by Nick-D (see Aftermath section above) while I was in the very process of uploading them.

(3) Your assertion is false that I have not provided "adequate high quality references and resources" and/or that this is not "purely about historical disputes." The record shows exactly the opposite. Whatever the true reason or reasons for the rejection and/or subversion of the sources provided, and the deeply conservative and partisan nature of the editing of the article, it is clear to me that something needs to be done about this situation, which impacts negatively on the editorial quality of the article. That is why we are here. Communicat (talk) 02:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". My investigation and response to you were as the initial "no" answers were coming in, and was noted over there. They're aware of what's going on.

Again:

The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint, it's how you're trying to argue it. It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved.

Note that the way you're trying to argue it would be problematic even if the viewpoint was unambiguously mainstream.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply continued

(1) To return to your assertion: If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here.

Below is list of NPOV and highly reliable reference sources from a wide spectrum, submitted either as supporting text references in various contexts and/or in support of various relevant discussion topics with a view to suggested textual changes, improvements etc. All of these below were rejected out of hand, and sometimes with insults. (To save time and possibly more wasted effort, alphabetical order, ISBNs, italics, page nrs etc are not shown here but are available if ever necessary at some stage):

• Stewart Richardson (ed.),The Secret History of World War II: Wartime Letters and Cables of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986,
• Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the puging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981
• Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988,
• Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972,
• EH Cookridge, Gehlen, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971
• Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press: 2003.
• Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
• Association of Asian Studies, "Anti-Japanese Movements in Southeast Asia during World War II". Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org;
• Yoji Akashi, "MPAJA/Force 136 Resistance Against the Japanese in Malaya, 1941-1945".
• Association of Asian Studies. Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org.
• Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, London: Faber, 1971.
• Spenser Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral, London: Chatto and Windus, 1948;
• Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
• Bradley F Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender. New York, 1979.
• R Harris Smith, OSS, Berkely: University of California Press, 1972, pp.114-121
• Vladimir Petrov (ed.), Soviet Historians and the German Invasion, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1968
• Y Larionov, N Yeronin, B Solovyov, V. Timokhovich, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Army, Moscow: Progress 1984,
• Gar Alperovitz, "How Did the Cold War Begin?" in Walter LaFeber (ed.) The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, New York: John Wiley 1971;
• Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, New York: Avon 1965:
• Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945, London: Macmillan 2005;
• DF Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960, New York: Random 1961
• Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare (online link to US Military Corps archive of previously banned books).
• Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980
• LS Stavrianos, "The Greek National Liberation Front (EAM): A Study in Resistance, Organisation and Administration", Journal of Modern History, March 1952.

(2) Regarding your latest posting above: You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". The arbitration request you refer to was in fact exclusively in relation to a matter of process viz., procedural infringement by one Nick-D, which is a completely separate and different matter to this current matter that we are attempting to discuss. I am free to lodge a new request in relation this separate and different matter, should it become necessary. I repeat, if a constructive and conclusive outcome is not forthcoming within 48 hours (of this posting), the matter will be referred to arbitration, since mediation and subsequent attempts at discussion will by then have visibly failed and/or become unmanageable.

(2) Your The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint: Agreed. It's a problem of content and what I suspect is politically biased resistance to certain content and to the free flow of information, viz., it is also a matter of discipline, integrity and ethics.

(3) Your It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, I understand them perfectly, and also the manner in which they are sometimes arbitrarily conducted in violation of wiki standards. In particular I understand that consensus may not involve just the editors concerned, but includes also the wider wiki community, such as arbitrators if necessary as a last resort. And beyond the wiki community there is a wide international community of professional historians, researchers, writers and history institutions, such as George Mason University which recently published the widely quoted article by historian Edwin Black titled Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of Knowledge.

(4) It is noted that you have not yet addressed the key issues raised in my long, earlier reply above, in particular the absence of parity in reference notation list. It is not necessary for me to repeat them here again. On the face of it thus far, however, it seems you are unable to come up with any convincing response to that specific and central issue.

(5) There is also the small matter of numerous questionable and/or disallowed sources that exist in the present reference list, which one disagreeing party to my mediation request cited as a subject that I'd failed to discuss properly with other editors before going to mediation request. I have since attempted to discuss the duious nature of those sources by providing a number of specific examples. The record shows that my attempt at discussion on that particular issue has so far been met with editorial silence, which I interpret as concurrence. Communicat (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality

(1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."

The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."

That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.

Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".

I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.

I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.

This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever of the duplicated postings is deemed inapropriate or unnecessary. ===Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality=== (1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."

The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."

That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.

Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".

I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.

I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.

This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever posting is deemed inapropriate or unnecessary.

Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality

(1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."

The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."

That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.

Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".

I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.

I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.

This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever posting is deemed inappropriate or unnecessary. Communicat (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Communicat, in my opinion, it would be better if you, instead of blaming other persons in various sins, simply presented your version of the text here on the talk page. Try to do the following:

1. Explain what concrete article's paragraphs need modification;
2. Propose your versions of these para.

Although you probably have done that somewhere on this talk page, your posts are too wordy, so it is somewhat problematic for me to follow your main idea. Please, for the beginning try to choose a single piece of text which does not satisfy you, propose your own version (with full references and, if necessary, with quotes, just to demonstrate that you transmitted the source's main idea correctly), wait for the response from others and, when all criticism is addressed, implement proposed changes. After that we can pass to other parts of the article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

To Petri who cleaned up refs layout: You meant well, but it was hardly worth the effort. Refs were posted solely for the record, and to counter interventionist's assertion that I'd not provided "adequate high quality references." Anyway, looks nice now. Many Thanks.

To Paul: Yeah, I know my above posts are too wordy, but it had to be done that way, seeing as discussion had and was still becoming increasingly unmanageable and not helpful to the record. All the intertwined threads were being archived out of sequence relative to the order in which they were originally posted and subsequently evolved etc., and some kind of coherent record is necessary for my purposes.

I need to clear up some macro policy issues before considering any further involvement with that article and some of its editors. In any event, I think I've already achieved my objective with what I'd set out to do initially, which was to precipitate extensive reworking and improvement of the lead (decolonisation etc etc), which was previously in a parlous state and long overdue for a facelift. You did well in reworking all that stuff. And maybe I've managed also to precipitate some improvements to Aftermath section, but we'll just have to wait and see exactly what is to be the outcome there (re denazification etc). Those preliminary few sections are probably the ones most likely to be read before the readers' eyes glaze over. Only the most dedicated soul would be sufficiently motivated to read the rest of that excessively overlong article. Thanks for your comments / suggestions, anyway. Communicat (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, ISBN's are not important if you give the title and author of a book, since we can easily find the ISBN and other publication info ourselves from a book site or search engine. The most vital thing, and the thing which you leave out in every case, is the page number of a citation in the book that supports the argument you are making, preferably along with a quote of up to a sentence of two showing the exact words with which the book backs you up. Can you supply those please? Saying "the whole book supports my argument" is simply not persuasive here, and will get you nowhere. You have to give the exact chapter and verse or else it's WP:OR. If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with.

You also misunderstand how arbitration works. Your requesting arbitration on an issue like this is like a newcomer to the city of London getting in an argument with his neighbor about a spilled drink, and then on not getting satisfaction, marching straight off to Buckingham Palace and asking Queen Elizabeth sort it out. Her Majesty is simply (almost) never going to look at any disputes between subjects unless every possible attempt (negotiations, police, courts, and ballot referenda) have been made to solve them some other way, a lot of people have looked into it and given their own conclusions, and there is still widespread disagreement about what to do. (Note that when one person A says "X" and everyone else says "Y", as seems to be happening here, that's not widespread disagreement, that's general agreement on Y even if person A doesn't like it.) If you refer a matter to arbitration, the first question the arbs will ask is "what else has been tried to solve this problem?" and unless they see a long list of prior failed attempts, they won't take the case.

GWH is doing a good job administratively (you can think of admins as the equivalent of the local police) and has also offered to get into a content discussion with you (he is more than qualified for this, as he knows a ton about military stuff). Have you read our guidelines on reliable sources and citations and our No original research policy? You should be familiar with those before getting in an argument like this.

I think your easiest solution is to switch to editing some other topic for a while, til you have more experience. GWH and others are right in observing that the editing atmosphere for this particular article is not very good. You are potentially a good editor but this place takes a while to get used to. You could also look for help from more experienced editors, perhaps from wp:Adopt-a-user. Finally, if you really want to pursue dispute resolution, the next step is probably to file a Request for comment. That asks for editors from other areas of wikipedia to look in on the issue and say what they think. In this case it's a safe bet that they will say roughly the same things that Arbcom, GWH, and others have already been telling you. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Additional comment I just noticed that Communicat says s/he had an edit or proposal rejected that cited something by Harry Hinsley, a respected WW2 historian. I don't think anything by Hinsley should be rejected as "fringe", though there may have been other reasons to think the edit was misplaced in the article. Communicat, the way to make a claim like that is to include a diff of the edit. The debating style around here basically requires including diffs of anything that you attribute to another editor that you're taking issue with. If your statement doesn't have diffs, it looks like you're presenting opinions without evidence. With the diffs, it's much easier for others to tell whether your complaints have merit. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

A search of this page and the archives shows that Hinsley has not been rejected, and no concrete edit supported by Hinsley has ever been suggested on the talk page by any editor. Using the article revision history search feature, I couldn't find a reference to Hinsley all the way back to 2003, so it seems unlikely one has ever been included then reverted.

Anyone is free to suggest a concrete edit, with references, but complaining that particular sources aren't used without suggesting an actual edit is pointless IMO. There are, no doubt, hundreds of reliable WWII sources that aren't used in this article. (Hohum ^@) 13:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Both of you miss the point completely. Please read my posting properly, which concerned editors' oft-stated aversion / prejudice towards "revisionist" sources. Same editors evidently don't understand the historiographic meaning of "revisionist", which they derisively misinterpret as "commie propaganda", and Hinsley was referred to by me as an example of revisionist work (since Hinsley is certainly not a commie propagandist). The absence of highly relevant and authoritative Hinsley from article's source notations is also a good exmaple of the poor standard of sourcing / bias through omission, or whatever is the cause of said omission. Whereas, by contrast, we have a plethora of dubious questionable sources citing e.g. Kurdish Association of North America, and so forth. See relevant thread —Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicat (talk • contribs) 17:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Zhukov source

As mentioned, I will be going through sources to attempt to remove any judged dubious (or potentially dubious) and posting my thoughts and ideas for changing them here. Above, Communicat mentioned the biography of Zhukov, the relevant comments collapsed here for easier reading:

Communicat on the Zhukov biography

How about this one (ref 32): Chaney, Otto Preston (1996). Zhukov. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 76. ISBN 0806128070. It is a biography. Biographies are disallowed. As for the incorrect spelling of Georgy (Zhukov) in the aftermath pic caption, and also in the infobox, it should in fact be Georgi (source Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, (2 vols), Moscow: Progress 1985), and no I'm not citing in the text a biographical source, just trying to prove spelling, because I'm fairly confident the author knows how to spell his own name. The text sentence to which said ref 32 refers is also incorrect in so far as part of it is contextually digressive and irrelevant (viz., "avoiding sacking"), and the rest is incorrect in so far as Zhukov was not only involved in defence of Moscow, but played a central role along the entire Russian-German front (or "Eastern" front as it is generally and confusingly referred to in the West), and other fronts too (e.g. Russo-Japanese front).

I correcteed the spelling of Zhukov's first name a few days ago, which you then reverted. If I remember correctly, you said it first had to be corrected in another article somewhere, before being corrected in the main article. So, I'll leave it for you to do the honours with correcting it wherever it appears, which will save me the time of having to look for it in other articles which you're already familiar with. (I still can't get my head around the concept that an inaccuracy in one article needs to be repeated in another for the sake of consistency. But that's just me.) Communicat (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I have not been able to find anything in either Wikipedia:Sources or Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons that disallows biographies as sources. However, I'm not sure that the sentence belongs anyway.

They also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Moscow.

As to the spelling of Zhukov's personal name as Georgi, citing his autobiography is not particularly helpful as he'd already been dead for 11 years by the time it was printed and likely never saw that printing. Since his name is spelled Гео́ргий in Russian, it might be transliterated as "Georgi", "Georgii", "Georgy" or "Georgiy", depending on who does the transliteration and in what era (for example, I prefer Mao Tse Tung, but modern transliteration usually spells it Mao Zedong). You are correct that the reason to not change it here is for consistency. If Georgi is, in fact, incorrect in commonly accepted transliteration, then I would urge that it first be done on his own article, where people who understand the issue much better than most of us will be more likely to be involved. Otherwise, we end up with people changing the spelling in a variety of articles in ways they think are correct without establishing consensus among editors who are focussed on the issue.

So, I don't think there's anything wrong with the source (since I can't find anything that says biographies are disallowed), but I'd like comments from others on whether that sentence should remain or not. --Habap (talk) 16:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks your thougthful comment. It might have been useful to stick to the relevant thread so that cohesion (what there is of it) is retained without topic becoming disjointed and things falling apart, (as seems to the unfortunate and perhaps unavoidable custom, but never mind). I should have said autobiography, and not biography. I recall having seen something in one of the many rules re primary sources, about autobiographies per se not being allowed. If I misinterpreted rule, my mistake. Communicat (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

My reason to break it out was the hope that it could be discussed separately, since it had nothing to do with the section header (Himeta's quote) and we could open this discussion, concentrate on ONLY Zhukov, complete the discussion of ONLY Zhukov and close it when it was complete. Discussing 15 different things in the same thread confuses many people, including me. I await comments from others about the value of the quote in the article....

Autobiographies are not disallowed either. Wikipedia:Autobiography states that you shouldn't write an autobiography on Wikipedia. --Habap (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The WP biography is Georgy Zhukov so this article should use that spelling. Stuff from autobiographies has to be used carefully. Zhukov was a major figure in the war, so anything he had to say about it is significant, but anything in any autobiography tends to be self-serving. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Brutal North Korea

In the 'late stage' discussion above, Communicat brought up the use of "brutal" to describe the North Korean regime and the sources used. In the article, it reads:

Soon after these conflicts ended, North Korea invaded South Korea,[238] which was backed by the United Nations,[239] while North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union and China. The war resulted in essentially a stalemate and ceasefire, after which North Korean leader Kim Il Sung created a highly centralised and brutal dictatorship, according himself unlimited power and generating a formidable cult of personality.[240][241]

The two sources in question are:

[240] Oberdorfer, Don (2001). The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Basic Books. pp. 10–11. ISBN 0465051626.

[241] No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger (1996). A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953. McFarland. ISBN 0786402105.

In Oberdorfer's book as seen on Google books, he does NOT identify North Korea as a brutal dictatorship in the pages cited. In fact, he talks more about the corruption in the south. While I agree with the assessment of the North Korean regime, it's not what Oberdorfer says. I wouldn't be at all surprised in the memoir (which, as noted in the discussion on Zhukov, would be allowed) identified the regime as brutal. If we wish to use that characterization of the regime in this article, it might be prudent to find a more neutral source than a defector's memoir. --Habap (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

have np with the removal of term "brutal".. as the term regime on its own generally implies harsh rule anywas to most readers.Moxy (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Remove it since it isn't supported. (Hohum ^@) 19:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

More radical solution. Remove whole Korea war section, as the aftermath section is way to long as is (see aftermath discussion), and this was 5 yrs after the end of the war. Arnoutf (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality

(1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."

The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."

That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.

Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".

I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.

I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.

This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever posting is deemed inappropriate or unnecessary. Communicat (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)