Talk:History of Solidarity

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Contents

[edit] Split

Please note that this article was split from Solidarity.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] references

Thearticle currently uses 2 completely different referencing styles: Cites.php and embedded external links. Would it be so unreasonable to move said external links to footnotes, with {{cite web}} used when pertinent? Circeus 23:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Completly agree, that's on my 'to do' list.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I finished converting this to the <ref> format. It still looks a bit wonky because there are several red linked names that have external links to the Polish wikipedia. I left these alone as I'm assuming they will eventually have pages created and the links removed.--Bookandcoffee 16:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Tnx! The links to pl wiki are my reminder to myself (and others) what articles can be realatively easily created by translation. I guess I will have to remove them before FAC, one way or another... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA note

Please note that Solidarity was a GA before the split. I have now removed the GA notice from Solidarity as it has now considerable less content and one stub section. I however believe that this subarticle (History...) is worthy of GA, as it contains most of the 'good stuff' from Solidarity.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you could easily double the lenght of the summary at Solidarity, and it would still be a very concise one. Circeus 18:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
True, but for now I want to concentrate on this article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA status

This nomination is on hold for the following reasons: only wikilink dates that are in the format August 08, 2006 and all the external jumps need to be converted to footnotes. Otherwise, nice article.Rlevse 14:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a bot or script that can convert the dates? Elinks are acceptable references, according to WP:CITE there is no need to convert them into footnotes, and plz note that all the elinks are in fact refs to pl wikipedia and mean 'to translate'.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
elinks can be refs, but the best articles should also have inline citations. This is what I mean by external jump: [1], and these are not allowed. If you intend to make this FA, you'll need inline citations. There is no bot for changing dates. If you steadily work on the article, the 7 days can be extended. Please advise.Rlevse 12:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:CITE#Embedded_HTML_links notes that such links are acceptable. I don't like them in FAs, but here they don't serve as a proper citations: they all link to Polish wikis (which is not really a proper reference) and indicate which articles should be translated. If there are any other elinks I'd be happy to transform the into proper cite.php style. As for the date formatting, I checked WP:DATE (which I have never seen really mentioned on WP:FAC), but I am not sure what do you want: for example, in the first sentence of the lead, do you want me to unlink the '1980'?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
WP:CITE#Embedded_HTML_links also says if you do that to then list them in references section-but you haven't done that (for your stated reasons), plus that is not the standard practice nowadays, the simplist way is to put them in cite php format and be done with it as you won't have to redo it for FA, as cite php is the defacto FA standard now. IMHO this is not the place to create a pseudo list of articles needing translating. For the dates, they work best if they are set so a user's date preferences work and that is generally done like this Decemeber 30, 1978 but your dates are not even consistent--one is "16th October of 1978" and another is "30 December 1987", and so on. You could also use ISO format if you like as it'll always display per a user's date preferences. WP:DATE says "bare month and day names should not be linked". Solo years are not normally linked unless it's critical to the article. WP:DATE can be confusing (IMHO it acutally conflicts with itself), but linking only the format Decemeber 30, 1978 is what I've been seeing. See the current FAC Battle of Moscow or recent FA Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'll ask the GA coordinator about the links to Polish language articles as I have not come across that before.Rlevse 02:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
The GA director agrees with me on the dates and says the Polish language links are OK as long as they are NPOV, which I'll take your word for. Please just fix the dates for GA status.Rlevse 15:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
All right, I think I have fixed what you wanted?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

I have corrected a few errors (mostly missing articles) of the grammatic and spelling variety; i daresay there are others, as i don't have a teacher's eagle eyes. I suspect the style still shows a few signs of having largely been translated into English; perhaps this might be worked over a bit more? Also, in the paragraph relating the election of the Contract Sejm (i hope i spelled that right!), i'm not sure what is meant by the election "turns"; is it cycles of voting? In addition, this is the first and only reference to the phrase Contract Sejim, and it isn't clear who the contract is between. Thanks. Lindsay H. 14:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I have corrected the Contract Sejm issue (turn=round, explain contract origins).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Note: This article has a small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 23:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The article has inline citations, although I agree they should be more extensive. Feel free to use {{fact}} to denote parts that you think are citation-light, and I will try to find citations relevant for those parts.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  01:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Could you stub the redlinks?

By the time I get to "Underground Solidarity (1982-1988)", I'm not sure what 'SB' means. Could this be re-iterated, or made clearer? - Francis Tyers · 08:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Służba Bezpieczeństwa now double linked.Beaumont 11:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) - Francis Tyers · 11:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I plan to stub all the redlinks that have equivalents on pl wikipedia, hopefully today I will be done.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced claim removed

Feel free to instert back with a citation, I couldn' find one.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It was later revealed that SB had prepared fake documents accusing Wałęsa of various immoral and illegal activities -- these were given to the Nobel committee in an attempt to derail the Wałęsa nomination

Well, the revelation was a side effect of a court challenge [2]. Soon back in the article. Beaumont 08:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Tnx!-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some GA/FA thoughts

Piotrus requested that I take a look at the article's references for purpose of it's current FA nomination. After looking at the article, I added ref tags to areas that I would like to see a source for WP:V purpose. Overall, the article sufficiently passes the criteria for WP:WIAGA. However, for FA consideration there are some details that I would focus on to improve the article. Here are my thoughts.

  • I would re-evaluate the image presentation and the use of particular images. My overall concern is the overabundance of images with a few of them not really adding any particular value to the article-outside of taking us space. Images are wonderful additions that can help illustrate a topic and give visual aid for a reader. I think the threshold for inclusion should be whether or not a reader's understanding of the topic is enhanced in anyway with the presence of this image.
In the beginning, the 2nd and 3rd photo seem too large and too close together that they almost overwhelm the text in that area. I can understand the size need for the 3rd photo because it would probably be hard to distinguish the pope from a smaller image. That might mean that this particular photo is not the most ideal for inclusion and it's presence should be evaluated.
The Image:Strike Gdansk 1980.jpg is a bit dark and doesn't seem to convey much that is needed in understanding the topic. Even looking at the larger size, I don't see a "strike" taking place. I just see a mass of people by a building. I'm not sure of the value it adds to the article.
While I can see an indirect relevance, I don't see any particular value in the inclusion of "Image:President and Mrs. Reagan meet Pope John Paul II 1982.jpg" at the Vatican. I don't see how a reader's understanding of the "History of Solidarity" is enhance with this image.
Even with a couple different display settings the Image:Poleglych Stoczniowcow.jpg overlaps the text above the image.
  • It would be nice if there are at least stub articles for the redlinks in the sections Early 1980s strikes (1980-1981) and Underground Solidarity (1982-1988)
  • The line "After over 27 Solidarity members in Bydgoszcz, including Jan Rulewski, were beaten up on March 19, a 4-hour strike on March 27, involving over half a million people and being the largest strike in the history of the Eastern bloc, paralyzed the entire country and forced the government to promise that the investigation into the beatings will be carried out." seems a bit awkward (especially with the footnotes included). Is there a way that can re-written? Another item about that line is the reference to the assault of the 27 Solidarity members. That struck me as a topic of interest but unfortunately no further details (How did it happen? What provoked it?) are given.
  • The line "Yet while Solidarity was ready to take up negotiations with the government, the Polish communists were unsure what to do, issuing empty declarations and biding their time." seems POV with the empty declarations. At the very least it should be attached to a source calling the declarations such.
  • I put a cite tag on the line "The worsening economic situation in the entire Eastern Bloc, including the Soviet Union, forced Gorbachev to carry out several reforms," mostly because I think this is an oversimplification of the issue. I don't think you'll find a source that comments on the Soviet reforms as by product of simply economic duress. (Though indeed it was a major, major component.) Ideally I would rework that section to not give the impression that it was only the "economic situation" that forced Gorbachev to consider some reforms.
  • A somewhat off topic suggestion is to improve the main Solidarity article. A fuller understanding and appreciation of the History of Solidarity is intrinsically tied into understanding what exactly Solidarity is. In reading this history, I had several questions about the underlying motivation, organization and actions of the Solidarity movement that I thought the main article would answer. For example, in the section After fall of communism (1989-present) they talk about "1 hour" and "2 hour" strikes. This rather short "work stoppage" time seemed and odd tactic and I wanted to read more about how the Solidarity movement organized and leveraged these strikes to achieve their goals. A strong main article will naturally increase the strength of this article.

Overall, I am very impressed with the quality of this article and I would like to see it reach it Feature Article status. If you have any questions or need help with anything let me know. Agne 10:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Bah, my soft crashed as I was finishing a reply to you :( Here's a summary: thanks for the very extensive comments, I tried to address them in text where I thought they were appopriate; if I left anything out, don't hesitate to edit the article itself. I currently lack material to work on the main Solidarity material - it would require much more reading than I have decided to dedicate to this matter (organizational structure, lists of office holders, more detailed analysis of international influence...).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wieczór Wrocławia illustration

This illustration doesn't seem to relate to anything particular in the text, and I can't understand the caption. Could we just drop this illustration? logologist|Talk 05:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The pic is a nice illustration of censorship and Bygdoszcz events, I'd prefer to keep it.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Could you provide a Polish-language text for the caption, to be translated into English? logologist|Talk 18:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, it is at Image:WieczorWroclawia20marca1981.jpg.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I've revised the caption. Please let me know if I've misconstrued anything. logologist|Talk 00:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Fall of the USSR (1988-89)"

The USSR fell in 1991. logologist|Talk 07:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, good catch :)-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good to go (almost)

I've edited the article for English and clarity, and think it now reads well. The contents appear well-researched and objective. I would still drop the Wieczór Wrocławia illustration, with its massive, indecipherable caption. logologist|Talk 09:13, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedit, I replied about the caption above.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some FA thoughts

Motivated by some comments on FA page (and this talk too), my concern is the image overload. While one can not overestimate the value and the relevance of some of them, some other seem relatively less needed. Since my personal feelings are close to suggestions given by User: Indon on the FA nomination page, I suppress "25th anniversary concert" and "Pope-Reagan meeting".

Feel free to revert my "destructive" edit. Consider however that I've made it to reflect a potential consensus, since several independent editors suggested that there are too many images. The choice may depend on one's POV, anyway I did my best to select the less "quality/price coefficient" (and I do agree that all the images are relevant). --Beaumont (@) 11:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Since several people raised concerns about Pope-Reagan meeting, I am certainly not going to go to much lenght about that image. But the '25th anniversary concert' on my computer nicely fills the blank space next to ToC; why remove it?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to fill up the space, but IMHO it is the less valuable picture and - probably - as a big one it contributes much to the general impression of picture overload. Maybe it's an illusion, but the suppression seems to reinforce some consensus. And how to keep all the pictures and, perhaps, even more in future? Actually, could we imagine a gallery on commons? It seems to be a solution when there are more interesting and relevant pictures than an article can contain. --Beaumont (@) 21:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Certainly commons is an ideal solution, unfortunatly many of images here are fair use which prevents us from uploading them to commons.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't regard my edit as the ultimate one :-) Actually, it looks like a new discussion about the picture layout opens below and there are still new ideas. Maybe we can look at the problem "globally". --Beaumont (@) 08:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TIME cover

How about replacing the opening TIME cover image with Solidarity logo ? The TIME cover seems too allegoric and difficult to understand (and ugly) for an opening illustration. --Lysytalk 07:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd not object ;) I don't like the cover very much. I admit, however, that it's quite informative and supports some assertions of the article. And, since I've already destroyed the article a bit, personally I'll refrain from cutting it further. --Beaumont (@) 08:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I felt that the Time cover was preferrable to the current logo proposed as the logo could have even been deleted under Wikipedia's image quality standards. This article is very close to becoming a featured article and such important changes to the first and main picture could change the outcome. I'm for replacing the Time cover image, but only with a superior image true to the article itself. Also keep in mind that the time cover is a primary source from the time period about Solidarity, where as the uploaded logo was fuzy and had no tag on it (copyright, date, or otherwise). Mkdwtalk 10:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
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