Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Srbosjek (2)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus to delete, default to keep. Sandstein 18:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Srbosjek

Srbosjek (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Completing improper nom by User:Rhun, nom reopened old discussion with "This text is almost entirely made up, and was already deleted here and on the German language Wikipedia, and has now been put back up. Read the previous deletion discussion below. Rhun 18:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)" Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?)} 18:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Strong Keep The new article has scholarly references provided, and external links are added to ICTY trial in which this specific knife, used by Pavelic government in NDH, was called Srbosjek, as well as the dr Bulajic, president of the genocide research foundation in Belgrade and one of the most quoted authorities on Jasenovac genocide referring to this curved blade, used at Jasenovac, as "srbosjek".

As seen in the previous vote (majority votes was keep), local people are quite aware of the existence of the srbosjek knife, which was one of the most memorable exibits in Jasenovac museum most school people visited on excursions in the 80s. The scholarly references include book by dr Nikola Nikolic, holocaust survivor from Jasenovac, a Croat and medical doctor - his book is from 1948, in book by respected historian dr Mladen Colic (his full name is Mladenko Colic, he is one of the foremost authorities about ustasha military, a titoist, works at Belgrade Vojnoistorijski institut, and his book is often used in academic teaching at Zagreb university) from 1973, and in book by Vladimir Dedijer from 1986 or so. There are also some mentions in the english books by foreign (out of ex-yu) authors in the 80s. In the books I mentioned, the curved knife is described, as well as its origin, Vladimir Dedijer mentiones one being captured by the partisans. He also includes the account of 50 killing methods by Nikola Nikolic in his book. The knife was an exponate at Zagreb city museum, and the photo of the knife was one of the most memorable museum exibits in the Jasenovac museum in 80s and Titoist era. The knife is widely known as srbosjek (the name is used at ICTY, in press in 90s, it was translated to english as cutthroat or something like that).

For your convenience, I here list the books:

• Jasenovački logor smrti - dr Nikola Nikolić, 1948
• TAKOZVANA NEZAVISNA DRŽAVA HRVATSKA, dr Mladen Colic, Deltapres, Beograd 1973,
• Vatikan i Jasenovac, Vladimir Dedijer, Dokumenti (Beograd: “Rad”, 1987)

the last book is also translated to English

Here is the part of the last book, which mentions the knife, and is in the part of the book scanned by google, so you can easily look it up: [[1]] In English, there is a book by Howard Blum, Published in 1977 by Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co. ISBN 0812906071, which also mentiones the knife, and the part that mentiones it is also available from google books [[2]]

Part of book by Nikola Nikolic are available online at jasenovac-info site. For instance http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/vecni_pomen/atanasije_en.html Notice the word "cutthroats" there. More parts of the book might be available online in Serbo-Croatian if you google it.

Finally, the photo and the sketch are available online from archive of Republika Srpska official site (most exibits from the old jasenovac museum were removed to Republika Srpska during the 90s wars)

http://www.arhivrs.org/jasenovac6.asp

the last two pictures of the srbosjek (exibit at Jasenovac museum, which I remember personally seing some 20 years ago, and also the sketch of the srbosjek knife).

You can notice that on the sketch, there is a writting "Grawiso" on the knife. The knife was produced by Solingen factory, which exist even today [[3]], and produces various knives.

Here is a more extensive part of the book by Howard Blum:

http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/pavelicpapers/artukovic/aa0006.html

Also check out this discussion from the Serbian wikipedia: [[4]] Hvarako 18:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Strong Keep I think that there are enough references to keep this article. --Milan Dinic 22:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Hvarako, we had the same discussion the last time, here and on the German wikipedia. Although we agreed that such a knife knife was one of the weapons used at Jasenovac, there was zero evidence that it was actually called "Srbosjek", like the article title suggests. The links you provided do not actually link the knife with the name, they just prove such type a knife probably existed. The ICTY link mentions "some" knife used against the serbs (most probably every knife used against the serbs was sooner or later called a "Serb cutter"), and also, does not link to the Grawiso knife on the pictures. This is why the article was deleted the last time and why the description was moved to the Jasenovac-Article. --Rhun 18:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I did not participate in that discussion. In fact, I was appaled to find out article had been deleted. As for the name srbosjek, this is the name it is widely known in ex-yu, and it was used in the yugoslav press in the 90s, and also, it is the name you can quickly check by consulting these ICTY pages. Please click the links, and type "srbosjek" in the text search, and you will see it is called srbosjek. This is not just any knife, it is a very specific knife which has a curved blade, and the ICTY links talk about order of Pavelic government etc, Solingen factory etc - this indentifies the knife uniquely, as there was only one knife with such a history, and links name to it [5] - type solingen and "serb cutter" (srbosjek in the original serbian transcript) in the text search. The data presented at ICTY trial is something you will find in the books provided. The "grawiso" inscription can be clearly seen at the sketch [6]; The name srbosjek was also referenced by dr Bulajic, president of the genocide research institue Belgrade, [7] in the text discussing the use of srbosjek in Jasenovac ("злогласни криви нож звани „србосјек”. " - "notorious curved blade called "srbosjek"(serb cutter)). Hvarako 19:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, a question for you Rhun - how do you reconcile what you said when you proposed the deletion "This text is almost entirely made up, and was already deleted here and on the German language Wikipedia, and has now been put back up" with what you say now: "we agreed that such a knife knife was one of the weapons used at Jasenovac"? I have to question this and ask was this deletion proposal really done in good faith Hvarako 19:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Hvarako, the ICTY transcripts feature personal, unprovable witness testimonials and can imho not be a basis for an article for the sole reason that they are neither proved by the ICTY, nor completely unprovable by a reader. Also the assertion that such a knife was used in the 90s' wars was not backed by actual sources. I would also leave out the anecdote how the knife is suposedly designed, because is mentioned only in a single (and only serbian, no third parties) source, and thus is neither proved nor provable. This name "Srbosjek" might be known colloquialy in the countries of the former Yugoslawia, but this still does not link it to the knife used in WW2, and can, as I said, be assumed to be the name on any type of knife used in murdering of serbs. I suggest naming the article "Jasenovac Grawiso knife" or similarily, because as of now, the name "Srbosjek" seems more of a general serbo-croatian wartime term, than actually the knife presented in the article. Greetings, --Rhun 19:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a procedure for renaming the article, and proposing deletion is not it. As you admit that such a curved knife existed and was used is Jasenovac, then clearly you will agree that article is legitimate. The ICTY was not mentioned as a source for the information about the knife, but as a proof that this knife, whose existence is proved by numerous scholarly references, exibits at Jasenovac museum etc, is now known under this name. As I explained, there is mention of this specific knife (ordered by Pavelic government from Solingen factory, used at Jasenovac, with curved blade) under this name (translated to serb cutter) at the trial [8]. The witness clearly cannot know any of this first hand, and in fact is recounting what is in these books; however, what is clear is his use of the name "srbosjek" (serb cutter is translation, but at other places it was left untranslated at ICTY trial); the name was also used by Bulajic, president of genocide foundation, for this specific knife, used at Jasenovac - [9] in the text discussing the use of srbosjek in Jasenovac ("злогласни криви нож звани „србосјек”. " - "notorious curved blade called "srbosjek"(serb cutter)). Clearly, it is used for this specific knife and under that name. The "graviso" knife was not the name it is widely known under these days - the press etc in the 90s refered to it as srbosjek, possibly under influence of dr Bulajic, who was foremost authority in Belgrade on Jasenovac genocide and was quoted a lot, and this name for Serbo-Croat speakers is for this knife, which is indeed very notorious - it is NOT a generic name; the reason for some Croat soldiers in the 90s naming their knifes "srbosjek" has to do with the notoriety of this knife - note that most school children in Titoist Yugoslavia had to go to Jasenovac museum as part of school curicullum excursion, and were aware of this knife, one of the most striking exibits - in the 90s some hand-made knifes with curved blades were made and had inscription srbosjek, and there is testemony at ICTY about this as well. But, as I said, if you question the naming, deletion proposal page is not the right place for it. Hvarako 20:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I cannot find the "srbosek" mentioned in the trial transcript you cite. What page of the transcript does it appear on? All there is is the somewhat generic English translation "Serb cutter." Perhaps you should move the article to that name. For there to be a Wikipedia article called "Srbosjek" you should show references in English where the writer used the non-English word. Edison 14:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Hvarako. The article was deleted the first because the name could not be linked to it confidently. The existance of the knife has been disputed first until enough evidence was gathered together to back it up. The contents of the article was then mostly incorporated into the Jasenovac article, where also other genocide weapons have been described. I'm fine with that. For something as allegedly notorious as the name "srbosjek" or "serb cutter", as you say, the total lack of evidence is striking, especially the lack of _any_ third party documentation. At last, the subject is part of the Holocaust, for which mostly extensive documentation is available, except in the case of the name "srbosjek". I would not count Bulajic as relevant evidence on the naming, since his works tend to be strongly right-wing colored and pro-serb biased, bordering on war propaganda. He is known to have fostered the augmented the numbers of murdered Serbs in the jasenovac camps up to 700000, and actively supported the 90's Balkan wars and denying the recent Srebrenica massacres. I is not relevant how he personally named the knife 30-40 years after the WW2, but how the croatian ustasha culprits named it during WW2, and if it has been named (and thus deserving an article of its own) at all. Greetings, --Rhun 07:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The argument for deletion was lack of references, not the name - which is properly subject of naming conventions and has nothing to do with weather a subject merits an article or not. Though I am really puzzled why the article was deleted in the first place, as there clearly was no consensus that it should be deleted - majority of people (all familiar with the topic) were for keeping it in the first place. Now undisputable references are provided, and there is really no basis to delete an article on the weapon that you are not even disputing existed and was used in Jasenovac in the way described. Hvarako 17:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The argument for deletion was the lack of references for the name, not on the knife itself. That the knife existed was resolved in the last Afd discussion, and a description was then incorporated into the Jasenovac camp article since the name of the knife, the articles title, could not be verified. "Consensus" should not be a requirement for an article to be deleted, since most of the "Keep" voters did not bother to comment at the subject at all, they just knew they heard about some "srbosjek" once, somwhere, from their grandmas or something, but have actually no idea or conception (let alone a reliable source) what this rumor "srbosjek" could have once been. You have not provided undisputable references for the name at all. In fact, you have provided only a single reference from Bulajic, a serbian warmonger and Srebrenica denier, not being known for working "seriously" at all. The description of the knife as a murdering tool is already fully present in the jasenovac article, so what is the point of creating another article for it, when you cant provide a source for the _name_ of this new article more reliable than some biased serbian wartime hearsay? Come on. --Rhun 07:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

That is not the case, the sourcing of the content was in question. Look at the discussion, in fact, naming can not be a proper reason for deletion. Rough concensus is needed for deletion, when there is no concensus, page is kept by default. But now sources are provided, and Bulajic is not even used as a source for the claims in the article. Hvarako

• Is this then the right page for this argument ? Speedy close, as keep (because this is a term which people may/will wantg to look up) and move discussion/argument/flame war to article-Talk page to discuss issues of content. -- SockpuppetSamuelson 07:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The content is not mostly the issue, but the naming, since there seems to be no attestable historical connection between the name and the knife, but some war rumors from the 90's Balkan wars. --Rhun 07:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

There are references provided that prove that this is the name the knife is called now - and naming conventions of wikipedia are in favor of the name srbosjek, instead of say graviso knife - but again, the naming issue is completely separate from the deletion considerations. Even if there was a better name for the article - and I strongly believe this is the proper name - it is no argument for deletion of an article. Hvarako 17:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep - historical term --Jaro.p 12:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello? Would you please care to elaborate and reason your vote? --Rhun 12:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It is the historical term just as Yatagan, Kopis and many other. If it was that what for to delete? Probably soon removed butterflies or penguins - they will need to be deletion from wikipedia too?--Jaro.p 13:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted because there were no sources, especially not on the net for everybody to look up, that the knife from jasenovac really was named "srbosjek". Greetings, --Rhun 13:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This name is rare. And in Russian sources it is used too. In Russian Wikipedia there were other images of this knife but now them have removed - this image is better. Probably it is a legend but then meets in the big territory.--Jaro.p 15:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

unfortunately, it is not a legend. it is the knife actually used in Jasenovac, and noone is even contesting that. Name srbosjek is the one this knife is known under, Bulajic and ICTY are references proving this, but as I said, the weapon clearly existed, was used by the ustashe for slaughter in genocide at Jasenovac and other places, and while the whole story is so gross it is hard to believe, so are many things done by the Nazis and the Ustashe. Just because it is hard to believe humans are capable of such crimes as in Holocaust does not mean it is a legend, and indeed such bestialities are quite a legitimate topic. Backed with scholarly references, it meets all standards of wikipedia and srbosjek merits an article, like it or not. Hvarako 17:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Wartime atrocity stories must have reliable and verifiable sources. The ones provided are not adequate. Many countries have denounced their enemies as brutes, sadists, pirates, cutthroats war criminals and baby eaters. Edison 0:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

what is exactly your concern, and why do you consider references provided not good enough? dr mladenko colic, for instance, is the foremost expert in ustasha military, a historian respected both in belgrade and zagreb. in fact, in zagreb his book (qouted here) is one of the main sources in advanced master level courses on NDH period. what is your basis to question reliability of his book? there are several other scholarly books provided, from the period way before 90s, there is a vitness account of dr nikola nikolic, holocaust survivor from jasenovac, croat by ethnicity. what basis do you have to question the reliability of the sources provided? not even the person who proposed deletion questions the existence of the knife and its use at Jasenovac. atrocities of ustashe are well documented and are not disputed - what is disputed by some croatian revisionist historians is the scope of the genocide, not the bestiality of the methods applied. if you call some source into question, then you have to have some justification, an expert in the history of ndh such as dr mladenko colic, whose work is used both in belgrade and zagreb to this days, for instance, is as reliable a source as you can get when it comes to ndh. Hvarako

Comment The article is extremely POV. It is difficult for English speaking editors to evaluate the scholarly quality and objectivity of the non-English references provided, but one gets the impression they are rather partisan. (edited to add) The article is ostensibly about a particular killing tool, but in a "coatrack" sense the larger article is about the views of one nation taht war cimes were committed against them by unspeakably cruel bloodthirsty cutthroat enemies. Many World War 2 evils and alleged war crimes of other conflicts have been written up not only in publications from and in the language of the country of the victims, but also in mainstream press and in books from publishing houses in other countries. A Wikipedia article could technically satisfy WP:N with no sources but books published in the aggrieved country and in their language, but in cases where atrocities, war crime, and crimes against humanity are claimed, it is helpful to add at least a couple of references from reliable and independent publications from the larger community of scholars, both to make references more accessible and to show that the claims have widespreaad acceptance. For examples of such articles with wider sourcing, see Rape of Belgium (where a number of additional sources are listed in the talk page but not yet added to the article), Lidice, Babi Yar, Nanking Massacre, Katyn massacre and Deir Yassin massacre. The presence of sources from a variety of nations is useful. Additionally, others here have stated that the subject knife is not a subject of many of the references. Edison 05:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The references are books that contain information about the use of knife, and are sources for the claims made in the article. Of course the books have wider subject, but all of them include information about the use of srbosjek, and are proper sources; for instance, Nikolic has wrote at lenght about both srbosjek, as well as other methods for execution in Jasenovac. It is understandable that you may find it dificult to understand foreign language, but parts of books are translated into english, whole Dedijer book exists in english translation, there are sources in English as well. As for judging the reliability, neither Nikolic nor Colic are disputed as sources by Croatians (the side which was doing the killings), indeed Nikolic is a Croat himself, and Colic is a recognized expert whose book is used at Zagreb University (Croatian main university) [10] - this is a link to the transcript of session of Zagreb University, you can see a master thesis using a Colic book as one of the main sources; here [11] is a link of a course at University of Zagreb, the subject is Croatian modern history, and notice the Colic book under number 4 of bibliography; dr Colic is based at Vojnotehnicki institut in Belgrade and was very opposed to Serbian nationalism in the 90s. dr Bulajic, who is mentioned only in connection with the name srbosjek, is disputed in Croatia nowadays, but dr Colic and dr Nikolic are far from that. Vladimir Dedijer was a communist, and while he might be controversial because of that, he is not a Serbian nationalist, far from that. He was a high ranking figure in Tito government, represented Yugoslavia at opening of UN , and was very respected internationally as an intellectual. Together with Milovan Djilas he was ousted and was one of the most prominent disidents of the Tito era. He was born in Slovenia and died in Boston. He was Chairman and President of Sessions at the 1966 Russell Tribunal. Dr Nikola Nikolic had problems with communist Tito government himself right after the war. Howard Blum is neither Croat nor Serb and wrote a book in english. So, Croatian, Serbian, and out of ex-yu sources are all confirming the data, there are Tito communists as well as disidents and non communists, i.e. the sources are pretty varied as well. Hvarako 16:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Dojarca 21:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• I still doubt, is it notable? The article is on knife, not on genocide of serbs, but most of sources in the article are about genocide, and don't mention the knife itself. It is not even known, how many of them were produced, and was it mass production. Garret Beaumain 22:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

  I think it is notable as it is the unique knife designed specially to slaughter people.--Dojarca 23:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep certainly enough sources for notability. DGG (talk) 10:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

So, which ones actually name the knife by this name? Besides Bulajic, who is known for wild nationalism, even more wild inflating of victim numbers, denying 90's Srebrenica mass executions, asserting that the croatian WW2 ustasha nazi state and the jasenovac concentration camp was under the command of the pope and run mostly by franciscan monks, which ones? Not single one hast been presented. --Rhun 16:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

you again push the naming issue, which has nothing to do with deletion, and moreover do not mention that both ICTY and Bulajic links provide evidence for the name. Indeed, for naming (as opposed to sourcing facts) widespread use is relevant, and a google search proves that srbosjek is the name this knife is best known - various internet forums and links that can serve as sources about themself prove that this name is the one most used. You may dispute Bulajic as a source - he is disputed by croatian holocaust deniers though he does have a PhD and an influential position as president of genocide foundation - but you cant dispute his use of the name. Google search gives few hits for graviso knife [12] but hundreds of hits for srbosjek[13], and in those hits this knife is what is talked about. You are I think well aware that this is the name knife is now known under, and that is the thing most relevant for the naming. The proper page to discuss the name of the article is article talk page, one does not start deletion page just because he disagrees with the name of the article. Please check WP:TITLE.Hvarako 16:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

A quick look at those google answers gives some more links, confirming the widespread use of the name. For instance, [14], an article by american-Jewish journalist Jared Israel talks about srbosjek. The name is the one most used in english based sources and it is imho clearly the proper name for the article. Hvarako

Hello Hvarako, in most of the hits google returns, the old wikipedia article ist either used as a reference, or it it is a direct mirror of the old wikipedia page on srbosjek, since it was net wide the single existing source about this subject. There are several articles which were provided as a "source" for the name, which cited wikipedia as their primary and single source for the name. You can not imagine what impact the old wikipedia article had, especially considering that it was completely based on hearsay. Even the article you provided as "proof", from Jared Israel, does not cite its source on Srbosjek (because he simply ahs none?) and being written only a few days ago can not be used as a reference, since he also most probably used wikipedia as his source. (The Emperors new clothes, the whole website, is btw. a really _bad_ source to cite anything from, since it tends to support right wing extremist views like (from the Jarred Israel article): Croatia has been dominated by Ustasha ideas and pursued Ustasha goals. The Croatian secessionists even exhumed the World War II Ustasha symbols although by doing so they risked being internationally identified as fascists, since it is easier for outsiders to spot the Ustasha slogans, salute, flag, currency and uniforms than it is for them to recognize Ustasha ideas and goals.) (You could actually mail the author and ask him for his source, if he has one, so if its genuine, we could use it here. But I actually doubt he has anything else than again some wikipedia mirror. Nobody actually disputes that this term "Srbosjek" exists, so linking a google search is useless to prove your point, since when you weed out texts and forum posts influenced by wikipedia article itself, you are again at the starting point. If the wikipedia article stays under its current name, it will again become the _primary_ reference for this subject, and will get cited on dozens or hundreds of sites, since other sources are impossible to find. I dont know the exact wikipedia rule for this, but as i remember, the information in wiki articles should not be original data, but some kind of starting point, and have for any assumption easily available sources for further reading. How should anyone please find out about "srbosjek", interlending some half an century old book directly from serbia or croatia? Greetings, --Rhun 11:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

That is simply not true. Fortunately, there is a way to exclude mirror pages and wikipedia related results from google search, [15], so majority of hits are not wikipedia related. Are you now trying to claim that word srbosjek originated at wikipedia? That is patent nonsense, clearly Bulajic work and journalist reports from the 90s predate very wikipedia existence, there is here also a link in the hits first page about captain Dragan and discovery of new specimens of srbosjek in the early 90s. As for Jared Israel, he is a columnist who wrote a lot about ex-yugoslavia, and he is unquestionably aware of Bulajic's work. Indeed, I have learned many facts about Ustasha regime first time reading some of his articles - for instance, Jasenovac predated other execution camps, which were only fully operational after Wansee conference, and Nazis were very keen to know how slaughter in Jasenovac worked. Appaled by the barbarity of Croatian Ustasha, they opted for gas chambers as more humane. Even this article of his, which mentiones srbosjek just in passing, has some appaling information. You call him right extremist, what then you have to say about this YOUTUBE clip of stadion full of Croatians giving nazi salute all with the hand gesture [16], before the concert of the singer Thompson, who was banned from appearing in Netherlands where he was judged to be a neonazi due to his open support of neoustashas and singing songs such as Jasenovac i gradiska stara, cellebrating massacres of Serbs. Do you excuse such displays and yet claim that Jared is right wing for writting about them? This might be indicative of your own views and denial of dark side of croatian present and past. Jared Israel may be opinionated, but the link proves that the word has taken root in English language. Weather wikipedia articles bring some obscure facts to light or not is another question, but surely if it gets people to learn more about a topic, and in this case topic is a weapon of unspeakable barbarity, it can be only a positive thing. If more people were aware what Ustashe are all about, many lives might have been saved; however this is a larger point and is not related to this discussion which is a misguided proposal (to say the least) to remove this page, as if hiding things beneath the carpet would somehow change history. Hvarako

• Comment If you will take a look at other AFDs, you will see that the endless, repetitious arguments presented here are not typical and are not desirable. All participants should present their argument succinctly, and please do not use this as a soapbox to re-argue every historical dispute. A Google search which excludes Wikipedia and its mirrors shows only a few uses of the term "Srbosjek" and those appear to be in blogs or other sites which do not satisfy WP:RS and WP:V. There are zero hits for the term on ProQuest, Google Scholar, Google Book Search or Google News. It is not the goal of Wikipedia to be a place of first publication of things which are useful in propaganda in long-standing disputes in the Balkans. Edison 14:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Google hits conunts are for weighting the naming of the article, and do not have to satisfy the policies you quoted. The naming discussion is out of place here, but the only people who are against this article put up name as an argument. Reiliability of sources that are quoted (as opposed for the naming) has been explained at your request, and now you complain that arguments are too detailed. Also, please note that previous vote was overhelmingly in favor of keeping (just as this one, standing at 75% keep votes i.e. 6:2, with 3 strong keeps and one speedy keep), yet the article somehow got deleted and explanation was "not enough arguments presented by the keep side" - now it would be a bit hypocritical to call the discussion this informative repetitive in the context when article was deleted for the very style typical of other AFDs (in my opinion, by a procedural mistake). For the name, sources other than forums and blogs have been given - dr Bulajic's (a scolar) quote, ICTY quote (note: in one of the links you can find Srbosjek the other has translated into Serb cutter, but in Serbian original both cases are Srbosjek), Jared Israel article, also what one can understand from the links is that name was widespread in the 90s yugoslav press. Obscurity of a fact is no argument for exclusion; this knife may be obscure out of ex-yu but in the Balkans it is in fact not obscure. It is a topic a lot has been talked about in the 90s there, and certainly wikipedia wouldnt be the first source. Indeed the original sources are books about Jasenovac horrors by survivors and scholars, from decades before Internet even existed. Now, if you for some reason do not like the facts, that is your problem, you cannot dismiss Holocaust stories on the basis that they serve some purpose in the present. It is as if you tried to delete gas chamber article on the basis that it serves current Israel for some sort of propaganda purposes. Hvarako 21:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, a few concluding remarks:

1. dr Bulajic's (a scolar) - Bulajic is actually a bad example of a "scolar" and certainly a _bad_ one to cite in a serious internationaly excyclopedia. He is a right-wing extremist, a nationalist, in his thinking and views close to the likes of radicals and warmongers like Vojislav Šešelj, and one of the writers whose works i.a. fueled the 90s' national hatred and the subsequent wars on the Balkans. He is known for wildly inflating victim numbers on the one side, and completely denying mass murders like the one from Srebrenica on the other side, nutty accusations that the pope and the vaticans ordered and controlled the genocide on serbian population in WW2 and so on.

2. Jared Israel - another right-wing extremist, in most of his articles takes an very active and extremist pro-serbian and anti-croatian (actually, mostly anti everything else) side. His mentioning of the srbosjek-name, which has been linked, happened only a few days ago, and is not supported with a reference (considering the lack of references we experienced arguing on this article, this should be important, because as an english speaker, he certainly should have one, since he can not know this serbo-croatian word by accident.). I recommended emailing the author and asking about his source on "srbosjek", but this has obviously not been done.

3. And Afd discussion is not a _vote_. Most of the voters argued in a "STRONG KEEP!!!1 I know this, my grandmother has told me about it." way, which is not a basis for an inclusion in an international accessible encyclopedia as an verified fact.

4. The ICTY link is not a proof of anything, since it is not an official court document, but a, again, serbian defense witness testimonial from the war crimes trial of, i suppose Milan Martić, the leader of the rogue Republic of Serbian Krajina, the cause of the 90's war in Croatia.

5. Obscurity of a fact is no argument for exclusion; this knife may be obscure out of ex-yu but in the Balkans it is in fact not obscure. - Actually it is obscure enough, as you see, as you have only serbian right-wingers mentions of it, considering this word is of croatian origin and that the concentration camps were in Croatia, where not only serbs, but also Jews, Roma, Bosnians and Croatians were murdered.

6. It is as if you tried to delete gas chamber article on the basis that it serves current Israel for some sort of propaganda purposes. - The existance and naming of the gas chambers is very well documented and verified, there are multiple, international sources about them, and those sources can be considered neutral and not biased in any way. If it were like in the case of the "Srbosjek", there would be _no_ sources about them on the net, just some book written in hebrev from 30 or 60 yrs ago by a jew right-wing extremist known for not taking historical facts too seriously and misusing them for nationalistic/political causes.

That should be all I have to say on this matter, since the arguments here have already be presented already a few times and tend to repeat themselves. The rest is admin's work. Greetings, --Rhun 08:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello Hvarako once again, I would like you not to chop my last and summarizing reply into pieces. I know that it is easier to "discuss" something replying sentence by sentence, since wikipedia lacks a proper citation and discussion system, but keeping the paragraphs in one piece makes the review process by an administrator easier and the point of a single commentator unchanged and more comprehensive. So please, format your reply so that it keeps mine intact as I sent it, or I will revert it to the previous state. (And please dont take this as a offense.) Greetings, --Rhun 13:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Separated the objected comments myself to avoid silly reverts and rereverts with User:Terse. --Rhun 15:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

1. dr Bulajic is a scholar, like it or not, and again, he is only mention in connection with proving the name. He is certainly not a right wing extremist, you might dispute him as a serbian nationalist but you cant dispute other sources on this basis and you cant dispute his use of a name.

2. Again, Jared is mentioned in connection with use of a name. Weather he is right wing or not, I dont know, but you seem to think that all people who are pro Serbian are right wing - you have to face it, writting about numerous expressions of Croatian neonazism and neoustashism does not qualify someone as right wing. In fact, you would probably put Noam Chomsky in this group, and certainly people like Chomsky are not right wing. Jared Israel is probably better described as antiglobalist. What matters here is that Jared is a journalist who was using established name "srbosjek" (established obviously not only in ex-yu).

3. Criteria for inclusion are well established, and srbosjek meets them as you have admitted yourself - you dispute only the name. Your way to belittle the arguments presented as "my grandmother told me" (noone mentioned anything remotely similar in this vote) when so many facts about both literature and background have been presended is really amazing. I dont see you disputed verifiability or reliability of the main sources - books by Novak, Colic and Dedijer at all, and the only thing which you in fact disputed was the name, which you claim there is no proof was used in WWII. What matters however is that this is the name now used for the artifact, and naming issue is not related to deletion anyway. As for keep votes there is clear procedure on wikipedia about what is the purpose of the votes - to judge the opinion of community - and that both in arguments and in opinions what needs to be done for article to be removed. Clearly here noone even disputes the fact that such a knife existed and was used in Jasenovac, what you disputed was the name which you dislike for some reason.

4. Dedijer, Colic or Novak are certainly no Serbian right wigners. Certainly Jews and other people have been killed in Jasenovac, Novak is a Croat, and Jared Israel is a Jew, which probably has to do with why he is so disgusted with expressions of Croatian neoustashism and right wing extremism, nazi saluting in full stadion, singing Jasenovac i gradiska stara on rock concerts etc included. As for the widespreadness of the name, it appeared in press and media in the 90s, certainly this fact was useful in times of war for propaganda purposes. A very wide public is aware of this knife under this name because of that. In the links that google gives you have plenty of mentions of this use in the media; the journal papers from the 90s do not exist on internet however. ICTY proceedings of Milosevic had a very large public audience, often with millions of viewers, and the mention of srbosjek under this name there is also significant as it proves that a large portion of population in the Balkans knows this name. Hvarako 13:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

5. Again, you miss the point. This was answer to the argument that wikipedia should not present facts that are used by someone to favor their political/national position. Srbosjek is certainly less known than Gas chambers, but the ways of execution in Jasenovac are just as reliably documented, multiple and from varied sources, as I have already explained. Lot more has been written about the gas chambers, but that does not change the main point. For wikipedia, having even a few sources which are verifiable and satisfy required standards is enough, and in this case the facts are sourced by books by Croatian doctor - survivor from Jasenovac, person persecuted by communists as well, respected historian Colic (a titoist) from Belgrade whose book is used in Zagreb university, a prominent Tito disident Dedijer, independent Howard Blum (I know little about him other that he is not from Balkans) are all given as sources. Hvarako 13:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

6. It is proof of a use of the word srbosjek, as explained already; the facts about the knife are sourced independently and you dont even deny them. Providing links showing the usage of the word has to do with naming, not deletion, and such links are evidence of its own. Hvarako 13:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Just a note Rhun has repeatedly (3 times) removed comments of Hvarako even after I warned him that this is not acceptable. Only after he has been reported at vandalism in progress page has he left them, though at different place. Terse 15:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Terse has since then kept deleting my comments on that matter from the Afd page. Hvarakos comments have been moved below mine to undu the change he made on my comment. --Rhun 15:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is not true. Anyone can check the edit history. I have been reverting your edits, since you removed my comment as well. The comment should stay even though it is not related to the topic - noone should delete other people comments, as it constitues discussion page vandalism - to quote from WP:Vandalism Discussion page vandalism Blanking the posts of other users from talk pages other than your own, Wikipedia space, and other discussions, aside from removing internal spam, vandalism, etc., is generally considered vandalism. An obvious exception is moving posts to a proper place (e.g. protection requests to WP:RFPP). Removing personal attacks is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long talk page by creating an archive page and moving the text from the main talk page there. The above rules do not apply to a user's own talk page, where this policy does not itself prohibit the removal and archival of comments at the user's discretion. Terse 15:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Correction: User Hvarako has reformatted my comment and chopped it in pieces without my permission. He has been given a day to undo his changes on my comment, after which I reverted the the Afd discussion to a state prior his reformatting. Instead of doing the work he is supposed to do, because he reformatted the comment in the first place, you jsut restored it to _his_ last version. To make a long story short, I hope we now have a state in which both of us will not have anything more to object. Greetings, --Rhun 15:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.