User talk:Balcer

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Balcer is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

Contents 1 DYK 2 Dialog 3 Dzoni warned 4 Sam's RfC 5 How did I delete comments by other users? 6 FYI 7 Allow us 8 Your ad-hominem attack at RfC 9 Why 10 Voivodships, again 11 Molobo 12 Comment 13 User talk:71.137.207.222 14 Some very worrying edits 15 Pilsudski 16 Mstyslav 17 Liberate 18 Lublin 19 Bewildered 20 Re Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 26 21 Ł. 22 Portal:Poland/New article announcements 23 Canadian Military History Taskfoce 24 PD-Poland, PD-USSR 25 red links 26 RE: Erika Steinbach 27 Fix indexing 28 NPOV 29 new vote 30 Rejoice! 31 LMAO 32 Image:Bronstein.jpg 33 Warsaw Metro 34 Re:move request 35 thank you 36 Alexander Kerensky 37 Smiley Award 38 Vandalising of Kiev by Polish Army in 1920 39 Polish Corridor and the Kashubians 40 Thank you 41 Wielbark (Warmian-Masurian Voivodship) 42 Veto Wikibreak 43 XMAS gift 44 Cancelled ISBN in Virtuti Militari 45 Infobox Poland 46 Editors that don't provide an edit summary tend to look like vandals 47 Map toy 48 DYK 49 Stanislav Poplavsky 50 Silesia 51 Coordinates 52 Panoramic image of Hamilton works 53 What? 54 Bielsko-Biala 55 Historical Eastern Germany 56 Spam accusations 57 Your vandalism on List of Ukrainians 58 Your request 59 User notice: 3rr 60 Regarding reversions[9] made on March 6, 2007 to List of Ukrainians 61 Vandalism by User:67.180.67.179 62 LUCPOL 63 Vandalism?Nope. 64 Tags 65 Project tags 66 Tags 67 3RR violation on Talk:Karlovy Vary 68 What??? 69 Listen carefully 70 Elbing disambig 71 Re: Kobyliński images 72 Polish villages and communes 73 Comment on Comment 74 Time of troubles 75 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus 76 Comment 77 An outside view 78 Gminy 79 Warsaw Metro 80 List of ... 81 I don't understand what you want from me 82 Thanks 83 re Partitions of Poland 84 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estophobia 85 Estophilia 86 Robert Biedroń 87 Mikolaj Kopernik 88 RE:Verifiability 89 This is new 90 Explanation 91 Polonization 92 Arbcom 93 Honesty 94 Thanks, but don't overstress yourself 95 Your userpage 96 Wesołych! 97 Port Austin Light

[edit] DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Dmitry Pavlov, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Cactus.man ✍ 21:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Corrected.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Only got your message this morning, but thanks to Piotrus for doing the fix. Cheers. --Cactus.man ✍ 10:41, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dialog

I commented to your discussions at Piotrus' and Alex Bakharev's talk.

A side question: What do you think about Ukrainization article? It's developed from initial disatrous state to its current form, largely by myself, and, if I may say so, seems to me not so bad, while the modern section could use some improvement. OTOH the modern section is the hardest one to write since the topic is hot and press is largely. The aticle is from time to time persistently attacked by the same old fellow with bad-faith tags, deletion of sourced info, adding of irrelevant suff and other nosnesne. I thought you might be interested. Take a look. If you have time for the whole talk, fine, and hisotry, cool. If not, check the recent entries and the article itself. Cheers, --Irpen 05:00, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dzoni warned

User_talk:Dzoni#This_is_a_warning. I believe in always giving somebody a warning before blocking him. Let me know if there are any further offences - I'll block him if he doesn't stop his personal attacks (and nationality slurrs, too).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sam's RfC

Under RfC procedures someone involved can endorse an outside view. Outside view simply means that it was written by someone from outside the matter. JoshuaZ 03:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How did I delete comments by other users?

You just deleted my endorsement of the complaint against Samuel Blanning; you say I deleted comments by others. I do not understand. I went in and added my four '~' signature. I didn't delete anything, as far as I know. Profnjm 04:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Your edit is here. As you can see, you deleted the comments by a lot of users, by mistake it would seem. I simply reverted and invited you to vote again, but in the meantime another user readded your vote. The best way to avoid this is to check the edit history after you click "Save page" to see precisely what changes you made. I always do it on important pages (like RfC, vote etc.) to make sure I did not mess anything up. Balcer 04:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

You may be interested in this RfC, concerning a recent AfD in which you participated to quite some degree. TheProject 07:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Scratch that, as I obviously can't read lists. Sorry! :-) TheProject 07:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allow us

Thanks. Balcer 12:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your ad-hominem attack at RfC

It is important to keep a cool head, despite any comments against you. Personal attacks and disruptive comments only escalate a situation; please keep calm and action can be taken against the other parties if necessary. Your involvement in attacking back can only satisfy trolls or anger contributors, and lead to general bad feeling. Please try to remain civil with your comments. Thanks! BabaRera 13:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, no broken templates. If you want to avoid accusations of being a sockpuppet, please explain your edit pattern. I asked you this question on the RfC talkpage, and would like to see your explanation there. Balcer 13:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

It is against wikipedia policies to make dissmisals as you did. In any case, I have not abused any policy, and that is why your ad-hominem attack is out of place - you were not discussing the issues, but attacking credibility of users who were not violating any rule (that you can easily check in my case) - that is unfair approach to say the least. BabaRera 13:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I apologize if my comments caused offense. Now, would you be so kind as to make clear whether you have edited Wikipedia before under a different user name? I think it is reasonable to ask you this question, and obtain a clear answer. Balcer 13:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Balcer has, along with the rest of us, legitimate reason to suspect sockpuppetry in this case, as participating in an RfC on one's second day of Wikipedia editing is major cause for sockpuppetry concern. If you want to call that bad faith, go ahead -- it has become clear to me that the RfC itself has been filed in bad faith, anyways. Accusations of bad faith are not personal attacks. TheProject 16:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Balcer, I have subst:'ed the {{civil1}} template for you, as is standard on talk pages, of course.

[edit] Why

Why are you so motivated to delete the El Condor Pada article? When I was in the bomb shelter (I doubt you can imagine the horrors I experienced as a 11-year old boy), a boom box was all I had down there, it could run on batteries and for an extended period of time (power cuts were often). And when I turn on the boom box, I hear music, the band Indexovci making fun of NATO and their "stealth" bombers which the Yugoslav Army shot down. That made us hopefull. In a war, hope is all you have, please try to understand the effect it had on all of us. I'm telling you the dead truth, I have no reasons to lie. The song gave us hope, and it was all we had back then, it was played regurarly in almost every bomb shelter throughout Serbia. The band that played it was an anti-Milosevic band, and of course Milosevic didn't want them to have too much publicity, but they were extremely popular. They even came to Vancouver last year. The song is the symbol of an era, where everyone was hopeless, and every ray of hope was cherished as much as possible. I beg you, try to understand this. --serbiana - talk 01:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course, having never been in such a situation myself, I cannot imagine how you must have felt during that war. I can only express regret for any casualties the armed forces of my country, Canada, have caused in that war. But there is no need to get emotional here. If the song played such a huge part in the Serbian resistance, that will be shown soon with reliable sources, and the song will get its own article.

In the meantime, I invite you and other interested users to create Shooting down of the F-117A stealth fighter in 1999 during the Kosovo War or Serbian Cultural Resistance to NATO bombings and other articles in a similar vein, where there should be no problems with proposals for deletion at all. Those should be sufficient to express your point of view on Wikipedia.

Please note that we are arguing here about a fine point of Wikipedia rules, which unfortunately happen to be very restrictive about which songs get their own articles.

At any rate, the decision about whether the song will be deleted or not is not up to me. I have made some arguments, and their worth will be judged by the community. Balcer 01:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I have already written about the shooting down of the F-117 aircraft on Serbian Wikipedia. I'm affraid to do that here, since it is basically showing that with the help of 30 year old Soviet radars, a small country shot down the greatest aircraft technology on the planet, some NATO-lovers mught target the article. I don't want any trouble. Thank you for expressing your regret, I'm happy that not everyone's against Serbia. Thank you for your arguments, but I would kindly ask you to not comment anymore, please, let's just let the others decide. --serbiana - talk 02:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I think there is no reason to be afraid, and if I were you, I would start that article. Wikipedia is quite international at this point, and the pro-NATO point of view might not be as strong as you think. I changed my vote from delete to merge with the article about the group that made the song. That seems to me an ideal solution, especially since the group article is essentially empty at this point. Balcer 02:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voivodships, again

It doesn't seem like we've been able to convince William Allen Simpson of the error of his ways. His responses to your points on his talk page totally misrepresented what was being said, and bordered on incivility, while he defended his original research by accusing everyone else of it. I'm not sure whether it is worth continuing the discussion with him; I just hope that he won't do anything like this again. Regards,  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 09:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Molobo

And this is exactly what I've been talking about. We've got it all here. Excessive detail, politician's quotes, wrong article, POV-pushing. You name it, it's here. Would you deal with it this time? --Irpen 01:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, thanks for the links. I will comment on them separately at my or article's talk page. Here is a link for you in return to an unrelated topic. Remember, our discussion at talk:Russophobia about the mutual attitude between Poland, Ukraine and Russia? I hope you find this funny and thought provoking, even if you disagree with some of Urban's points. --Irpen 07:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

As. Polish court gave a verdict which agreed to calling him Polish Goebbels, I certainly wouldn't call his articles "thought provoking". --Molobo 13:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

You might be interested in another adventure with Ghirandajo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slavophile This time Ghirandajo removes entry from Brittanica and several linked books as Original Research and says he will report me for trolling. --Molobo 13:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:71.137.207.222

Why did you write on User talk:71.137.207.222 that user User talk:24.23.39.36 is suspected to be the sock puppet of a banned user? Please explain. --Matthead 16:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Please read this link. It is explained there. I did ask the anonymous user writing from 24.23.39.36 whether he/she is this person (H.J. or Helga Jonat), but there was no answer, from which one can fairly conclude that this is indeed the sockpuppet. After all, why would an honest user not want to strongly deny that they are a sockpuppet of a banned user? Balcer 07:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some very worrying edits

In Polish Corridor, [1] A user appeared that seems to try portay Hitler as trying to get peace with Poland being portayed as "refusing". He removed several sources I provided as to Hitler's real intentions. He also uses data from military presecence to claim German majority in the region. The same is done in Polish September Campaign, where sources showing Hitler's real intentions have been deleted by the user or changed to POW way that downplayes Hitler's agression and true intentions[2]. For example despite the fact that a source states The proposal served to practically subordinate Poland to the Axis and the Anti-Comintern Bloc. Warsaw refused this in order to retain its independence the user changed it to Poland, however, feared for its sovereignty and questioned Germany's motivations indicating an irrational motive on behalf of Poland. Further changes of the user are worrying. For example he changes German agresssion into "German aggression". The sentence With Poland refusing to abandon its sovereignty to German demands, Germany withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact has been changed to : With Poland refusing its demands, Germany withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact And so on. Please react to this. --Molobo 09:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pilsudski

Since you are fluent in Russian, I would like to bring to your attention this article in connection with an ongoing drive to bring Pilsudski's article to a FA status. The article in online, specifically devoted to a subject, has a large amount of factual info, is from a historic section of a very respected Ukrainian weekly and is rather objective. I plan to keep an eye on the Pilsudski's article and plan to use this as a source. I thought you might be interested. --Irpen 05:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What gave you the impression that I am fluent in Russian? I freely admit that my knowledge of that language is quite poor, though I can read the alphabet. Thanks for the link though, looks interesting. Balcer 08:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Just in case your Ukrainian is better, the UA Lan version is just one click away from above link since the paper is trilingual with an English version being only for political articles and the UA/RU for full version. --Irpen 08:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mstyslav

That was excellent. The info was from his English bio and I ever wondered what that was. Could not believe there is anything of any size in Canada without the article. Great job! --Irpen 22:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I know that town well personally. Balcer 22:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liberate

There is discussion if we should use the word liberate or not in articles regarding Soviet actions in WWII, the results could form a policy on the issue [3] --Molobo 22:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lublin

Please contact Dan over it. He asked me to add it there at Talk:Konstantinas Sirvydas and I did. I wouldn't do it myself without his request though as I don't think is anywhere near as relevant there as, say, the Polish name of Vilna or the German name of Gdańsk. //Halibutt 08:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course you don't, Halibutt. You just think the Polish name, Onikszty for Anykščiai, is as relevant. Right? Dr. Dan 18:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC) Isn't the Polish name still Wilno, or was that a Freudian slip? Or did you mean Vilnius? And I notice you've been doing some correcting of these newbies from Lithuania, on their English. Please re-read your edit above, and do some re-editing on your English, yourself.

[edit] Bewildered

What does this mean? Why do you restore my deleted comments? --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My fault, I am very sorry. I simply wanted to add my vote for category deletion, but I suppose I was not editing the current version but a previous version of the page, and when I pressed save, a whole bunch of older stuff got restored unintentionally, including your comments. That was not my intention, and again I apologize. Balcer 12:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I commented out the text that I restored accidentally. Balcer 12:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. By the way, your talk page may require archiving. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 26

Yesterday I accidentally erased a whole bunch of content via this edit. Today I restored the content I erased. Since you were the person affected by this, please make sure that your votes are correct. My apologies for all the trouble. Balcer 13:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem; thanks for your message. I reported here that something seemed to've happened and my attempt to reinstate the missing material. (User:Bkonrad added that something similar had happened on July 21.) I'm just glad there wasn't anything more mysterious occurring. Best wishes, David Kernow 17:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ł.

To me usage Ł in the discussed case is anachronism. It is OK with me to use it throughout the wikipedia elsewhere, but when speaking about the exact moment of baptism it is simply a minor sloppiness. `'mikka (t) 18:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Poland/New article announcements

Dla przypomnienia...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian Military History Taskfoce

The Canadian Military History Task Force, part of WikiProject MIlitary History is looking for participants to help expand and improve content relating to Canada's military heritage.

Hi, I noticed you provided the picture for the Ross Rifle article. I thought this might reflect an interest in Canadian mlitary history, so I thought I'd drop you a line to make sure you're aware of the Canadian Military History Taskforce Have a great day!Mike McGregor (Can) 19:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PD-Poland, PD-USSR

FYI. --Irpen 03:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] red links

yes, I realized that but did not have time to go back and change the red links, but continued to correct links with proper spacing on other pages. as for grammar, I actually corrected rather horrid english grammar and sentences that made no sense. So don't lecture me on that, as I was not misleading or anything of the sort, I actually corrected POV pushes and misleading information.

--Jadger 19:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

yes, but if you would look at my edits I made certain I did not make such mistakes. better to only criticize the mistakes I actually did make, rather than the ones I never did.

--Jadger 19:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

perhaps cite specific examples from those pages, I don't see where it says that they invaded Poland, where it says active during the Invasion of Poland that does not refer to which side he/it fought on.

if it were to say took part in the Invasion of Poland (1939) that would be totally different and match what you are complaining about, but I have made sure to avoid that.

--Jadger 20:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was clear which side it was on as the eighth word in the article was Poland/Polish. Also, this confuses me: it says that there were four squadrons, each made up of two escadrilles, but escadrille is the french name/equivalent for squadron. for instance, on Canadian airforce hangers at Trenton airbase the English name is given then right below it the french name, e.g 1. fighter squadron.... 1. escadrille. what is the difference in the Polish airforce between escadrilles and squadrons? perhaps what is meant is wing or flight.

--Jadger 01:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Erika Steinbach

how has there been compromise? I have only seen Rahmel/rumia removed from the introduction, and placed further down in the article, that is not compromise, that is rearranging. Historical Eastern Germany keeps being removed, and the Rahmel (now Rumia) keeps being changed to a version not according to the consensus via the Danzig/Gdansk ruling.

--Jadger 18:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

1. well, it was in West Prussia, and NPOV does not deal with how Poles feel, if you're offended shouldn't really matter to an objective article. It was in Germany at the time, and the geographic area it is in was called west prussia, it would be strange for a reader to try to find Voivodeships on a map of 1943 Germany.
2. it was Rumia in the fact that it was the same physical town, but it was called Rahmel, One could also claim that Rumia now is also Rahmel. Danzig and Gdansk are the same city at different time periods. your point was?

please, compromise doesn't involve accusing the other users of uneducated edits. That is bad faith, how are we going to compromise when you villify all who oppose you?

--Jadger 18:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

1. thank you, I did not have much time at that moment and could not find the correct one, I assumed good faith as that is what had been written before by others.
2. the way you worded that is very misleading. when you say most of the world you mean the nations at war with Germany at the time, they can hardly be said to have been uninvolved or been non-partisan. I am referring to it as it was said in the German-Polish border agreement during re-unification "facts on the ground". I am assuming good faith, you are accusing me of "sweeping it under the carpet", when you accuse me of things it hardly makes one want to cooperate with someone insulting them, compromise is two ways, you have compromise as well. I am not trying to hide anything, that is why it says Rahmel (now Rumia) and then there is a link to Historical Eastern Germany which gives further information on the topic. perhaps a further reading section at the bottom of the article including historical eastern germany, Oder-Neisse Line, expulsion of Germans after WWII etc. etc. could be added for those who are reading it and know nothing of the forced expulsion of the majority of the population to modern Germany.

I never said that your views should not count, I said an encyclopedia article should not be worried about offending people, we should not avoid telling the truth in order to not offend certain groups. and BTW, we should not include "your views" as they are POV, exactly what is trying to be avoided.

--Jadger 01:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I have worked that in, the link to historical eastern Germany talks about that, if you want to say had been a part of poland from 1919 to 1939 go ahead and put that in, but don't state something such as illegally annexed, etc. etc.

but did not poland annex it after WWI and rename it Rumia? my point is exactly that. If one actually looks at public opinion rather than government policies in the allied nations, many supported the idea of ethnicly homogenous nation states, hence the reason for the appeasement of Hitler beforehand, many saw the treaty of Versailles as unnecessarily harsh. what a government does and what the majority of its citizens think are two very different things (as the war in Iraq has shown in the USA now). would you want people in 50 years thinking that all Americans (or even a majority) supported the invasion of Iraq. and we are talking 1939 here, USA was not yet involved so perhaps you can provide a source that shows that most people did not support Germany gaining her land back. of course the Nazis overstepped the bounds and annexed other land as well, not just previously German lands. of course the German/Nazi viewpoint/name was biased, but as I said, the rules on the ground are what matter, if the USA/the iraqi gov't was to change the name of Baghdad to freedomville the name would be changed in all the documents published thereafter. for some time the old name would be used, but eventually the new rulers would prevail.

--Jadger 02:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Balcer, but I have to say hear, hear to Jadger's point concerning the Iraq War and the U.S. government's involvement in it, and it's nonsensical pursuit of it, and my pacifistic opposition to it. Old men talking, and young men dying. God forbid that Poland gets more entangled in that mess. As to the rest of the discussion, both of you make good debaters with many points scored by both. Don't know enough about it. The American Civil War is my forté, and I originally never wanted to waste my time in the quarrels that I got entangled in. God knows, I'd love to escape. In addition, somehow this debate needs to leave Erika Steinbach's article's talk page. Cheers Dr. Dan 02:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix indexing

You also need to add sort keys when you create articles such as Kedzierzyn-Kozle County, which doesn't need it now since I switched it with your redirect so it now sorts okay without adding the sort key. Gene Nygaard 19:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Please read Wikipedia:NPOV and work towards consensus. Stettiner 21:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:NOR and start presenting solid printed references as evidence (and not unambiguous one-line entries on websites of unknown authorship and credibility). Balcer 21:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Please make yourself familiar with Wikipedia:No original research and understand that Wikipedia is not the place for presenting the world with your own theories on history. Our articles shall be based on credible official sources. Stettiner 21:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The book Germany and the Second World War: Volume V/II: Organization and Mobilization in the German Sphere of Power which I referenced is not "my theory of history", but one of the most reputable references on subject, published in Germany. How can you call referencing such a highly reputable book to be violating WP:NOR? What you are doing, with your extrapolating of an ambiguous one line entry on a politician's webiste, is original research. Balcer 21:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

your reference above refutes your own claims Balcer, the section title that you cited calls it "annexation" and it says it was "officially incorporated into the German Reich". that firmly places Rahmel in Germany in 1943, not in the General Gov't or the office in London that housed the Polish gov't in exile.

--Jadger 02:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

The reference says Rumia was occupied, hence the word occupied must be incorporated into the article. And since Germany was not occupying itself, this can only mean that Steinbach was born in occupied Poland. Unless better scholarly references are presented to challenge my reference, this matter is resolved. If you want a different outcome, I suggest you take a walk to the library and start searching for references which will disprove mine. Balcer 02:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

so let me get this straight... you see the word occupied and you ignore the rest of the paragraph and section the word occupied is in? Try getting some context.

--Jadger 20:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] new vote

you stated: "oh no, your idea of restating the vote received exaxtly ZERO support" well, so did the first vote, it came "out of the blue" with no support or discussion beforehand (not that it was fair in the first place. If the one you choose is really superior, you would not be so scared of a vote, please do not remove my edits, you are not an admin. and besides, a new vote was shown to be needed, as no one had voted for supporting the Version 2 (as I called it) after I posted my version, in fact they removed their support for it.

--Jadger 05:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, seriously, read what you just wrote me

"So far, not a single person expressed support for your complaints." Richard removed his support because of my complaints, Dr Dan also supports me, as does Stettiner and Schwarz und Weiss.

"He started the vote, and customarily only he has the power to wrap it up. If you can convince him that the current vote is unfair, maybe he will start a new one" The two votes are not the same, and BTW, I especially like how you said "He started the vote, and customarily only he has the power to wrap it up" I STARTED THIS VOTE, DO NOT REMOVE IT, YOU DON'T HAVE THAT POWER AS YOU JUST STATED.

please stop removing my edits, I have reported you to admins.

--Jadger 05:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rejoice!

		The Geography Barnstar
		For your outstanding works on the powiats on Poland, I had the hard choice of Polish national merit, Tirless contributor or this barnstar: you get this because I think it's the prettiest :) Feel free to brag about it and keep up the good job!  Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  01:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LMAO

next time you try claiming I disobey policy/guidelines, make sure that it is actually applicable as wikipedia:Survey notification is kept only for historical purposes and is not actually applicable in any way. If Stettiner is a sockpuppet, then why don't you take it to the necessary authorities to deal with it? everyone has to start out somewhere, every user when they start out is a single purpose account. you have to start somewhere, I would like to point you to Noob where it states "For example, Wikipedia has a firm policy of welcoming all new contributors whether or not their first edits are helpful to an encyclopedia" please, don't bite the newcomers.

--Jadger 03:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, aren't we being mature now? again, you minimize my viewpoint and try to portray it as something it is not, Wikipedia: Snowball clause states under "what the snowball clause is not": Allowing a process to continue to its conclusion may allow for a more reasoned discourse, ensures that all arguments are fully examined, and may maintain a sense of fairness. how does that differ from what I am doing? I am asking for fairness, and for all arguments to be examined, only one person has been supportive of it since I have posted my complaints against the vote, while 3 others support me since I have lodged my complaint. Not to mention that the later support vote looks more like my viewpoint than what it is actually supporting. the snowball clause is that there is already a pretty much determined outcome, which cannot be claimed here. If it could be claimed here, than the current vote could also be considered as Snowball claused as the Danzig/Gdansk vote already settled this matter. Admit it, the only reason you don't want a fair vote is because you would lose a fair vote.

--Jadger 03:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Bronstein.jpg

Thanks a lot! It seems you are right abakharev 06:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warsaw Metro

I have a feeling that with proper input, we have an FA sitting in there. Is there anyway to make it a collaboration project, maybe if simultaneousely on Portal:Trains and Portal:Poland? --Kuban Cossack 21:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Start with WP:PR.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:move request

Moge, ale zobacz jaki tam jest dziwny redirect...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] thank you

Thank you for agreeing with my way dealing with 'vote gathering' in Portal Russia. I'm absolutely convinced that IT IS AGAINST wikiguidelines to take advantage of community portals for such dirty aims. If it happens again, please contact an admin, e.g User:Piotrus. I have though myself more than once of taking further actions.Constanz - Talk 14:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It is absolutely not against wikiguidelines to take advantage of community portals for alerting people on votes. One should not advance their own POV. BTW, please don't revert again, you did so 3 times already. Errabee 14:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And what do you make of rstuff like this then? What is it, if not vote gathering? Ah, double standards, when you're here... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the person in question was a King of Poland for 49 years, so if such a vote cannot be announced on the Polish Noticeboard, it cannot be announced anywhere, I guess. On the other hand, the connection with Russia is rather weak.

I will not revert again, but see my comments on the talk page and please respond. Balcer 14:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alexander Kerensky

Hi. A source showing the mistaken notion of Kerensky being Jewish on the article talk page already existed but it was ignored. I have removed him from a list of Jews he was added to. Most anti-semitic sites put Kerensky as Jewish since he inspires some sort of hatred. See [4]. Reliable stuff, right? Somehow it was derived that Kerensky's real name was Aaron Kuerbis, though that appears to be completely made up.

In all likelihood, your edit on Alexander Kerensky and his removal from the Jewish list will be re-instated. If you manage a discussion with the user removing them concerning the authenticity of whatever given reference calls him Jewish, I will join in. 141.211.251.74 16:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I will keep an eye on this article. Please register as a user so you can log in (it is free and takes literally seconds to set up). It will give you access to many features of Wikipedia and make communication with you easier. Balcer 18:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smiley Award

User:Pedia-I/SmileyAward5b

Feel free to place this award on your user page, as a token of appreciation for your contributions. If you're willing to help spread the good cheer to others, please see the project page for the Random Smiley Award at: User:Pedia-I/SmileyAward

[edit] Vandalising of Kiev by Polish Army in 1920

That's what you called it earlier (sarcastically) on my talk months ago challenging me for "more sources". I hope you did not think I forgot.

Exhausted enough by a Wikistress, I decided tonight to take a retreat into a book which was too neglected on my shelf for too long.

• (Ukrainian) Ольга Друг, Дмитро Малаков. "Особняки Києва" (Mansions of Kiev), К.: Кий, (2004).

Some online reviews: in Knyzhnyk Review (Ukrainian); another one in Zerkalo Nedeli, August 2005 (Russian), (UA version)

This 800+ page monography is the most serious work on the subject. Anyway, the author works all his life in the Museum of Kiev History. I was reading one of the early chapters about the address Instytutska 20/8 (formerly 40), the former residence of the General-Governor of Kiev. I know this location very well along with the built in the 30s house with the unusual park in its courtyard. I knew that the house was built at the location of the former Governor's mansion, the park was a garden in its backyard but I never realy knew what happened to the original mansion. The end of the chapter answers this question. The retreating Polish forces blew up the house at the same time when the wonderful Chain bridge was blown up too.

Now, this was just a house, not a military object and the ref is absolutely solid. More interesting is that I recall that several facilities whose being ruined I mentioned (the info was removed of course) are located in the same neighborhood (Lypky). This is not the book that can be read fast and I am not intereted in scanning it quickly in search for more examples of such vandalism but I thought you would be interested in the ref I found.

I am not editing the articles on the PSW and KO lately because I have yet to compose myself from the feeling of dispair after the barrage that undid so many days of my work. But I will get back to them hopefully soon. --Irpen 10:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you are finding more sources for that sad period in the history of Kiev. If you find more solid evidence, feel free to add it. Still, remember that the whole controversy has started when you (or someone) claimed that vandalism and destruction by Polish forces "made the city unlivable", by destroying water works, electricity plants etc. . Destroying one house is not exactly in that category. And we must be careful about extrapolating from one house to the whole city.

Anyway, this should all first be established in History of Kiev before we do major changes to the Kiev Offensive and related articles. I still wonder, if the "vandalising of Kiev by Poles in 1920" was such a significant event in the history of the city, why does History of Kiev not mention a word about it??? If it occured, it should be added, discussed, and backed up with sources there first.

Also, what "barrage" are you talking about? Kiev Offensive has not been seriously touched in two months at least, for example. Balcer 13:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean "more solid". This is a rocksolid source. There is no ref that Poles "destroyed one house". Bridges were priceless for the city located at such a wide river. Both were destroyed. Clearly they destroyed more than that. I had refs that Poles destroyed civil objects despite they claimed that only military objects were invovled. The info was removed because the sources were deemed less reliable than the own statements by the PL gov. I now give another example that the statement that only military objects were destroyed is patently false.

I see your point in adding this to the history of Kiev. However, this article, in whose writing I was significanly involved from the times when this was yet a section in the Kiev article, does not suffer so badly from POV problems like the whole series devoted to PSW.

Kiev offensive was seriously invaded as well as PSW and I just temporary gave up out of desperation.

On the side note, unfounded accusations of other users in personal attacks are personal attacks in themselves. Please do not do it. --Irpen 04:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

There is not much point in arguing over this on my talk page. The natural place for this is Talk:History of Kiev. Surely that is the place where one is likely to find editors most knowledgeable about the history of the city.

As for the personal attack stuff, sorry, but accusing someone of being drunk when they made their edit is clearly a personal attack for me. I am really sad that you do not view it this way. Quite frankly, in the light of your comment accusing me of making "unfounded accusations" in this case, I do not think there is much point to continuing our discussions any further. Balcer 04:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish Corridor and the Kashubians

I have reacted in the talk page of Polish Corridor to your removing a passge which in my view should remain in the article. Hope we can come an agreement. Adam keller 17:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we can. Maybe I was too hasty in my removal, and should have rewritten it instead. Take a look at my comments on the article's talk page. Balcer 17:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I'm noticing this a bit late, but I think this edit was excellent and long overdue. I am happy to see that this message box which has generated lots of ill will and assumptions of bad faith by other users was removed voluntarily, and hope this helps (in the long term) against the bad reputation the Polish board has among some parts of the community. (Personally, I never had much problems with the board, but the notice was a red flag and gave the impression of using the board as a tool in 3RR wars, an impression sterngthened by Molobo's use of it). Thanks again, and happy editing! Kusma (討論) 11:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I was happy to do it. Thanks for the thanks :). Balcer 16:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wielbark (Warmian-Masurian Voivodship)

Jak byś mógł to napisz o tej wiosce w polskiej wikipedii. Pozdrawiam KamSta23 13:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Veto Wikibreak

Please don't let one extremly annoying event or user to get to you. We cannot allow such people to chase valuable contributors like yourself from Wikipedia.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

A tak na marginesie, to stresujace dyskusje zniecheca kazdego - jak sie bedziesz do tego ograniczal, to sie nie dziwie, ze ci sie humor psuje. Goraco polecam 'content creation' - utworzenie nowego artykulu i umieszczenie go na DYKu to najlepsze antidotum jakie moge cie zaprezentowac.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, although we haven't interacted much in the past, from what I've seen you're a great editor and a wonderful asset to WP. Hang in there! Appleseed (Talk) 21:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Since we haven't interacted much, I'm quite bold to update your talk page with my otherwise modest remark. While I can understand your mood, I strongly oppose your idea. ;-) In Europe, we go to a spa when in bad humo(u)r. I wonder whether you have visited Salcininkai. --Beaumont (@) 22:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, a wikibreak around Christmas is a very good thing but do not make it to long, you are needed here Alex Bakharev 14:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

After enjoying a useful and enlightening one month Wikibreak, I am back. Thanks for all the kind words, I appreciate them very much. Balcer 01:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Glad to see you back :-) Happy editing. --Beaumont (@) 16:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. :-) Appleseed (Talk) 23:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XMAS gift

Lots of good intentions flying around, but not much in the way of useful stuff. Here is a nice template I found to organize your ever-growing collections of awards :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  13:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Wesołych Boże Narodzenie

--Jadger 20:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Salad'o'meter™
	put barnstars here (no thumb or direction)
	n00b	involved	been around	veteran	seen it all	older than the Cabal itself

[edit] Cancelled ISBN in Virtuti Militari

Please see [5] and [6]. I therefore am about to remove the reference to the perpetually "bad" ISBN from the article's talk page. If this is not to your liking, we'll have to come up with something really clever to avoid the article from getting retagged by SmackBot ... Kind Regards, Keesiewonder 02:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Poland

Hi
why are you unhappy with the new Infobox Poland? Did you prefer the old version? I think in the old version there was a lot of information missing. Most international infoboxes have economy information, headlines, etc. If you have a good idea making the box better please tell me!
(Fujicolor 16:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC))
you are right, the Paris box is nicer. unfortunately I am not so good in formatting and I am not able to change this to this handsome design.
The former box was very poor so I tried making it a little better. Even the former information requested for the box were wrong.
As I am German and not too involved in Polish systems I had to find out their administration structure and redesign the box so that it also fits to the Polish needs. Please help (correct) me, if you can:
As I understand Poland is devided in Voidoships. They are devided into powiats (countys). Usually there is a city powiat like Kalisz and a mixed powiat like Kalisz County. (Am I right?). My major problem is, that city powiats are directly devided into districts who are somelike french arrondisments and rural or mixed powiats are devided into communes and then the communes (gmina) are again devided into districts. It is difficult finding a correct way to describe the headlines. Please have a look at Opatowek, Kalisz, Kalisz County
Any ideas?? Any better Wordings?? best regards (Fujicolor 00:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Editors that don't provide an edit summary tend to look like vandals

I have noticed you commonly don't enter an edit summary as you didn't when you edited Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant (see this edit). This causes me problems. When I patrol for vandalism, I use the summary to make a preliminary decision on whether or not the post is a vandal edit or not. If the summary is present (or at least a section header, the part inside the /* */), I commonly decide the edit is legit and move on.

However, if no edit summary is available, I typically resort to loading the diff for the edit. This takes time. For that reason, if your edits are all valid, I ask that you provide edit summaries. For more on how to enter an edit summary, please read Help:Edit summary.

Incidentally, it is not just me that appreciate having edit summaries. When you omit your summary, you may be telling various bots that you are vandalizing pages. For this reason, please consider providing that summary. It is very important. You can enter that summary via the edit summary box on edit pages (as shown below).

I know many users think that minor edits don't need summaries. However, you should at least provide a summary that identifies the edit by type (ex: "sp" for spelling changes). Unfortunately, some vandals have noticed that it is very easy and fast to press Tab, Space, and then Enter/Return. Like you edits, they now have the Minor box checked. This is why your edit came up as possible vandalism. Will (Talk - contribs) 03:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map toy

I think I saw you adding some geodata to the article. Check User:Dschwen/WikiMiniAtlas :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 7 February 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Lublin Castle, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Yomangani^talk 10:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Great all places on the planet need stubbing if they are missing but is it possible you could indicate what region or local county they are in, nearby cities? location in the country north south etc nearby towns? e.g thre town lies 40 kilometres north west of Krakow. Otherwise it could be anywhere in Poland!!Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The stub category indicates which voivodeship they are in, so that gives one an idea of their location. There is a bot which automatically adds coordinate data, just give it time (see Torzym for one example of this). Anyway, I do plan to add more content to these, once I have the stubs created. Balcer 21:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Also the coat of arms GołańczErnst Stavro Blofeld 21:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Balcer 21:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stanislav Poplavsky

Someone marked the bit you added (specifically "His family was ethnically Polish and Catholic, and in his younger years he considered himself a Pole.") for a citation. If you have the book at hand, could you add a specific (i.e., with page number) citation? Circeus 13:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That someone was actually me...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I added the reference to his memoirs in Russian. Balcer 02:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

		The Geography Barnstar
		For populating Wikipedia with Polish cities I, Piotrus, present you with The Geography Barnstar. Wear it proudly. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  01:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!Balcer 02:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Silesia

Ok, go over to these 4 articles, and check their reversions before i did anything to them today.

• Katowice
• Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union
• Upper Silesian Industry Area
• Upper Silesian Coal Basin

...then compare them...you will soon start to see some strange things. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 03:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully it can be cleared up, because I'm going mad trying to figure out which one is even the correct article...I'm leaning towards Upper Silesian Industry Area, but wouldn't correct english be Upper Silesian Industrial Area? -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 04:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinates

Would you add coordinates to these two articles? [7][8] You seem to be good at it. --Poeticbent  talk  14:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. If you would like to do it yourself at some point, use http://mapa.szukacz.pl/ which can give you the exact coordinates. Or just copy them from Polish Wikipedia. Balcer 15:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Panoramic image of Hamilton works

• Thanks for posting up the image of the Hamilton works in the History of Hamilton, Ontario page, greatly appreciated. Do you have any more old images of Hamilton like that one that we can add to the Hamilton-ralated articles? Nhl4hamilton 20:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Sadly, that was the only image of Hamilton I was able to find through the Library of Congress search engine. Canadian Archives has more images online, though they are of lower resolution. I will upload a few of them, whenever I find the time. Balcer 21:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

OK Balcer, Thanks again. Nhl4hamilton 07:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What?

"Result in a block"? What are you talking about.... if you were to look at that article you would obviously notice that its been edited by someone with a less-than perfect English grammar grasp, so i added the correct English after seeing that. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 01:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bielsko-Biala

Your edits seem to justify the creation of its category and its original category version only had two articles linked. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 01:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

That's what happens with empty categories, if they are good: they are easy to fill up. Try that approach also, instead of working to get rid of them. I do not believe there are strict rules on what should be the minimum number of articles that a category must contain. I certainly have seen plenty of categories on Wikipedia with only one entry. No reason to waste your energy trying to delete them. Balcer 01:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Eastern Germany

Perhaps you'd be interested in this:Talk:Historical_Eastern_Germany#Requested_move. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 05:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam accusations

Hey, I was only commenting on pages of Members of WikiProject Germany! That isnt spamming since it was their choice to dedicate themselves to a collaborative project. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 05:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, OK, i was unaware of it, sorry for ruining your day. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 05:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your vandalism on List of Ukrainians

Balcer: instead of vandalising the List of Ukrainians, please read its discussion. Please read the heading of this list too, as it defines its scope. If you still have any arguments against listing Ukrainian mathematicians of Polish origin as both Ukrainian and Polish, please present them in the discussion, instead of resorting to mindless vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.67.179 (talk • contribs)

Balcer: I agree with you that a content dispute is not a vandalism. However, the appropriate and constructive way to dispute the content is to provide the arguments in the Discussion of the article, instead of endlessly vandalising the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.67.179 (talk • contribs)

On Banach:

Balcer: His father was Polish and his mother was Ukrainian/Rusyn. Besides the origins, Banach spent an essential portion of his life on the territory of modern Ukraine. He has contributed to the development of the world-famost L'viv School of Mathematics at the Ukrainian Ivan Franko University in L'viv, Ukraine.

As the heading of the list suggests, Banach should be listed there, with his partial Polish origins properly acknowledged. This is how it was done before you came with your mis-guided chauvinistic edits.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.67.179 (talk) 06:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Your request

I've protected, but I had to do a full protect, not a semi, because it wasn't vandalism, but a regular content dispute. It looks as though you violated 3RR several times over. Best to ask for protection earlier next time, or try to hash out a compromise. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User notice: 3rr

[edit] Regarding reversions[9] made on March 6, 2007 to List of Ukrainians

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. Rather than reverting, discuss disputed changes on the talk page. The revision you want is not going to be implemented by edit warring. Thank you.

You just about escape a block there, but please don't go so close to the edge again, even for good reasons William M. Connolley 09:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism by User:67.180.67.179

I have given him a stern warning see User_talk:67.180.67.179#Regarding_edits_made_during_March_7.2C_2007. I am not sure if he is a malicious troll or just a newbee who does not understand how Wikipedia works. If he continues I will block him. Please let me know if you will notice that he continues these strange edits Alex Bakharev 00:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LUCPOL

User:LUCPOL is at it again. He was just blocked from the Polish Wikipedia for the 31st time(not joking), for a month, and now he is vandalizing articles on the English version; copying things i am saying in the edit summary, and reverting pages that he doesn't want to be reverted or deleted, Most notably:

• Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union
• Upper Silesian Industry Area
• Upper Silesian Coal Basin

-- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 01:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would take what R9tgokunks has to say with a grain of salt. I recently saw her/him doing some POV-pushing and left a warning on her/his talk page, but s/he unceremoniously reverted me with a misleading edit summary. Appleseed (Talk) 01:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

That was in 2006 before i got blocked at all. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 02:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

You know, He is removing tags added by myself and other users, let alone adding duplicate material from the Katowice article. Could you at least consider improving the article before it is deleted?-- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 20:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism?Nope.

Hey buddy, I'd like you check this edit out: [10] , and then respond to why you called me a vandal when actually I was the one who added them in the first place...-- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 20:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Note that I was very judicious in my choice of words, and did not call you an outright vandal. You added stub templates for stubs which do not exist, which resulted in ugly, useless red "Template:..." links in the article. Please don't deface articles in this way in the future. Only add stub templates for those stub categories which already exist. Balcer 21:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I wasnt "DEFACING" them, i was adding those stubs because thats what i thought the names of the stub templates were....Of course my memory let me down.

and as for this...

User:R9tgokunks is actively seeking a fight and continually escalates the disruptiveness of his edits.

I'M NOT TRYING TO SEEK A FIGHT WITH ANYONE....I'M TRYING TO STOP User:LUCPOL, User:Space Cadet, and other Wikipedian extremists from trying to manipulate things with extreme POV. I have NEVER condoned what the Nazis did to the billions of Jews and Slavs, but when it comes to the Holocaust people are way more sympathetic to them, understandably, than when the WWI and WWII expulsions of Germans is mentioned (which by the way involved many Soviets and some Poles raping and/or murdering many Germans, whether they were Ethnic or not; millions of Germans were displaced from places they had lived in for literally... CENTURIES; ex:Pomerania,"Prussia",Alsace), then everyone says "OH THOSE NAZIS GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED". Oh Really?? All of them were fascist NAZIs?? How about the THOUSANDS of children who grew up in those deplorable conditions??Did they get what they deserved? What do you hold against me that could ever make you think that I am "actively seeking a fight and continually escalating the disruptiveness of my edits"?-- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 20:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tags

Witaj! I see your point but what is wrong with tagging e.g. Jabłonków with WP Poland tag, when this town was/is historically ethnically Polish and Polish culture still have a major impact on the town's everyday life? - Darwinek 17:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. I will cease to add project banners to such articles, better be safe. Future creation of new WikiProjects, as you have pointed out, is a good idea. Then it should be possible to add such banners. - Darwinek 19:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project tags

Come on, Balcer, please dont be sarcastic. Until they were expelled in 1945, the vast majority of the population of Karlovy Vary regarded themselves as Germans. People in Zurich have never done so, to the best of my knowledge. The people of Vienna (of the whole of Austria) regarded themselves as Germans until some time after World War II. So, for the longest part of their history, they were no more and no less German than their Bavarian neighbours. Yet, I would prefer to tag an article on the History of Vienna (I have not checked if there is such an article) or on Austrian history. But I do not really see a problem there. The tag is on the talk page, not in the article itself. In the debates I have watched so far, nationalism was seldom a problem. But accusing others of being nationalists was.Unoffensive text or character 17:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

But the point is that you don't remove things that are controversial until a final consensus is made. I don't think that's a very hard to do. Kingjeff 02:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that the tag was a mistake or not is irrelevent until a final consensus is reached. It should still be there until a final consensus. It's no different then taking big chunks of an article out then possibly putting it back in. If you leave it in like it should be until a final consensus, then you can always take it out if final consensus says it shouldn't be there. Kingjeff 02:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I have left a message for Unoffensive text or character's talk page. I think you might agree with me on this. Kingjeff 03:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tags

Could you please comment on Talk:Karlovy Vary? Your addition of the Project Germany tag has generated quite a discussion. Your input would be appreciated. Oops, wrong talk page. Balcer 02:46, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I was the last comment on the WikiProject Germany topic. Kingjeff 02:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR violation on Talk:Karlovy Vary

I think you've gone overboard on this. I have shown that I'm willing to discuss this sensibly. Kingjeff 03:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What???

I'm trying to make the articles shorter and removing clutter. Why are you reverting my edits?!?!?!? They are improving the articles??? "STRANGE FORMAT"? -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 16:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listen carefully

Check all my edits VERY CAREFULLY, and you will finally realize that i was REVERTING VANDALISM BY USER:PARIS75000, I DID NOT ADD ANYTHING AFTER THAT. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 00:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Elbing disambig

Any objections to redirecting Elbing to Elbląg (primary meaning)? Template:Redirect3 can be used to take care of SMS Elbing. Olessi 20:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

How would Elbing, Kansas fit into this scheme? Balcer 20:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I would be inclined to stick with the current form. That is what German Wikipedia uses (de:Elbing). Balcer 21:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I added mention of the river. The info for Image:Elbląg 1.JPG says the picture was taken in Siedlce; is that city located on the river? Olessi 21:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope. I fixed the caption. The picture was taken in Elbląg (I am 99% sure). Balcer 21:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Kobyliński images

Yes, I mistakenly thought they were Matejko drawings. I don't mind if they're deleted. Appleseed (Talk) 17:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Polish villages and communes

Cześć/Hi! Prokonsul Piotrus has recommended you to talk about this topic. I'd like to start articles about all Polish communes, and some about Polish villages, too. But there is a problem with standards. Well, now I do know that for our gminy should be name "Name Commune". Ok, but what if we have two or more communes with the same name? "Name Commune, Name County", or "Name Commune (Name County)"? The same problem with villages. "Name, Voivodeship" or "Name (Voivodeship)"? Untill I don't know the answer, I'll start articles only about Polish villages about which I'm sure that is only one of that name in Poland. Let me know, what You think about this problem, and what is the right way to consensus. Regerds Lajsikonik 22:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on Comment

Wanted to compliment you on your statement at the P.P. request for ArbCom, although not "perfect", it is one of the better ones. Dr. Dan 18:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Balcer 20:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time of troubles

Thanks for removing the inuse tag I accidentally forgot. I have a new half-finished article in my local file but I could not post it due to some RL events. Had to run away so quickly, that the tag stayed. Thanks for noticing it and my apologies for locking article. As a favor, please don't make dramatic changes to it since I am writing a version, partially (only partially) based on an old article. I would hate to see your work lost and you can edit over my next version just as well. Thanks again. --Irpen 03:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Picaroon (Talk) 20:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Read it[11]--Toolsbadly 13:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I read the original book, not the review of it. It supports my conclusions. Balcer 13:29, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

And the summary of the book supports mine. What's different?--Toolsbadly 13:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Both the book and the review say Royal Prussia was an integral part of Poland, and its citizens were loyal to it throughout its history. Balcer 13:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

That's the one side in the review. There are two sides, however. Conclusion is that Prussia is Prussian, not German or Polish. Every one can read it!--Toolsbadly 13:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Royal Prussia was not an independent country. Get over it. Balcer 13:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You get over it! YOu and Space Cadet said you read a book supporting your view. It doesnt support your view as its review showed, it does not use Poland, even - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Conclusion is that (Royal and Ducal) is Prussian in character, not German, not Polish. The simplified propagondistic "Poland" is deceiving, therefore and you two dont care. Poland, Poland uber alles.--Toolsbadly 13:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Give me a break. I am very well aware that Royal Prussia was a special part of Poland, with plenty of autonomy and its own (largerly German-speaking) culture. Still, the right way to acknowledge that is not to remove any mention of Poland altogether. Balcer 13:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An outside view

Borders are consensual fictions. The concept of "nation" was a very fluid thing in that era, and to an extent still is. "Citizenship", "nationality", "ethnicity"... all these concepts overlap, and can contradict each other. The situation becomes even murkier when one considers that "citizenship" originally denoted a city instead of a nation, and the borders of one can change much more easily than the borders of the other.

Was Julius Caesar an Italian? Why or why not? What about Hadrian? Dante? Michaelangelo? Napoleon? Garibaldi? Capone?

Discard your notion of historical continuity. Borders shift. States die and are reborn or reincarnated; their names are taken up by their descendants, who use them in ways the ancestors could never have imagined. Poland is not the same state as it was even a hundred years ago. Neither is Germany. Was East Germany a nation? Why or why not?

Constantia was born during the Commonwealth era. Why do we not say she was Lithuanian? Can a Pole be born in London? Can an Englishman be born in Cracow? Is Alsace French or German? Are the Pyrenees French or Spanish? By "Spanish", do you mean Castilian or Catalan or Andalusian?

You see where I'm gong with this, I think? DS 14:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. However, Wikipedia must stick to the standards of the day, however inadequate they are (WP:NOR and all that). It unfortunately also has to provide its readers with some shorthand, simplified idea of the past, specifically in articles in which it is just not possible to go into detail (since we cannot squeeze the whole history and geography of Gdansk into an article about one of its inhabitants). Yes, I understand perfectly that saying Gdansk, Poland is a grotesque oversimplification of the complex nature of that place in the 17th century. Yet this kind of shorthand is necessary, to locate the reader somewhere in the historical and geographical continuum. Like it or not, countries are still the basic organising principle of human political life, as they have been for the last few centuries, and Wikipedia must reflect that. I sincerely hope that this will change in the future. Balcer 14:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gminy

Czyli gminy pisemy X Commune. Mogę więc zmienić wszystkie gminy z Gmina X na X Commune w Lubartów County? -- Medard _Talk 22:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warsaw Metro

I've changed it once again and added citation, unfortunately in Polish. Słodowiec is planned to be open in January/February 2008 (end of works-probably Jan, opening for passengers-probably Feb), Stare Bielany and Wawrzyszew in March and Młociny in June next year EPWA airport 06:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edit to Category:Nowa Ruda (diff) was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to recognize and repair vandalism to Wikipedia articles. If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept my humble creator's apologies – if you bring it to the attention of the bot's owner, we may be able to improve its behavior. Click here for frequently asked questions about the bot and this warning. // MartinBot 01:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

a question

does you want to become a admin because you been here for a long time and made so many good edits so just leave a meassage on my talk page to say yes or no ok Oo7565 00:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of ...

How is the alleged "Polishness" of e.g. Steve Wozniak justified? Which sources say that he is one of the Poles that "by 2005 had attained a world-wide population of over 53 million"? You better edit the "List of Poles" before you continue attempts to shorten the List of Germans.

Regarding your frequent edits to biographies: you better remember that there were persons that were born, lived, worked or died in cities that were part of Russia, Germany, Austria etc. If you think it is important to add the country every time a city is mentioned, just go on and do so. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       19:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I don't understand what you want from me

... by reposting at my talk page the questions that I have already answered more than once at the article's talk.[12] [13] Discussions at the article's pages are more appropriate as they are seen by a multitude of users. They have more participants and greater impact. If you think I am trying to sabotage the discussions, you can raise the questions about that at my talk but if you merely "disagree" with me, say whatever you have below my post at the article's talk. --Irpen 17:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, re your post about "right track"/"wrong track" I will not tolerate any accusations (veiled or not) that hint on my having anything to do with HD, its support, sympathy or whatever. If this impression your persistent messages at my talk have created was unintentional, please think through your future posts more thoroughly. Sympathy to the Holocaust accomplices or history revisionists that try to defend them is something that I am the most voiceful opponent as evidenced from my multiple edits revealing the horrors of this time and crimes against humanity committed by anyone involved be it a Pole, Romanian, Ukrainian or Russian. The article's talk is the right venue for such discussion and please take an extra effort to make your post more considerate. I repeat, I had never ever sympathized with the perpetrators of those crimes. Period. --Irpen 20:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Before anyone even utters the new accusations along the same lines (or rather to prevent that) please take a look at Talk:Kiev Pogrom (1919) where I made a proposal on how to handle the sensitive controversy. --Irpen 00:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thank you for the endoresment very much. I'm always glad to do my little bit whenever I have time for it. M0RD00R 14:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re Partitions of Poland

See my discussion with Piotrus Talk:Partitions_of_Poland. We have already agreed upon a compromise variant. The history of the region till 18 centuries is relevant. The justification or condemnation is already political question and POV. This article is not the newspaper article. I write about objective historic facts and you should not remove them. Ben-Velvel 16:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estophobia

Thanks for keeping your head cool and voting your own way, dispite all the trolling and vote staking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estophobia. -- Petri Krohn 10:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Petri, let me applaud your courtesy. Your attitude spotlights the difference between a moderate and an extremist editor. Has not Balcer explicitly accused you of trolling? Has not he joined (and quite enthusiastically at that) the ranks of those people who advocate the view that the commies were much, much more evil than the nazis? --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo, you don't have the guts to accuse me of having such a vile view directly (and no evidence of course), so you use the weaselly "he joined the ranks of those who ...". How pathetic. I will only say very succintly: I hold no such view. Just in case somebody who reads this talk page takes your comments seriously. End of transmission. Balcer 14:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and before you call my accusations of trolling unjustified, notice that the comment I was referring to resulted in a 72 hour block for User:Petri Krohn. Balcer 17:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A nice (or rather sad) example of block shopping. --Ghirla^-трёп- 18:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, I'd encourage you to report this talk page misbehavior to our ArbCom case. It shouldn't be allowed to slander editors on their talk pages like this.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

As for your block shopping on WP:ANI, I honestly did not notice your argument on AfD. You appear to have voted when I was asleep and when the relevant AN discussion had been over. I would not argue that you voted the way you did in order to prove me wrong, because, with you, I tend to assume good faith and tend to give credit to your intellectual honesty. Best, Ghirla^-трёп- 20:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

To help you out with your good faith about me (thanks by the way), note that I voted against keeping the Anti-Polonism article, and took quite a lot of flak from some Polish users for it. Unfortunately, that article was kept under that name. Quite simply, I believe that pretty much all "Hate of X" articles are hugely counterproductive, unless the particular phenomenon is solidly established as a scholarly concept. Balcer 20:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that, in the ideal world, we should delete all of them, because every article of this sort degenerates to blatant hate talk and WP:SYN. On the other hand, Russophobia is a notable concept with a lot of scholarly literature on the subject and well-known 19th-century roots. The problem is that we have neither expertise nor neutral heads to write (let alone maintain) a decent, objective article on such a controversial subject. --Ghirla^-трёп- 20:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Estophilia

No, despite the similar-sounding names, these two are rather disparitous concepts. Estophilia was an important factor leading towards Estonian National Awakening. The reason it's not well-googlable is that it's an old concept, a concept of time when Estonian cultural life was largely done in German and most of the sources are offline. However, check out the Estonica sources referred, and try to Google for estofiil. Digwuren 19:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to add, the Estophiles are a significant topic in Estonian history. I like to draw your attention to the following sources:

• Online Encyclopedia reference: [14]
• Book reference: [15]
• Online Britannica quote: "Written literature began in the so-called Estophile period (c. 1750–1840) with moral tales and manuals written by Balto-German enthusiasts for the native language and culture." [16]
• Another book reference: The History of Estonia, 2nd edition, by A. Maesalu, T. Lukas, T, Tannberg, et al [17] (ISBN 9985-2-0606-1) Quote from section beginning on page 167: Estophiles and the first Estonian intellectuals: "The growing interest in exotic and minority peoples in Europe launched the Estophile movement in Estonia. The Estophiles - Baltic Germans interested in Estonia - studied the Estonian language and culture, published fiction of considerable artistic level, newspapers, textbooks for schools, and founded various scientific societies....."

BTW, according to this book, the Estophile movement pre-dates and is distinct from the Estonian National Awakening which is detailed in a different section. Note too that the original stub [18] was subject to an AfD, due to the nominator's ignorance of Estonian History [19]. As you can see, this was eventually developed into a good article. Martintg 00:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I have nothing against the article under that title if it is backed up by solid sources. Notice that the article when it was deleted did not contain any such backing sources, if I remember correctly. It consisted of only a few sentences, in fact.

Having this article created just after Estophobia got deleted smacked of WP:Point, to me at least, and I pointed out my impression on Dwiguren's talk page. Why not wait a few weeks or months for things to settle down before starting this article? Creating an "opposite-of-A" article immediately after "A" was judged as non-notable and deleted, can be interpreted as a WP:Point tactic. Balcer 00:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is understandable, it really was just unfortunate timing. Thanks. Martintg 01:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robert Biedroń

is not "non-notable person", he is hero of Polish gays 4 bity muzyki 16:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It is still just his personal opinion. We are trying to write an encyclopedia here. Anyway, to suggest that economic reasons don't play a role in the movement of Poles to Britain is just silly. Balcer 16:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

it is easy to say that it is "silly", you dont have to life in Polish homophobic far right hell 4 bity muzyki 16:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Gays are normal people who like to make good salaries, and that must be a big part in their decision to move to Britain. I am sure the liberal atmosphere is also appealing, but that is only one factor. Anyway, again: this is an encyclopedia, not a discussion forum. Facts, not opinions about "the people I know" are needed. Anecdotal evidence should be avoided. Balcer 16:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Being notable - and he indeed is - is no reason to cite a person, see also WP:FRINGE#Notability_versus_correctness and my post to user Lysy.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I understand now that he is notable. The rather short English Wikipedia entry about him misled me. If we use the formulation by Lysy (i.e. Biedron believes), I am fine with it, though that is still barely encyclopedic. Ideally, one would quote a survey of Polish gay people living in Britain that would give a realistic understanding for the reasons they have moved there. Balcer 19:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Recently Biedron denied he said some things which Guardian attributed to him IIRC-is this about Guardian article ? Here is the text in which he denies making some claims: [20] --Molobo 22:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back. I can only hope that having had a year to reflect on your past mistakes, you are now a new Wikipedian, behaving completely differently than you did before. If not, I will be the first to support a new ban for you, but let's hope it does not come to that again.

As for Biedron, I am not really that familiar with the guy, and don't know much about LBGT issues in Poland. Still, if he disavows the comments Guardian attributed to him, that should certainly be mentioned. Here are the links to the Guardian articles which quote him, anyway:[21],[22]. Balcer 02:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for cutting in, but look here: http://www.newsweek.pl/wydania/artykul.asp?Artykul=19359 and here: http://poland.indymedia.org/en/2006/03/19119.shtml Greetings Tymek 01:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mikolaj Kopernik

I don't think that removal of that option will help. It just decreases credibility of the consensus. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 15:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think in Wikipedia truth is determined by vote. We can vote between reasonable options, but should not vote on unreasonable options, plus it will save us time. Balcer 15:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

ok, no problem with that ;-) I just wonder why szopen and you vote for polish-german. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 16:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I can live with Polish-German, if that compromise will end the endless revert wars. There is little doubt that Copernicus lived at the intersection of these two cultures. Balcer 16:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

German language together with Latin was a language of science, like English is nowadays, but that doesn't mean everyone is english. I always lived with that Copernicus was a Polish astronomer. They usually say there were no nationalities in Europe before 20th century, but try to remove nationality of Friedrich Nietzsche. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 16:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RE:Verifiability

I question whether you are really Balcer, so can you back that up? you have been challenged.

--Jadger 22:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This shows perfectly your misunderstanding of the policy, not to mention tedious disruption. Please stop it.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is new

Balcer, for the third time in row during the same day and at the very same talk page you resurrect the weird claim that I edit the Wikipedia to grind an ax I have against Poles. If only you new more about my personal details, you would have understood how bizarre such accusations are. But even without it, and judging purely by my edits, which is the only way to judge me at Wikipedia, you are the first respected contributor I ever see to make such bizarre, offensive and unwarranted accusations. This is not the first time you discuss offensively my personal views, rather than the specific disputes, and, frankly, it isn't helping. Please reconsider unless you want me to respond to your new entry the way you left it. Regards, --Irpen 05:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I call it how I see it. If I am a respected editor in your eyes, maybe this will induce you to think about your actions. We all have our subconscious biases and quirks. I certainly do, and any time someone points them out to me (on or off Wikipedia), I am grateful. Maybe it is finally time to acknowledge that you might have them as well. Balcer 05:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have biases, like all of us. But I certainly have no ax to grind against any nation, especially the Polish one. I, as well as other users, have seen the offensive comments from you before. I have seen worse from others and I am not going to make a big deal out of it. Since you are unwilling to modify your comments, I will respond to them at the same place where they are posted. Regards, --Irpen 05:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation

(You wrote)

Hope you don't mind my revert. In general I do not support the inclusion of long quotes in articles, especially controversial ones. It just so happens that in controversial matters, for every "good" quote it is easy to find another quote saying just the opposite from the other side. In the end, one ends up with warring quotes contradicting each other, both grossly violating the idea of NPOV, and leaving an uninformed reader at a loss.

Anyway, I think I am beginning to understand where you are coming form. You believe that pretty much the whole re-establishment of the Polish state in 1918-1939 was a process of Polonization. That is an interesting understanding, but in my opinion much too broad. Let's stick to the traditional understanding, which is the transfer of people from other cultures to Polish culture. Balcer 23:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You understand my intentions correctly. The process of Polonization in the Second Polish Republic had little to do with the let's say, Russification during the Partitions of Poland, because Russia did not have to fight for its own sovereignty in the process, but conquered Poland instead. There’s a major difference in this particular case, unlike during the Commonwealth. --Poeticbent talk 00:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Polonization

I assume from this summary that you missed my response. You can find it close to the top of Talk:Polonization#Lead right after your's on the very top. You did not respond and changed the article. --Irpen 22:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I did not miss it, though given the volume of discussion it maybe that I did not read it carefully enough. Nevertheless, I hope I am correct in surmising that you were flexible about using the word suppresssion. Anyway, take a look at my edit and change what you will.

Let me also be clear about why I want to keep some separation between Polonization policies as related to language and actions perceived to be aimed at churches. You might find it surprising, given your statements elsewhere, but the governement of Poland during the interwar period was not particularly influenced by Catholicism. Pilsudski and his supporters came from socialist circles before World War I. Pilsudski himself viewed Catholicism with disdain, and his religious views were not strong to say the least (when he died there was a huge controversy when the Krakow church authorities refused for a time to bury him in Krakow cathedral crypt). As for the nationalist right (Endecja, in opposition for most of the interwar period), they were focused on secular, "scientific" nationalism. Roman Dmowski, their key figure, was highly critical of Christianity as a whole. To illustrate this, in Polish 1928 elections, the only explicitly religious inspired party got only 4% of the vote (pl:Wybory parlamentarne w Polsce 1928)

In short, while Ukrainians perceived church closings etc. as part of the Polonization policy, given the considerations above it may be that they were not strongly connected. Most in Polish governing circles used the Polish language as the key criterion of ethnic definition, with religion a distant second, if present at all (at least where Ukrainians and Belarusians were concerned). In other words, if Ukrainians and Belarussians converted en masse to Catholicism but at the same time did not adopt the Polish language, such an outcome would not have been what the Polish government wanted at all, to say the least. Balcer 23:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbcom

I removed the thread I started. Since you and I are the only participants, I am letting you know. It can remain removed or you can restore it if you object. It won't prevent my entries from being recorded in Piaskownica wherever it is now. I did that not with an intention to hide anything. I just saw no use in it on further reflection. Nothing is going to change anyway, within the ArbCom or globally with this EE mess. I tried to make a proposal. Piotrus does not like it because he wants blocks. The others don't care. Regards, --Irpen 23:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I restored it. Please check whether the diffs you quoted were over a year old. If so, retract your statement as at this point I am in effect accused of lying. Balcer 23:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

All right. Let's have fun there since you seem to be insisting. --Irpen 23:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Honesty

Here you removed the 1999 book claiming it to be the 19th century source. Source reliability issue aside, this is merely dishonest. --Irpen 21:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Good grief, what a fast response (2 minutes!). Is monitoring Wikipedia your day job? It was my mistake, and I reverted myself within 3 minutes. Your automatic assumption of bad faith is disturbing. Balcer 21:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

What was "Is monitoring Wikipedia your day job?" supposed to mean. A PA of some sort? I don't get it. I can see that this could be an honest mistake caused by eagerness to remove the info. Not very nice too. But yes, I did not think you acted dishonestly on purpose. The edit itself was dishonest but merely because it was sloppy and in haste to help a friend in a rv war.

Oh, and speaking of a day-job. "Good grief", what brought you to the article so promptly in the midst of the rv war? "Is monitoring Wikipedia your day job?" Or was it Gadu Gadu? Or just a mere coincidence. With you I am always assuming good faith, Balcer, The last one is not a sarcastic remark. --Irpen 22:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just being light hearted with the "job" comment. The speed of your reaction was just shockingly quick, but it clearly must have been a coincidence. Note that I did not remove any info, just placed a cn tag in place of a reference I thought unsuitable, as the Brockhaus tag threw me off. My reading speed of Russian is not that great, so it took me a minute to realize that the reference tagged Brockhaus is actually not Brockhaus. An easy mistake to make, it seems to me.

I will leave the other insinuations without comment. Balcer 22:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks, but don't overstress yourself

Regarding the discussion at talk PSW: it's a trollfest. I said EOT and I don't follow it; I suggest you don't waste your valuable time on it, neither. That said, thanks for all the words of support - it's always good to know there are still some decent editors left in this project.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It is only too bad that the discussion page of an FA article is being filled with that junk, scaring away anyone thinking of developing it further. Balcer 18:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The scare will last only a few days, few editors read old talk anyway. It's only too bad that the main intent of this is to scare of several specific editors via "campaign of harassment". While ineffective, to think that such trolling is permitted in this project does not feel me with confidence over its prospects in the longer future.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  00:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well at least those articles are watched, other niche topics are not, see Morgenthau Plan which is an example of a compromised article.--Molobo 00:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your userpage

I've noticed your userpage went down. I do hope its some momentary trouble, and you will be back editing in no time. Your absence would be a big blow to this project, and you would be missed by many if you were to leave.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. It's because of folks like you that I still have some faith in Wikipedia. Appleseed (Talk) 23:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wesołych!

[edit] Port Austin Light

I've carried on your good work. Take a look. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 06:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)Stan