Wikipedia:Featured article review/Polish-Soviet War

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[edit] Polish-Soviet War

[edit] Review commentary

Original author, Piotrus and MilHist already notified. Sandy 02:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This article does not meet the criterium of being stable; it is frequently the subject of heated edit wars whether this is a Polish victory or not. Errabee 22:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

FAR is not dispute resolution: the edit history shows a problem developed today. I'm just one voice here, but my recommendation is that you either list significant areas where the article fails to meet FA criteria, or take this through dispute channels: the MilHist group has a number of knowledgeable editors. Sandy 22:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you should examine the history more closely. Those steps have all been taken, but the reached consensus is being altered time and again. Errabee 22:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Sandy that the current problems have started no sooner then yesterday, although as I don't like to see Featured Articles with NPOV or other tags, I would hope comments (and edits) of reviewers may speed up resolving the current conflict. As for consensus: the consensus was undisputably reached in April 2005 when the article was featured. Last vote at that time took place on 21 April, this is the article after last edit on that day; you can see the article states the war ended with a Polish victory - the point which you are disputing. Since that time the entry about the result has been expanded not only with the link to the Treaty of Riga, but also has two academic references in cite.php format; one of those entries is actually a footnote discussing the issue. Only on that example it would seem that the article has been improved from the time it was FACed, but others, like the fact that the article has moved from 4 to 55 footnotes would indicate to me that the article still fullfills FA criteria. If there is anything else you are disputing, feel free to mention it here - or on article's talk page - which, if I am not mistaken, you have not edited yet.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. The removal of the phrase Polish victory was done originally by Albrecht (see [1]), a member of the Military History project. In his edit summary he claims it is not common practice to assign victory labels, not even to those wars that have a clearer outcome. Because his edit was undone by Lysy, I simply chose to adhere to an outsider's view. This looks like POV pushing to me. Errabee 23:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I thought you've just removed the "victory" word from the article yourself ? Does it look like POV pushing to you, too ? --Lysytalk 23:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
As I stated, I simply reapplied a change from an uninvolved editor, who removed the Polish victory phrase from the infobox. Any attempt to do otherwise, looks like POV-pushing to me. Errabee 00:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I am also a member of this WikiProject, as is Halibutt who restored the mention of the result. If Albrecht would like to direct us to a wiki policy on not listing results, instead of edit summaries, it would be appreciated, especially as both of our references support Soviet defeat / Polish victory variant. Claiming a result contrary to our references seems like POV pushing to me.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I do remember that all faults aside, on the FA day, the artice did have a Peace of Riga outcome and had it ever since until yesterday Halibutt decided to resume this for whatever reasons. --Irpen 23:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Seems like your memory needs some refreshing. Article was featured on May 25 2006. Selected revisions from the week preceeding it: 17:44, May 23, 2006: Polish victory, 20:40, May 22, 2006: Polish victory; 15:28, May 18, 2006: Polish victory, and month (05:48, April 6, 2006: Polish victory). Then on a day before the main page featuring, we get the result changed ([2]). The fact that the new result survived few months and is disupted now does not lend it any credibility, it may be a simple mistake, especially as the references we have are for Soviet defeat / Polish victory.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I am very sorry, Piotrus, but your statement that the new result might be a simple mistake is very flawed. If you look at the comment, you see it was done to comply with the internal guidelines of the MilHist workgroup. And the same user who changed the result on May 25th, changed it also today with exactly the same rationale. As is evident by the reference provided, any side can claim sources to argue whether it was a Polish victory or it was indecisive. All this calls for the simple mention of the peace treaty, and people can then decide themselves. Errabee 00:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Which guidelines? Please provide us with a link and a quotation to justify this. As is evident by the references provided ([3], [4]), Polish victory was rather evident.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
You'll have to ask Albrecht for the guidelines. If he says those guidelines exist, I tend to believe him. As for the sources: why do you not address the concerns? Your answers simply restates your original statement. The very first reference provided in Polish-Soviet War states the following: The question of victory is not universally agreed on. Russian and Polish historians tend to assign victory to their respective countries. Outside assessments vary, mostly between calling the result a Polish victory and inconclusive. Lenin in his secret report to the IXth Conference of the Bolshevik Party on September 20, 1920, called the outcome of the war "In a word, a gigantic, unheard-of defeat" (see The Unknown Lenin, ed. Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06919-7 Document 59, Google Print, p. 106). Norman Davies called the war a "military defeat" for the Soviets (see following reference). Claiming Polish victory is very clearly POV, no matter how many sources you provide. Errabee 01:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for quoting that footnote, which I wrote some time ago (interestingly, a year ago Irpen supported the 'minor Polish victory' with footnotes version, I created the footnote as requested, but now it is not enough...). Anyway, since you ask about the sources, as anybody can see we have sources for Soviet defeat / Polish victory, the assertions for Russian historians claiming victory is not sourced (I expected Irpen or sb else would, but nobody bothered in over a year); and the footnote states (or understadees) that outide (i.e. English) sources mostly call the result a Polish victory (i.e. 2:0 acccording to our sources). Therefore as you can clearly see the references not only support the 'Polish victory' version, but they would further suggest we drop any mension of unsourced claims that the result is disputed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
That footnote is perfectly fine, Piotrus. I probably won't be the first one commending you on the NPOV writing of that footnote. The only problem is that when the result is stated as a Polish victory, it constitutes a contradiction. You can't have it both ways. So either the footnote has to go, which will result in a severe response from the pro-Russian editors, or the Polish victory has to go. Errabee 03:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The article in the form it was featured can be most softly called a propaganda spin. After that I added plenty of references and dozens of edits trying to NPOV it but it still fails to meet NPOV. It is becoming even less so as the sourced info is persistently removed, together with the sources themselves, and hours of work on adding sourced info is fastly undone by quick and disrepectful reverts. Why am I trying to improve it? Because it bears a prestigious FA label and I want it to be a FA quality, neutral and complete. However, I find reaching this goal impossible and the FA label needs to be put down. When, and if, the neutrality is achieved through participation of more editors with the background different from its main authors, it may be voted for a FA status one more time.--Irpen
    • I prefer to think that the original reviewers knew what they were doing, and your claims of POVishness, rarely accompanied by any sources, are not likely to change my opnion until you present sources to back your statements with.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Just count how many sources of those present there are added by me and you will see plenty. Some of them are getting removed by fast and fierce reverts and I am giving up. --Irpen 23:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Any specific reliable source that you have in mind ? --Lysytalk 23:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
          • Lysy, this is called a No true Scotsman argument. If you decide which sources are reliable and which are not, by definition you will always be right. Only it does not work that way. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 00:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
            • No, Grafikm, Lysy is simply asking Irpen to cite a particular example a reliable source has been removed. Now please give us such an example or stop accusing other editors of 'fast and fierece reverts of sources'. Start by showin a source, then we can debate it's reliability.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I am uninvolved in this article, and haveno opinion as to whether the Soviets of Polish won this war. However, any article in the middle of a NPOV dispute does not exemplify the very best of Wikipedia, and as such, should have its featured status revoked until disputes are resolved. Furthermore, the very fact that such disputes are pouring over onto this page says a bit about their scale. --Zantastik talk 22:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This is a featured article review, not FARC. People don't call for removal here, but highlight the problems of an article and suggest a method of action an editor could take to address the concerns. LuciferMorgan 23:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Point taken. The problem that this article faces is a NPOV dispute, a flaw that will doom any featured article unless it is dealt with. --Zantastik talk 23:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
The template is no longer there. But in the end this is a controversial topic, and template may resurface in the future no matter what we do. Being controversial and subject from time to time to content disputes and tagging is however not a deFAcing criteria. POVed groups (of which I am a part there) may push for some chages from time to time, but the consensus of more neutral editors have decided during FAC that the article, on average, is neutral enough.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
The article was FAed a year and a half ago when the requirement for FA were even more lax than they are now. Most importantly, however, is not a single editor from Russia or Ukraine took part at this discussion at the time. You can always say that this was "their" fault but now the situation changed. Several Russian and Ukrainian editors express their dissatisfaction both with the article and with how their attempts to NPOV it are met (whole scale reverts of hours of work by you have become routine). No way the article in a year ago shape would have been FAed now, as it was even further from NPOV than it is today. --Irpen 03:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
That's your POV; I don't think you can speak for all Russian and Ukrainians editors. And anyway, Wiki is not supposed to be some place of straw poll contest between particular nationalities, actually I would think that we should acknowledge that involved parties are much more POVed than non-involved and see what more neutral editors have to say.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
That would have been perfect provided we had some uninvolved parties with the background on the subject to judge the article for an objectivity. Most non-Poles, non-Russians, non-Ukrainians don't know anything about those events. They see the article with nice inline refs, pics, no spelling errors, i-wiki links, etc, and this all seems fine. I would not be of much help to judge the neutrality of some South American war article. I welcome attention of non-involved users but unless we get a supply of such users with sufficient background (172, where are you?), the only way to achieve the balance it to get a compromise between people from different involved nations. They likely have some clue of what happened. --Irpen 03:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
That's an excellent point, and I'm certainly an example of one of the legion of non-Ukranian, Polish or Russian editors who looks at this article just like that. This article might very well need a Request for Comment in order to get some outside eyes in here (I'm not really able to contribute much myself on this matter, due to my ignorance of it) --Zantastik talk 05:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
While for non-specialist it may be difficult to judge content, judging neutrality is much easier. Further, there are quite a few specialist in various obscure subjects in all countries, especially western ones, hence the richness of English language literature about such subject (consider, for example, Norman Davies, one of undisputed experts on the PSW subject). I believe that those specialists are much more neutral then editors (or even professional historians) from involved countries, who while may have more content knowledge then your average non-specialist from different country will also tend to be much less neutral. Therefore I prefer to see sources and editors from non-involved countries contributing to the article as much as possible.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The article became overly long. Maybe some sections could be shortened and the existing content forked into separate articles ? --Lysytalk 23:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. A summary of the problems with this article was never provided, so I'll attempt one.

  • It appears that the POV concerns have died down, although they were noted on the original FAC nom. Can editors please let us know if POV is still a concern?
  • The article mixes reference styles and has some uncited statements, as well as broad swatches of unreferenced text. (I fixed the footnotes to conform with WP:FN with Gimmetrow's new ref fixer.)
  • Doesn't conform with WP:LAYOUT.
  • The article is very long, and appears to be a candidate for summary style. The article is 98KB overall, with 60 KB of prose, but that number is an understatement because of the extensive prose in the footnotes.
  • A whole lot of text is referenced to a professor's lecture notes, which may not be a "peer-reviewed" source? University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006. I'd like to hear what the MilHist say about the sources.

I din't examine the prose: that's just a sample of some things that could be addressed: can some of the MilHist group let us know if this article needs to move to FARC or not? Sandy 18:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Got to say, I think it needs some copyediting. Articles (a vs the) need improvement.

Buckshot06 05:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are stability (1e) POV (1d), and MoS concerns (2). Marskell 22:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Frankly, while the POV concerns are notable, they are not significant enough in this particular case to bring down the article's stature. I also have to say that I am disappointed with the very fact that there is a dispute: this was a significant Polish victory. It essentially meant that Lenin could not spread the Revolution like he wanted. Poland was practically the only major bulwark against the Red Army before it marched to the heart of Central Europe and did a good job at preventing the latter from accomplishing that feat.UberCryxic 17:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I detailed (above) issues other than POV which need to be addressed. Sandy (Talk) 15:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Still has numerous citation needed tags, uses mixed reference styles, has broad patches of unreferenced text, and is very long and could benefit from Summary Style. Is work progressing ?? Sandy (Talk) 23:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I have replaced four out of five request for citations with citations; the one that remains is a minor quote that can be removed without harming the article. I do agree that the article can benefit from some more referencens, but it has 64 for inline ones at the moment - more than quite a lot of other FAs.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and move on to some more serious issues. //Halibutt 07:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Further comment Almost three weeks ago, I mentioned that the article uses mixed reference styles (still uncorrected), doesn't conform to WP:LAYOUT (still not corrected), has 60KB of prose and could benefit from summary style, and has some uncited text. We are now beyond a month revivew, and these items haven't been addressed. I'll give it the weekend before voting to Remove. Sandy (Talk) 15:03, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Seems like you've not to notice my reply above. The article has no citation requested tag; what changes would you recommend to layout? As far as I can tell it conforms to the layout guidelines. As for lenght, I believe comprehensivity is more important than being short, although if you have suggestions what can be moved of to subarticles (note we already have those), by all means, please be specific.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
      • It looks like you've addressed the mixed referencing styles; I fixed the layout and corrected the footnote punctuation with Gimmetrow's new ref fixer script. I do not want to tell an experienced and knowledgeable editor where to cut the size of his article: I will be a "Keep" if you can get the prose size from the current 60KB (which IMO is a burden to the reader) to around 50KB, by making more aggressive use of summary style. Regards, Sandy (Talk) 16:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove Some of those in the Notes section aren't even inline cites, and also how hard that specific section is to read with the unnecessary text is quite atrocious. Sections of text still remain uncited too. LuciferMorgan 17:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
    • First of all, there is no notes section. Second, assuming you mean references, there are quotations of text, used usually in case the reference is to non-English source which the editors have translated. If there are any specific uncited parts of text you'd like referenced, please add fact templates; I have added refs to all facts that other editors requested.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:03, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment So you're telling me for a simple inline citation I have to wade through sentences upon sentences of text? If you have a comment to make, make it in the body of the text. LuciferMorgan 23:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Further comment I just added some fact templates - when you've finished with them leave a message on my talk page so I can then add more fact templates for the facts I want confirmed - most are concerning specific numerical numbers. Thanks for taking the time to help this article. LuciferMorgan 00:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks. It may take me some days to go over them, I hope there are no deadlines on the FARC and I (and other editors) will have time to go over the citation requests. I will do my best to find sources for them.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Status: No deadlines if you're working. Just let people know when you feel you're done. Marskell 08:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep No major problems to keep it from FA status. Heavily cited, fairly well-written. Let's move on. --MPD01605 (T / C) 02:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove—1a. Here are examples from the lead.
    • The title wrongly uses a hyphen; an en dash is used in the article text.
    • In the second sentence, there are several problems (upper-case here), including wrong use of em dashes: "The war was a result of conflicting expansionist attempts — by Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established following the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, to secure territories which she had lost at the time of partitions or earlier — and by the Soviets, who aimed at control of the same territories, which had been part of Imperial Russia until the turbulent events of the Great War." Try this: "The war was a result of conflicting expansionist attempts: by Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established following the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, to secure territories she had lost at the time of partitions OR? earlier; and by the Soviets, who aimed TO control THE same territories, which had been part of Imperial Russia until the Great War." In any case, consider not using spaces around em dashes—where the text column is small, adjacent to maps and infoboxes, they cause problems. And the sentence is rather too long.
    • "having won the conflict with West Ukrainian People's Republic"—no, THE West ...
    • Poor sentence structure, e,g., "Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand in the Russian Civil War and advance westward towards the disputed territories and by the end of 1919 a clear front had formed." "To" might be inserted before "advance", as well.

Someone has already complained about the writing, in the review process above, yet 1a is absent from the list of concerns here. Tony 03:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment If Tony feels criterion 1. a. isn't met, then it's up to those who wish to save it to address his concerns. And as for moving on as MPD01605 said, no frankly. There's specific opinions and numbers still uncited in the article which need addressing. Look at the actual article, and not just how many cites an article has - that's lazy reviewing as far as I'm concerned. LuciferMorgan 13:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

  • The dash doesn't seem very serious, if somebody actually understands which one to use, please do so (the article has recently been moved because of it; to me it's honestly a 'mystery'). As for copyedit, there are no English native speakers working on the article, and to my knowledge there is no wikiproject offering copyedit; thus I cannot address this issue easily (it took me over a week to find a copyeditor for my newest FAC, and I had to ask over 10 people on the talk pages before one person replied). As for referenced, we have added citation to most of those you requested; the few that remain are not critical and I think they will be cited (or removed) soon.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm very sure you'll fill the cites, and commend you for doing so. As for finding copyeditors, well you have my sympathy. They're hard to come by aren't they? LuciferMorgan 03:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I am trying my hand at copyediting this article. Please allow me some time to complete it. However, I believe the article could benefit from the use of summary style. Moving less relevant content to daughter articles. Joelito (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. This is obviously very comprehensive, and well-cited and I'm inclined toward keep. The prose remains so-so, however, and I'm concerned about criteria 4—there is a great deal of repetition and over-explanation. One example for the people involved in the page: cites 17 through 21 have lengthy quotes re the Międzymorze. Can those be moved to that page and away from here? I just paused my editing because my head began to ache trying to figure out where cites end and regular prose begins.
    • I know this has been up six weeks, but there's no harm in trying to tighten up the page further. Marskell 08:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I have recently added some of those cites to Międzymorze - feel free to remove text from citations in PSW and/or move more of them there. Such citations I feel more often belong on Wikiquote or quote sections than on Wikipedia.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I'll note when I am finished the surgery. Marskell 06:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Since the article is in more capable hands I will not copyedit it any further. Joelito (talk) 14:09, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove. This review has gone on for seven weeks now, there are still cite needed tags, the lead is too long, there are prose problems per Tony's analysis, and the article still needs to make better use of Summary style. Enough time has been allowed to address these issues, and progress seems stalled. Sandy (Talk) 20:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
    • There are no longer any cite needed tags (I removed unverifiable information). The lead consists of three paras, it fits requirements of WP:LEAD. Prose has been copyedit by several editors. As for summary style, please elaborate on talk of the article which sections you'd like to see further summarized.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I believe most objections have been addressed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. The work has not stalled and Tony's specifics have been addressed with the exception of the hyphen in the title (does anyone else notice that hyphens and en dashes look exactly the same in edit mode?). It's big, so editing takes time. After a mid-level edit (basically eliminating redundancy) I think criterion 4 will be satisfied; then I'd like to go back for the micro stuff (uniform date format, use of dashes). Piotrus, note I've added three fact requests today to uncited paras—it's a bit robotic just placing them on the end of paras like this, but the level of sourcing does weaken somewhat in the last half. Marskell 07:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Unfortunately, I will not be able to edit this further for the timebeing, but I am satisfied that any remaining concerns do not rise to remove, having gone over much. When the article gets past the prelude to the actual war, it moves fairly briskly; in the prelude and related I've cut about 5 k (much of it buried notes) and I think criterion 4 is met in the early sections now. The LEAD is an appropriate length relative to the body. Yes, it's long, but "comprehensiveness not length" cuts both ways, and if you exclude the mass of notes I'd guess this tips in around 70k, which is acceptable.
  • Finally, I know it's a pain in the ass, but can you do one thing Piotrus: de-link all of the dates that are not attached to a year and/or are not seminal to this topic and choose a uniform format (1 January or January 1—I prefer the latter, but it must be consistent, in any case). Marskell 07:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Considering Marskell's work, as soon as Piotrus finishes the date de-linking, I'll change to Keep. Sandy (Talk) 09:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)