Talk:Hrisi Avgi/Archive 3

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Request for help from a neutral, Greek-speaking editor

The sources for this article need to be checked by a Greek speaker - we need someone who doesn't self-identify as a party supporter and a "white nationalist" to confirm that the sources are not being misrepresented. --SandyDancer 01:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you please specify for which sources you need confirmation? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 07:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much all of those in Greek! --SandyDancer 14:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, there are 54 refs and very few of them are not in Greek, so, what you're asking is a bit much ;) Anyhow, to cut down on the number of disputed sources, it was me that added most of them, excluding the ones from the ENF and H.A. websites. I did try quite hard to keep to reputable sources and as you may find out from a bit of googling, they are reputable: they are mainly from the newspapers Eleftherotypia, Ta Nea and Kathimerini and also from in.gr. The papers are widely circulated, mainstream news outlets, and in.gr is also a mainstream news portal owned by the same company that owns Ta Nea.
Apart from these (imho uncontroversial) sources we have two more classes of Greek language sources: one is the Ios articles and another the H.A. articles. Of course Ios is (imho again) far far far more credible that H.A. It must be noted that Ios has a clear leftist alignment, and that that is quite well known in Greece. However, (imho again) this leftist alignment only affects comments and language that Ios uses, not content. And the sources from Ios have been used to document content, not judgment, because Ios (being left wing) has studied extensively the Greek neo-nazi "scene". Also, note that Ios publish their articles on (as I said earlier, mainstream) Eleftherotypia, not some obscure partisan brochure. In a sense, Ios itself is mainstream.
Oh, by the I was informed by Mitsos that you have been quarelling as to weather there should be reference to Ios' political alignment. If you want my opinion, It should be noted once: the first time Ios is mentioned. And that only for the shake of clarity. Ios' political alignment in no way diminishes the truth of what they report.
Moving on. I think that leaves us only with those sources that come from Hrisi Avgi. In particular I would expect reference #38 to raise suspicion, as it is a HA reference that is said to contain a whole article by a mainstream newspaper (Vradini). I can confirm that the HA piece does contain the said article. It is at the bottom and it is used by HA to make a point. In fact, HA criticizes Vradini for not agreeing with their story.
If there is anything else I could help out with, please ask me. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 17:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no trust in this world... Mitsos 09:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

lol Baristarim 10:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

"Ios is (imho again) far far far more credible that H.A" False. Also, a source from To Vima is widely used, this is also a mainstream newspaper. Mitsos 11:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Dimitris Kousouris

Please merge any relevant content from Dimitris Kousouris per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimitris Kousouris. Or, a new article on the incident involving him should be created. Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-29 06:24Z

What is grammatically correct?

"Article (by, from, in) X newspaper"? Please tell me so a I can fix that in "footnotes" section. Mitsos 09:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. If an article appears in a newspaper you should say "article in The Times", not "article by The Times". This is because the article is not written by the newspaper itself, rather it is written by a journalist and then published by the newspaper. --SandyDancer 13:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, aside from collaborative projects like Wikipedia, articles aren't usually written by a team of people. Spylab 13:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who exactly wrote these articles, but I know that Ios is a team of 5-6 (I think) journalists of Eleftherotypia, known for being left-wing. Mitsos 13:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Not really relevant. --SandyDancer 13:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Newspaper alignments

For one thing, Eleftherotypia is not leftist, Rizospastis is. And for another, the political orientation of the reporting paper is completely irrelevant. It would be relevant if we were discussing what comment Eleftherotypia published about HA, not what "E" published as a reportage about something that happened. I'm putting this here instead of reverting as this article has seen a lot of edit warring recently. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 22:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you - but as you, say - lots of edit warring. I was willing to see Eleftherotypia described as "left-leaning" in the end because Spylab presented that as a compromise, and also because the WP article on the newspaper describes it as such. But as you say, we don't describe the political orientation of newspapers elsewhere so why should we here? Seems to me the insistence of doing so by Mitsos is an attempt to imply the matters of fact they were reporting were somehow untrue due to biased reporting - so in other words, as I originally said, the "left-leaning" bit is a POV qualifier from Mitsos. I have removed it. --SandyDancer 00:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Look E is not an internationaly known newspaper and the reader must know that it is left-leaning. It's a compromise and it was introduced by spylab. Mitsos 10:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

What is there to have a compromise about? Eleftherotypia is the biggest Greek newspaper and is as left-leaning as The Guardian or Liberation. Why is it necessary to include its political orientation? Is that orientation in any way getting in the way of the facts the paper reports? Also, check the comments by me and Sandy above. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 10:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Eleftherotypia is not only Leftist but exceptionally so. One would have to be quite far to the Left in order to characterize it as simply "Left-leaning". Eleftherotypia's ideological biases are quite explicit, as is the newspaper's hostility to ideologies outside of the Left. This explains Leftist extremists' preference for Eleftherotypia when they commit a terrorist act and want to get good publicity for their group to the Greek public. They don't have to worry about Eleftherotypia condemning their actions. As far as I know, the Guardian does not have a policy of refusing to denounce Leftist terrorist acts. The fact that Eleftherotypia is mainstream (i.e. widely circulated and read) is irrelevant in regards to how serious or credible the newspaper itself is. The Village Voice, for instance, characterized Eleftherotypia as a "left-wing tabloid".[1] Also, the fact that Eleftherotypia refuses to debate ideological adversaries by refusing to publish their letters (or excluding the parts of substance of their letters in the rare instances when they are published) seems to indicate that political orientation does indeed get in the way the facts are presented by this newspaper. Critias 02:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Copying and translating from mine and Mitsos talk pages

I'd to remind you, Michalis, that it was you that proposed to have in the article the political orientation of Ios, in a discussion we had. I see you forget easily. Mitsos 10:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The political oreintation of Ios, yes. But you are labelling the whole newspaper! --Michalis Famelis (talk) 10:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Not me. It was Spylab and SandyDancer that did not want there to be a reference to "Iospess journalist team". You can put it back if you like, however "left-leaning" has to stay. Mitsos 10:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
And anyway, Eleftherotypia is left-wing. Mitsos 10:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You still have not answered why you insist that it "has to stay" and you have not answered any of the previous comments. And no, Eleftherotypia is not left-wing as a whole, in the same way that pasok is not left-wing. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 10:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's the biggest Greek newspaper, and it cannot be compared to The Guardian. I think we must state that it is left-leaning, because this isn't known to the public (opposite to the Guardian). In my opinion, Eleftherotypia's Ios, is the Greek Searchlight not the Greek Guardian. And when you are refering to Searchlight you must state that it is left-wing. "Left-leaning" is a compromise. Mitsos 10:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Eleytherotypia is not exactly PASOK. However, the sources come from Ios and Ios is left-wing. I 've answered above about the rest. "Left-leaning" must stay because it is information that the reader must know. It is simple. Mitsos 11:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Nikolaos Michaloliakos - Merge Proposal

I'm proposing the article on Nikolaos Michaloliakos, former leader of Hrisi Avgi, be merged into this one. Three principal (and interlinked) reasons, in descending order of importance (as I see it):

  1. Duplication - most of what is said in the article about the man is already in the article about the party - and correctly so.
  2. Verifiability - a lack of third party, reliable sources which meet Wikipedia's standards. Next to nothing in English. See Google search here - as you will see, excluding Wikipedia itself, most of what you get are blogs and self-published websites. There doesn't seem to be anything much we can verify which can be included in a biography. This makes the argument on duplication more compelling - because this article isn't therefore going to grow (he is a figure of the past, so new sources are unlikely to emerge), the situation on that front will not improve.
  3. Notability - query whether this person is notable enough by himself to justify an article - refer again to Google search here. Do we really think an article would be necessary, even if we did have more to say about him which we could verify (which we don't and won't)?

On the basis of the above, the merger would be extremely easy and neat - we'd need perhaps a small section on Michaloliakos, and the photograph of him could be ported over - but that would be it. Much of the content is already in this article. --SandyDancer 00:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Support: apart from his involvement with Hrisi Avgi, there is little else that could be interesting about this guy. Merge merge merge. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 10:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose He is also the writer of some books and a leading member of Patriotic Alliance. If Dimitrios Zaphiropoulos is notable, then he is too. The basic reason is that what is in Michaloliako's article is not already in this artice. There are lots of different information in that article. Mitsos 10:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe not the right place to discuss this, but he is not notable at all as a writer. And as far as Patriotic Alliance is concerned, when talking about such small, fringe parties, even the leader having an article on his own is much. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 10:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I know he is not notable as a writer, but he is notable for being the leader of HA. The sources are fine (none is in english but the sources are neutral, except from the HA ones), and there is diferent information about him on his own artice. I totaly oppose. Mitsos 10:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Mitsos, you haven't really addressed my points. Adn the argument of "X has an article, so why shouldn't Y?" never, ever, ever works on Wikipedia - and rightly so. In all honesty I didn't expect any other response from you other than to oppose this proposal - you have said your piece, as you are entitled to do. Now please let others comment. --SandyDancer 12:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

About Ios claims

Ios is not a serious source. For example, Ios claims that HA has links to the Greek Police. There is evidence for the opposite, such as the arrest of 48 members of HA. I have seen also other evidence, and you must see them too [2]. I 'm not going to add this to the artice, but I want you to know the truth. Mitsos 12:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

And, to be honest, I have heard the argument of Ios that members of HA are throwing stones to the participants of march for the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, and in Villa Amalias (anarchist occupied building in Athens), by other people too. First of all, if this really happened, we don't know if these were really members of HA. I have heard (by an anarchist) the argument that they were shouting "Aima Timi Hrisi Avgi" (Blood and Honour Golden Dawn, a slogan used by HA members). I don't think this is true. I mean, why would they have done something like that, exposing that they were members of HA? Anyway, only anarchists claim that, and the articles of Ios various newspapers are based on anarchist and anti-fascist claims. The article by Ta Nea claiming that Periandros had links to the police, was proven wrong because he finaly surrendered. A neutral observer must not believe the anti-fascist claims or HA's claims. Because, in case you don't know, HA claims that the anarchists and anti-fascists have links to the police [3]. Mitsos 12:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

As time goes on, you seem to get more, not less, unreasonable. Mitsos - saying that mainstream media can't be used to reference statements of fact, but that a neo-nazi party's website is OK, is a total non-starter. --SandyDancer 12:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't said that. Except if by "mainstream media" you mean Ios. Mitsos 12:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Ios isn't the source. The newspaper is. The newspaper is mainstream. --SandyDancer 16:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Evangelos Mallios

We seem to have yet another dispute here - is it fair to describe this person as a "torturer". I have added a source from the Greek Embassy in LA which describes him as "cashiered police officer and junta-era torturer Evangelos Mallios". I hope that settles the matter. Just because he wasn't tried and convicted, doesn't mean it isn't accepeted fact that he was a torturer. --SandyDancer 21:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Look sandy, personaly I 'm totaly convinced that he was a torturer. My problem is that "torturer" is not encyclopedic. An encyclopedia must be, above all, neutral and formal. That means that when we say that somebody commited a crime (such as torturing prisoners), we must base it on a conviction. If someone is not convicted, that means he is innocent. It is generally considered that Mallios did tortured prisoners, but he was never convicted or even put on trial. As a an encyclopedia, we must state that he was accused of torturing prisoners, but not take this as a fact. I hope that helped to solve the dispute. Btw, the source doesn not come from the embassy. It comes from "Athens News Agency", and it's used by the embassy. Mitsos 22:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be accepted fact - even by official sources (US state department, Greek government). The fact he wasn't tried - and therefore wasn't convicted - is immaterial. You are being unreasoable again, edit-warring for the sake of it. I am changing this back. Be warned that if you revert again, you will be in breach of WP:3RR. --SandyDancer 22:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Athens News Agency is not an official source. Mitsos 22:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The Athens News Agency is state run. See here. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
You've chosen to breach WP:3RR - in a most uncivil manner too ("if you don't understand, that's your problem"). You simply aren't being reasonable here. You have no right to enforce your opinions in this way, in breach of guidelines. There may be a debate to be had but you can't just ignore WP:3RR.
And for the record, Athens News Agency may not be an offical source - but the fact is, the information is on the Greek Embassy website. It has been reproduced there by an official organ of the Greek state - the fact Athens News Agency is cited as a source is neither here nor there. (the Athens News Agency is official, per Michalis Famelis) The same appellation ("torturer") has also been applied to Mallios by the BBC along with other reputable sources. You made your agenda clear with this edit - see diff - you wanted to whitewash the whole matter - on that basis, I question your good faith here, I'm afraid. --SandyDancer 22:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Mitsos, you are speaking unfounded legalese here, trying to pull out a sophistry. It reminds me of arguments raised by some Turkish wikipedians on the Pontic Genocide talk that since the Turkey has not been convicted for genocide, the word genocide is not applicable. Someone who tortures people is a torturer. Mallios tortured people, ergo Mallios was a torturer. The BBC calls him that, the ANA calls him that and the Greek state endorses the ANA report by putting it on an official diplomatic web page. You have been shown neutral and authoritative sources that describe him as such and yet you insist. Calm down a bit dude... --Michalis Famelis (talk) 23:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

To both of you: the fact that the false statements that existed in the article (that the assaults occured during his trial and that he was later convicted) were added by Michalis Famelis and ignored by SandyDancer who only got involved when I tried to correct that, makes me question your good faith. Mitsos 11:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

This is absurd and it derails the conversation. I did add that part, along with the rest of the history section that simply was not there before I came in in this article. The amount of errors is bound to be proportional to the size of a contribution. And the wiki way means that those errors will be eventually fixed. If you see any kind of hidden agenda behind my coming in and bringing the article from a being a little more than a stub to roughly the size it is now, well that's a problem you should tend to, mate. I have not engaged in disrupting editing, I have not edit warred, I have always taken things to the talk page, I have always tried to cooperate and discuss things. I think that proves my good faith. Now, check if you've done any of the above, or if you've done the exact opposite. And try to figure out if your behavior has amounted to good faith editing, or not. Happy new year, και καλά μυαλά... --Michalis Famelis (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, OK, fair enough. I will ony say that it wasn't just who expanded the article, you didn't made all the 111 edits that are described in the difference you linked to. I think you have made huge contributions to the article, but that has nothing to do with Mallios. I accept that you made that by mistake and the discussion ends here. I 'm not exactly known for my good behaviour, but you must believe that all I want is to improve the artice. Καλη Χρονια Mitsos 14:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge per afd

Please merge the following per an AfD discussion. Cbrown1023 17:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Antoniοs Androutsopoulos, known among the members of Hrisi Avgi as Periandros, (born c. 1966) is a former leading member of the Greek neo-Nazi organization Hrisi Avgi (Golden Dawn). He also the writer of a book called The secret of the conch.[4] On 25 September 2006 he was found guilty and sentenced by an Athens court to 21 years in prison for attempted murder after violently attacking three student unionists (including Dimitris Kousouris) in June 1998 in front of an Athens courthouse. Androutsopoulos, who escaped after the attack, surrendered himself to police in 2005. His long period on the run was facilitated by delays in the investigation against him, which at the time fueled suspicions of police complicity.

External links

This article seems to be free publicity for the party

I find it odd that this article about a fringe neo-Nazi party that got 0.07% of the votes cast in the 1996 Greek election (and which supposedly broke up in 2005) has an article that is a lot longer than the articles for the mainstream parties that sit in the current Greek parliament. See List of political parties in Greece. Much of this article was written and edited by an admitted staunch supporter of the party (who has been banned from Wikipedia several times, including for his actions related to this article). An overwhelming number of the references are from the party itself or close allies (or in Greek language and filtered by the above-mentioned supporter of the party). A lot of the article seems to be free advertising for the party, such as the huge Ideology section, which merely copies and pastes the party's views word-for-word. I haven't seen a similar section in Wikipedia articles about other, much more important, political parties.Spylab 02:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Look, I also think that articles about mainstream political parties must be expanded, and that HA is of minor importance. Anyway, about this article, it was mostly Michalis Famelis who expanded it, and since I saw that it was already long I offered to expand it because I know much about that party (not because I wanted to advertise it). This Wikipedia article is certainly not "good" publicity for HA, because it reports many attacks against immigrants commited by its members (supposedly). About the sources, their neutrality has been confirmed by Michalis Famelis above. HA sources are used only in sentences that begin with "HA claimed that...". About HA's notability: Altough it is of minor electoral importance (the highest percent was 0.75), it is the only neo-nazi organisation in Greece, and in a way it is identified with the Greek neo-nazi movement. In Greece, when someone refers to neo-nazis he would rarely use the word neo-nazi. He would use the word "Hrisavgitis" which means "HA member" in Greek, even if the neo-nazis he refers are not members of HA! PS: HA seems to be re-starting it activities now, see above section. Mitsos 19:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no need to include vast tracts of propaganda in the article. The article should tell the reader about the party, but does not need to help promote its ideologies. Look at the articles for other political parties - from around the world - they don't include sections like this. Wikipedia is not a place to get free publicity for your views, regardless of what those views are. --SandyDancer 23:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Wery well said! The article does need some streamlining Rastapopoulos 11:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I made some compromise for this. I hope you will appreciate that. Mitsos 21:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have not made changes to the "compromise" on the ideology section suggested by Mitsos. I have made other changes and identified them in detail in edit summaries. In particular I think the claim made by the party leader about it "entering the political mainstream" needed to be taken out. I don't see what purpose it serves other than to make the suggestion that somehow this is true, particularly due to its placement in the article. --SandyDancer 00:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I re-added some important information that was deleted from intro. Michaloliakos is said to be the one who founded HA, but we must also say in intro that he remained the leader since then. The sources I deleted and SandyDancer re-added, are about Evangelos Mallios (nothing to do with HA) and since he is not mentioned in the article anymore, the sources must not remain. I re-added the statement of Zaphiropoulos (who is not the "leader of HA" as Sandy - who propably doesn't read the article and is just reverting my edits out of spite - says) because it is used to make a point (that HA was strengthened in 1991-1992). I placed the images in their former positions, because the article looks better that way (the 20006 HA magazine cover doesn't need to be in the part that is about 2006, it's just a typical HA magazine cover). Also Spylab, one of the captions you supposedly "fixed", was edited incorrectly (the image was the cover of the HA newspaper, while the caption said it was the cover of HA magazine). I re-added a part of the ideology section, because it is not propaganda taken from the website, it is about the ideological nature of the party, and half of the sources in the part of the section I added come from Ios. Mitsos 18:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Mitsos' response to my edits (accusing me of "spite") is a breach of WP:AGF, and in any case he doesn't even address my fully explained edit. I am removing the claim about the party being in the political mainstream because, although a quote, is in fact an attempt at editorialising by the back door. I am also going to change "devotees" back to "supporters" as it's simply a more appropriate word. --SandyDancer 20:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your second edit. About the quote, I don't think it is editorialising. As I said, it is used to make a point and, in fact, it wasn't added by me. Mitsos 14:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the words 'left-leaning'

In the context used, they were pretty much the definition of weasel words, the sentence refers later to 'left-wing students'; the attempted link is obvious. Plus, the newspaper is referred at least four more times in this article without this words. Why here then? If anyone seriously disputes the factual accuracy of the newspaper's report, then do it in a proper manner. If you plan to revert the edit, please explain first. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Treiskaitetarto (talk • contribs) 05:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC).