Talk:Khimki War Memorial

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] POV

The article has factually wrong statements (two pilots, not six, etc.), fails to maintain NPOV. If you read Russian, please check

http://drugoi.livejournal.com/2161390.html

Yury Petrachenko 16:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you please point out the POV facts? Everything on the page has valid sources, including several sources saying "six pilots". I am going to remove that {{TotallyDisputed}} tag now, don't reinstate it unless you can actually demonstrate some POV in the article. DLX 16:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't have time to look for English-language sources. I suggest that you put the tag back in case there are other editors willing to check the facts. Most media sources are biased. I also suggest to tag it a "current event". Yury Petrachenko 17:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it should work the other way - no POV tag until someone can actually find anything POV about it. But current events tag is an excellent idea. DLX 17:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely it's a POV since the position of Khimki officials remains unexplained, while the article cites Baltic press which is biased. Only reason why a Baltic paper would write about Khimki incident is to compare this case with Tallinn events. Lantios 17:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not aware that Moscow Times is Baltic press. Besides, your position itself is biased and POV, as you automatically presume that anything reported by Baltic Press is biased. Come up with a reason for POV and the tag will remain. Now it will go, as you have failed totally to give a reason for it. DLX 17:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, here's a few (disputed) facts:
I think that Estonian sources in the article are a POV. The Moscow Times links are not available (requires subscription). Again, I don't have time to look for English sources, I suggest tagging the article so that more editors can come and edit. Yury Petrachenko 18:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Go ahead, and edit the article to be NPOV - but please remember that blogs are not valid and give acceptable sources for all claims. When there is a controversy (like with number of pilots), I recommend giving both sources and opinions - we have no right to prefer one such source to another, unless one view is backed by several similar articles in different places. Also, calling Estonian (actually Canadian) newspapers without valid reasons is not acceptable. The article in question was written by Paul Goble [1], I doubt that you can really call him "biased". Remember to stay objective yourself, please. DLX 18:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about the "Estonian sources", I didn't mean to offend. This is a current event, there are not many secondary sources yet. I will not edit the article for now. If the proper tags are there, other editors may do this better. Yury Petrachenko 18:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other wargraves

Do we need an article on the relocation of German war remains like those around Stalingrad that had to relocated to Germany because of looting ?? Kernel Saunters 10:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you give some sources on that topic, please? DLX 13:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reburial, May 6

I am adding a valuable link (in Russian) about the reburial. The blog "drugoi.livejournal.com" is the most readable and authoritative blog in Russia [2] (currently). The post below easily qualifies to be a [primary source] to the subject matter (an eyewitness account of a journalist and professional photographer). Anyone who wants to expand this article should at least have a look. (There are online translators from Russian.)

http://drugoi.livejournal.com/2179809.html

Yury Petrachenko 19:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable?

Anyone can argue that this is (or would be) a notable article? Yury Petrachenko 19:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Very much so. Even search in English gives several newspaper articles, Russian probably far more. DLX 05:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sure that you, being a major contributor to this article, think the memorial is notable. However, I am looking for someone else's opinions too. Let's start with English, I googled as you proposed. A search for the three words returns 519 results. To find sources independent from the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn controversy, I now exclude results that contain Tallinn or Estonia (here). As you can see, now we have "only" 92 results. I manually and routinely looked through all of them. I found three' references to this specific memorial (in which the memorial is somehow a part of the narrative):

  1. The whereabouts of the remains... (The Moscow Times, April 28 2007)
  2. Scandal Heats Up Over Missing Remains... (The Moscow News, date not shown)
  3. [link to Post Chronicle removed]

Please correct me if I missed something. The first two "news" are untrue, there were no "missing remains" scandal. I am now searching for the term used specifically in this order "khimki war memorial" (I can't work out the link in here, try google). I only see 9 results, 8 of them are based (or are?) this wikipedia article, and there's one time when it is mentioned in someone's blog comment [3]. Yury Petrachenko 07:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I do understand why you want to remove this article. However, there is no denying that it is notable - there are quite a lot news articles about this in English and great many more in other languages. Trying to close our collective eyes and pretend it didn't happen will not make it true. DLX 07:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Google news search: [4] DLX 07:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
However, [5]. Only one news article would not mention Estonia. It means that they use the memorial to support a POV on the Tallin solder.Yury Petrachenko 07:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not saying that "it didn't happen", only that it is not an encyclopedic material at this point. Please don't assume bad faith in me.Yury Petrachenko 07:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


I am not assuming bad faith - you have been very clear-headed and rational while discussing these rather controversial topics; however, please don't claim POV without proof. Of course they are comparing removal of Khimki and Stavropol monuments with Bronze Soldier - why can Russia do something like that, then suppress the protests with force, while encouraging riots in an independent country... Also, "one news article would not mention Estonia" - below is link "See all 8 articles". DLX 07:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not claiming POV in this section. If an article uses the memorial only to support a POV on the Tallinn soldier, it would not be a good source here.Yury Petrachenko 08:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
On "see all 8 articles". Consider this [6]. Only two articles (after Google excluded duplicates) are about the memorial: [7], [8]. If you look there, they are obviously quite dependent. I can also say that many news that have 1000+ mentions in Google news do not have independent articles in Wikipedia and will not have (they may appear as a section or a paragraph)Yury Petrachenko 08:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to edit this article some more tonight - remove "POV" material, add new sources that have been published in last 24h etc. Hopefully you will agree with me then, that the topic is notable. I'm at advanced .NET training atm... bit hard to check all the sources just now... DLX 08:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comparisons with the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn: not always appropriate

There are a number of secondary sources that claim that the comparison is inappropriate. Please do not remove these sources without discussion here. I don't trust many of these sources myself, but we need to take them into consideration.Yury Petrachenko 05:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

All these sources are about claims of Russian officials, which in context of the Bronze Soldier can't be considered as NPOV. I agree to keep these sources, but it should be clearly stated as point of view, not as fact. Propose to add "according to the Russian sources" before the words "not always properly"
Also, using of quotation marks for the word removal is a POV, and therefore should be removed.
Also, the sentences "This was later proved to be not true." certainly needs a reference. 80.235.55.122 12:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Many sources (primary and secondary) imply that the old monument is still where it was. To the best of my investigative abilities, a new monument has been built and the remains were reburied there. There are two memorials now: the old one near the Lavochkin NPO and the new one in the Alley of Heroes. The latter is now also a grave for the "six pilots". I can't find a single English-language source for this (that's why I think this article is about a non-notable monument, see above). There are many sources (especially old-dated) that claim or imply that the monument was demolished. This issue is already addressed in the article.

If you agree for a moment that the monument was not removed, all your concerns mostly go away:

  1. The inappropriateness ("not always") of the use of the Khimki memorial in the context of its been "demolished by Russian authorities" is not a POV, but a verifiable fact. (I do remember that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth.)
  2. The use of quotation marks is justified then.
  3. Whether or not a bone was left out is still not clear. (There is an ongoing investigation which may take months to resolve. I guess more info will come up later.)
  4. The alleged use of a bulldozer is another matter. After reading all the sources I am convinced that it was not used, certainly not when the remains were in the grave. It is also not supported by a video (see link on this talk page above).

So, this all comes down to whether the monument was removed or not. Do you agree with this? I think no edits are required to address your issues right now (adding new sources never hurts) (Please, let's discuss it all here without edit-warring.)

As a note, I think it's hard to find truly independent sources. The publications on-line are often simply restatements of other publications and thus do not make a claim being supported by "multiple independent sources", which is a requirement in Wikipedia. Yury Petrachenko 02:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Photos of the old and the new monuments (shot May 13, 2007): http://picasaweb.google.com/jetteim/20070513 Yury Petrachenko 17:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Reference 11 contains many informations and opinions of 3 people. It's not right to quote it only as "not always appropriately" source. Xx236 07:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

How would you quote it then? Yury Petrachenko 13:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Khimki Reburial May 6 2007.jpg

Image:Khimki Reburial May 6 2007.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 06:43, 7 November 2007 (UTC)