Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board/Archive 6

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Articles needing attention
Polish monarchs and their redirects, Slavophile, Prussia, Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish-Soviet War, Soviet partisans in Poland, Polish Corridor, Polish September Campaign, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, Nazi Germany, Polish contribution to World War II, Prometheism, Toruń, Polonization, Armia Krajowa

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Polish Wikipedians Notice board
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Contents

Polish money, NBP and fair use

Aotearoa from Poland (talk · contribs) is removing {{money}} from images of Polish money (see his contribs). If he has his way, those images will be deleted. Comments are needed urgentlu (preferably on his userpage), as untagged images are prime targets for deletion (bot-automated).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

What are the essential merits of the matter? Does Poland object to electronic circulation of its currency? logologist|Talk 04:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


Ustawa z dnia 4 lutego 1994 o prawie autorskim i znakach pokrewnych (DZ.U. 1994 NR. 24 poz. 83) ART.4 Nie stanowia przedmiotu prawa autorskiego:
2) urzędowe dokumenty, materiały, znaki lub symbole
Article 4 of polish copyright law: The following are not subject to copyright law:
2) goverment documents, materials, signs or symbols
The polish curreency is an official "znak pieniężny RP" (ustawa o NBP) (currency sign") so in my opinion it is clear that images of the polish currency are not subject to copyright law.Mieciu K 15:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC) We should also create a template {{polish money}} or {{art.4PLcopyright}} to tag articles under that category. Mieciu K 15:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

In Polish low "currency mark" (not "currency sign"; in Polish “znak” = in English: "sign" or "mark" or "token" or "signal") is synonym of "banknote and coin" (not a image of banknotes or coins), so "currency mark" isn’t "sign" because "currency mark" is real money. Aotearoa from Poland 21:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I suggest calling it "Polish currency," not "Polish money." 04:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
According to the view of the former supreme court judge Tadeusz Szymanek images of "new" złoty banknotes are not subjected to copyright law (I am in a posesion of an mp3 recording of a lecture to prove it). Can you show us any polish laws or opinions of renowned polish lawyers to counter this view? Mieciu K 20:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Another Polish queen being moved.

Gryffindor is working on moving another Polish queen — this time, Marie Josepha, consort of August III the Saxon. KonradWallenrod 05:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks like he added category Habsburg-Lorraine to the article. What exactly is the problem? Appleseed (Talk) 18:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it looks like they're voting to move on the talk page. Appleseed (Talk) 18:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Zygmunt Krzyżanowski

Sigizmund_Krzhizhanovsky Although wrtiting in Russian he considered himself a Pole[1]. A Polish version of his name should be given and category changed from Russian to Ukrainian and Polish writer. --Molobo 19:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

pisał wprawdzie po rosyjsku, jednak do końca życia uważał się za Polaka przebywającego w Rosji na emigracji Hmmm. An English source for that would be useful. While I do think Polish name shoud be incuded - as well as the above fragment, translated - I am not sure if category of Polish artists falls here. As a compromise we should definetly keep the Russian/Ukrainians categories.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

To be a "Polish writer", one must contribute to Polish literature. By calling those who didn't as Polish writers, one may make an impression that Polish literature has so little to offer that it has to co-opt the authors of other literatures to look decent, an obviously false claim. Take a look at List of Russian authors. It starts from: "This is the list of authors that wrote in Russian language. Not all of them are of Russian descent." This pretty much sums it up.

Those interested, may check how the similar dispute was resolved at Talk:Nikolai Gogol (and well as the Gogol's article itself). Krzhizhanovsky is OK in the cat:Polish people but not Polish writers. --Irpen 02:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good point. If he wrote in Russian than we can hardly call him a Polish writer, can we?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
It depends on whether we treat the category of Polish writers as a sub-category of Polish people by occupation or a sub-category of Polish language. If it's the earlier (and it is, I believe), then it ought to list Polish people who used to write something (including Joseph Conrad). If it's the latter, it should include only Polish language writers. //Halibutt 06:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

nazwy artykułów partii politycznych

Cześć,

szybkie pytanko -- linkiem interwiki dotarłem na Real Politics Union (aka UPR). Parę klików dalej zauważyłem, że Law and Justice przezentuje sobą to samo. Czy były w przeszłości jakieś dyskusje nt. tłumaczenia/nie tłumaczenia nazw polskich partii? Prezydenta mamy tam gdzie należy, a nie pod Lech Duck... --Qviri (talk) 03:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll reply in English for the benefit of non-Polish speakers readers of our board. Since in Polish we say 'Demokraci', 'Republikanie', 'brytyjscy laburzyści', itp., and names of those parties are translated to Polish on pl-wiki (vide pl:Partia Pracy (brytyjska)), I see no problem in using English names for Polish parties here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. Sorry for no English originally, I was tired and didn't think it would be a big deal if I didn't translate. Thanks. --Qviri (talk) 12:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Russian occupation

Recentely user Ghirlandajo [2] has entered information that could be seen as unneutral in several articles regarding occupation of Poland by Russia and effects of it. Users interested in this are welcomed to share their comments. --Molobo 13:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rydel

Ghirla and Kuban Cossack against Rydel - I think this may be interesting.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Muscovy#Ghirla_rever_.2F_Petr_pestering

Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


Translations of Polish placenames into English

These translations of Polish province names into English! Good God! Where did we get these aberrations from? Cuiavia-Pomerania? Never heard of it in all my life! Let's just stick to the Polish names (minus the accented letters). Whatever next? The Boat's Voivodship or the Holy Cross Voivodship! It's like the Polish translator's passion for turning 'ul. Mickiewicza' into 'Mickiewicz Street'. No one translates 'Bahnhofstrasse' into 'Bahnhof Street' or 'Rue de Paix' into 'Peace Road'. Or indeed 'Oxford Circus' into 'Cyrk Oksfordski' or 'Marlborough Street' into 'ul. Marlborough'a'

I am keen to see the principle of reciprocity on Wikipedia. The Polish site does not attempt to translate British place names into Polish, other than London/Londyn. So why the attempts to translate Polish place names into English (other than Warszawa/Warsaw)?

Michael Dembinski

Agree wholeheartedly (except for the idea of dropping Polish diacritics). Another example: the recent move of Wisła River to "Vistula River." The only Polish name that I, too, "translate" into English — for now — is "Warsaw." It seems that some of our Polish English-Wikipedia editors insist on being more English-speaker than the English-speakers!
If you habitually show such good judgment and grasp of the relations between the Polish and English languages, I hope you will stick around.
It would be nice if you signed-and-dated your postings by striking the tilde sign four times in succession.
I also suggest you put your postings at the bottom of the pile. I almost missed the above one, and I fear most of our colleagues will. Maybe you'd consider moving it to the bottom?
Regards, logologist|Talk 15:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry mates! New user, me, don't know how to do these things. Felt too strongly about the issue to read the small print.

Michael Dembinski 22:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


We should also consider what to do with Święty Krzyż Voivodship. It seems that, according to Google, this formulation exists only on Wikipedia. What is wrong with Świętokrzyskie Voivodship? That is what the article title was until January 1, 2006, when User:Logologist moved it to the current name. Balcer 16:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with Świętokrzyskie Province. I now agree with that rendering. (But compare all the other province — as I render województwo — names with the previous "Englishings," one or two of which have, unfortunately, now been restored). logologist|Talk 17:24, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I have a problem with the Polish diacritics. They all come out as little squares on my screen. One reason why I find the Polish Wikipedia hard work. FYI - Standard BBC translation since the 1999 administrative reforms in Poland have 'województwo' as 'province'. I'm relatively comfortable with 'voivodship' but loathe 'voivodeship' (like, is it pronouced 'voy - vod - eship' or 'voy - voad - ship'?). Again, English speakers have no problems with either French Departements or German Lande.

--Michaeldembinski 20:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

On most recent computers diacritics are no longer a problem. What kind of software are you using? Balcer 20:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Win98 at home and WinXP in the office. When editing this, I can see 'Święty Krzyż' all right, but in the viewing page I see '[]w[]ty Krzy[]' All Polish diacritics come out as [] (closed) squares. Puts me right off Polish Wikipedia. I've tried all kinds of coding, and use MS IE or Firefox; makes no difference. What's the secret?--Michaeldembinski 21:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

While I agree with most of your points, I think that there are more exceptions to consider than just Warsaw. Consider the proposal at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Regarding your display problem, you may want to check Wikipedia:Unicode. You probably need to install some Unicode font on affected computers - that from my experience solves the problem in most cases.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Proke, I'm set to UTF-8, nothing but squares. Where does one get these fonts from?

'More exceptions... than just Warsaw'? Are you thinking of Gdansk? I don't think in this day and age that anyone, other than German speakers, would consider it as anything other than 'Gdansk'. The city is ingrained into the English-speaking world as 'Gdansk' because of the associations with 1980/81, rather than 1939-45. I've only ever heard a tiny handful of English-speakers refer to the city as 'Danzig' and most of those were over 60.

Similarly, I do not expect English speakers to refer to Wilno or Lwów these days.

Incidentally, 'Trojmiasto' must be referred to in English as 'the Tri-City' (hyphenated, capital 'C'); 'Tricity' (pronounced 'Trissity')is a brand name belonging to Bendix[3].

'Krakow' seems to be far better established than 'Cracow' or any variation thereon. 'Krakow' gets 48.1 million results on Google; 'Cracow' a mere 6.7 million. And many of those are from over-eager Polish translators.

'Vistula' I would translate, 'Odra' I would leave (if Oder, then Neisse follows logically on and then Warthe etc etc).

'Beskids'is unnecessary, as are 'Holy Cross Mountains' or 'Sudetens'.

It is simplest to stick to post-1945 Polish placenames without the Polish diacritic marks. It causes least confusion.

--Michaeldembinski 15:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Unicode fonts: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html#wgl4 Vorthax 00:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Just checked with Google. 'Cuiavia-Pomerania' - a mere 222 results - either off Wiki or else in Italian. 'Kujawsko-Pomorskie' (just English-language sites) - a crushing 281,000 results.

What's the procedure for changing all these pseudotranslations on Wiki back into Polish, before too many people get confused? --Michaeldembinski 16:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit the articles and use the Wikipedia:Requests for move when necessary.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Poglish

Please review the article Poglish and decide whether it should be deleted. Thanks. --Nagle 07:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest deletion. This word simply does not see enough use to merit its own Wikipedia article. Google shows only 61 hits. Most of these are either reproductions of Wikipedia content, or are completely unrelated. This matter properly belongs in a subsection of our Polish language article. Balcer 13:19, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
And shall we also delete the rest of the family: "Spanglish," "Franglais," "Chinglish," "Czenglish," "Engrish," "Finglish," "Hinglish," "Taglish," "Yinglish" and all the others? logologist|Talk 15:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Not Spanglish, as Google shows 3,400,000 hits for it! Let me turn this question around: do you propose to create articles on all combinations of [[<insert language here>glish]]? Please move the material in Poglish to a subsection of some other article and change it into a redirect. Wikipedia is not a place for creating or promoting neologisms. Balcer 15:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Which article? "Polish language"? "English language"? Also, if you look at the "Poglish" discussion page, you'll find that Nagle's original question arose from an initial misunderstanding, not from malice toward the word. logologist|Talk 16:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Balcer, unless the author can provide some references (I only get 59 Google hits, and not all of them are about the language). There is also the matter of a similar article, Pinglish (Poland). Appleseed (Talk) 15:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
"Pinglish (Poland)" carries a narrower definition. logologist|Talk 16:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Googling Pinglish returns around 14,000 results, but except for the occasional Polish forum post, most of it refers to Persian+English. I'm not sure either of these articles should be on WP. Appleseed (Talk) 17:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Perełka

Check [4]. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

For another one, check Non-German cooperation with Nazis during World War 2#Poland. Balcer 01:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

God's Playground in Google Print

[5]. Good reference source - worth checking often.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Inna perełka

[6] Na podstawie doskonałego opracowania pochądzącego z Carskiej Rosji rok 1912 o Polskich powstaniach :) --Molobo 01:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

History repeats itself

This represents a dangerous development. Alliances of R. and G. POV pushers have a long, if infamous, tradition outside wiki, and I fear what they may do to this project if not addressed properly.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Pan Piotr, I may answer the question for you: such alliances may salvage Wikipedia from your pet troll Molobo and purge it from some of the worst jingoist propaganda that currently brings the project into disgrace. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
"History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history." --Khalil Gibran (Sciurinæ 20:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC))
Let's hope you are right.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That statement seems a little uncalled for. It is better to focus on the topics in dispute than the nationalities of the participating posters. Olessi 21:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but nonetheless nationalities are important. While most R., G., P. (or whatever) editors are good editors, everybody has some 'black sheeps', and they tend to gravitate to the articles related to that country's history. Therefore I am worried about about the R. or G. black sheep more then French or Japanese, and I will monitor and update 'good' editors on the development in that area, so they know where to concentrater their mediation/NPOVing efforts.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus, please stop calling me a black sheep and posting other extremely divisive comments. The only "black sheep" here are three chauvinist contributors whose names are too well known to be mentioned. You know that I never edit Poland-related articles when not provoked by Molobo or yourself. If you need to persevere with personal attacks, you are welcome to start a black list on the model of Halibutt's. The practice of calling me names is not helpful at all. --Ghirla -трёп- 11:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, what's helpful is telling people to "fuck off" like you did not too long ago. Space Cadet 12:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Ghirla: thank you for admitting that your recent edits of Polish articles are a result of a 'provocation'. Now, can you elaborate a little more on that provocation? It would be helpful if we knew what is it that provokes you so much.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:PolandGov rewrite

I would like to cancel the current text of this template and replace it with the following general but very useful text:


"This work is in the public domain because it is a work of the Polish Government. This applies worldwide.
Article 4 of polish copyright law Ustawa z dnia 4 lutego 1994 o prawie autorskim i znakach pokrewnych (DZ.U. 1994 NR. 24 poz. 83):
ART.4 The following are not subject to copyright law:
2) goverment documents, materials, signs or symbols
ART.4 Nie stanowią przedmiotu prawa autorskiego:"
 2) urzędowe dokumenty, materiały, znaki lub symbole

If I'm not mistaken this law allows us to use freely all materials from Polish goverment websites in a way similar to the Template:USGov. If you know polish see this law yourself Mieciu K 21:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC) Comments?

In related news, I have obtained the text of Polish copyright laws from the interwar period - if anybody wants them, let me know and I'll email you.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm interested. Since lex retro non agit the law I hav e mentioned above would only be effctive after 1994 so we should to check the earlier copyright status of "goverment materials" Mieciu K 23:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The principle of lex retro non agit applies only insofar as the law in question is more restrictive or severe as the previous legal situation. Thus, unless there is an explicit provision exempting pre-1994 materials, the Polish government has released all of them into the public domain, regardless of when they were created. --Thorsten1 00:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that PolandGov refers to the www.poland.gov portal and not the government of Poland. Sure, it is a governmental site, but the works featured there are not necessarily works of the Polish government. In fact most of those at the WWII portal of that site are definitely not creations of any governmental agency. //Halibutt 00:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you update us on the progress in saving this template?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

New category

A new Category:East Prussia was just created. I would think Category:Historical East Prussia would be a better name. Any other ideas? Balcer 21:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Renaming it "Historical East Prussia" would imply that there is a "Modern East Prussia" as well, which obviously is not the case. Unlike Silesia, which still exists as a geographical entity, Prussia has thoroughly disappeared from people's cognitive maps. That's why "Historical East Prussia" makes about as much sense as "Historical Roman Empire". --Thorsten1 23:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I am somewhat unhappy with the current name of this category, and with the category in general no matter what name we place it under, as it seems to be opening a new can of worms. Try to imagine for a moment if one started a trend of creating new categories to group cities of various defunct territorial or political units. By this token, all the cities in India would be placed in Category:British India, many cities in Lithuania would get into category Category:Vilnius Voivodship, many cities in Europe could go under the category Category:Roman Empire etc etc. I hope you see the potential problem. Balcer 02:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I created the category when I found a red link for it at Giżycko added over a year ago. I personally don't care if the category is called "East Prussia", "Historical East Prussia", "Prussian province of East Prussia", "Eastern Prussia", or variations thereof, but I do think it is an informative category to have. Keep in mind, there are already in existence categories for historical regions (a quick glance provides Category:Transylvania, Category:Bukovina, Category:Bessarabia, Category:Galicia (Central Europe)). While those have mostly been general geographic regions as opposed to a specific geographic entity like East Prussia, individual cities are listed within those categories. Would you prefer listing cities in Category: Prussia, or would you be opposed to that, as Prussia does not currently "exist" as a geographic entity? My interest in this is primarily to have a category documenting the localities and articles connected with the historical geographic region of Prussia (West and East Prussia), although I personally would find a detailed categorization of the administrative regions of the Kingdom of Prussia informative as well. And, as I am generally an inclusionist, I would probably find your suggested categories informative, but I can see how others would disagree. Olessi 03:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Let me change tack slightly here and think ahead a little bit. Consider this: there are about 42,000 villages in Poland. In the near future each one of them will get an article on English Wikipedia (most already have bot generated articles on Polish Wikipedia). Roughly speaking, that will give a total of around 3000 articles (1/16 of total) about Polish cities, towns and villages on the territory of former East Prussia. Do you think it would be reasonable to classify them all in Category:East Prussia? It is a rhethorical question: of course not. Under that scenario the category would contain very little useful information for any reader interested in East Prussia, while at the same time it would probably irk some Polish editors to see the name of East Prussia attached to articles about thousands of Polish villages (as invariably some Wikipedian will, sooner or later, attempt to append that category to all those articles). And of course soon after that Molobo or somebody like him will roll out Category:Slavic lands in Germany or something similar and attempt to attach it to most cities and villages in Eastern Germany, possibly founded by Slavs in the early Middle Ages. Surely you can see what kind of a nightmare that would become.
The most reasonable solution to this I can see is to simply expand the article on East Prussia, and include an extensive section (or a separate article) on the territorial division of the province. Even an article with title List of cities and village of East Prussia would do the job nicely, and hopefully avoid potential problems I have just outlined. Now this list of cities or of villages may be classified under the East Prussia category, but the individual cities and villages should not be. Balcer 04:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
(I was writing this while you were adding a few changes to your initial response) Your rationale does make sense. If instead of individual localities, the "East Prussia" category consisted of the historical districts (Kreise), and the individual locality articles had links to the appropriate Kreise article, would that be ok? For instance, the German wiki's de:Kategorie:Westpreußen has miscellaneous articles connected to West Prussia, as well as the subcategory de:Kategorie:Ehemaliger Landkreis in Westpreußen (Former rural districts in West Prussia). That subcategory has the individual administrative districts (not the individual localities). In the main Westpreußen category, there are some localities like Gdańsk, Bydgoszcz, and Malbork, but they are included there because they were, I believe, district-free cities and the exception. Olessi 04:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I like your proposal, Olessi. It will avoid most of the potential problems I described. Balcer 05:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
That seems like a sensible approach. And I think we should get rid of the Galicia category. Appleseed (Talk) 04:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the individual localities from the category and will (eventually) try list the districts instead. Olessi 19:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd recommend adding some guideline to the category (what is it for, what should NOT be added there, etc.).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Culmerland

Could someone research and prepare the data about Culmerland? MG argues this was Prussian territory, while I always thought this was a) territory of mixed Polish-Prussian influences b) it was inside Polish state since at least Boleslaw Chrobry, and was inhabited by Slavic tribes earlier... Books, preferably monographies are the best. WWW links are imho useless. Szopen 15:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Needed:Lech Wałęsa photo

It's terrible, but we don't have any good photo to put in the Solidarity article. All we have is too old, and none of it is too good (especially after the copyright paranoia people deleted most of the TIME covers :( Copyleft photos needed! Also, more photos for Solidarity article (which I am slowly moving toward a PR/FAC level) would be appreciated!--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:15, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

How about these?Space Cadet 02:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Great, but this TIME cover is not really GDFL - you should be more careful with the tags (I corrected it - let's see how many minites will it take before it will be deleted, eh...). Anyway, thanks for such a quick reply. Could you add captions to the pictures (date, etc.)?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Article names for old Polish titles (kanclerz, etc.)

Regarding titles from Offices in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, I think we need some rule, and Wikipedia:Naming convention (titles) is no help here. Should we go with [[kanclerz]] or [[Chancellor (Poland)|chancellor]]? Kanclerz is shorter, Chancellor is English. As W:NC state that we should concentrate on making Wiki more user-friendly than editor-friendly, I am begining to think that the second option is better, but I think may merit further discussion. Also, the problem appears because some title are untranslatable (starost), sound strange even after translation (voivode) or are so different from the original that Polish users would be confused (koniuszy - Equerry, stolnik - Pantler.) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is always the option to use both: kanclerz (chancellor). Titles that use more rare English words (I had never seen the word pantler before today) should certainly not be English only. (Is stolnik similar/equivalent to de:Mundschenk, by the way?). Articles with many titles will look messy with double naming, though. Kusma (討論) 04:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Where a suitable translation exists, I think we should use it. "Chancellor (Poland)", "equerry", "voivode", and "pantler" all fit the bill. You don't hear about pantlers very often, but I checked dictionary.com and m-w.com, and they both list it. Appleseed (Talk) 14:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Regarding equerry, I think this is a wrong translation and we should go with Master of the Horse (see discussion).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


I would go with:

logologist|Talk 23:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


Polish Category

Hey, czesc! I just wanted to mention that I made a category for Polish Wikipedians! If you would like to join, please go here

Category:Polish Wikipedians

If this is irrelevant on this talk page then please feel free to delete. Thank You! User:Wikieizor 1 April 2006

Tnx for the info, I have added this to {{User Poland}}.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Problem on Polish Wikipedia (Antypolonizm)

A certain administrator has made serious changes to the article on antypolonizm, subsequently deleting any changes made by other users ("NPOV" of course masquearading as the main reason) and ignoring any kind of discussion, going as far as to block his own essay regarding the subject. Could someone help me out? There are some really abusive admins over there, all the more harmful since they completely change the context of articles, terrorising other users into inaction through their misunderstanding of NPOV policy. I am waiting for administrator opinions, though I know it may be wishful thinking. Anyway, thanks for any input or help on the subject. 5.0

PS I guess Hitler was reading some Polish right-wing newspapers full of political slogans (themselves responding to anti-semitism) and that influenced his outlook on Poles. I ask you, what was before Jedwabne? What do you call the persecution of Poles on racial, cultural, etc. grounds for centuries before? Who does he think he is anyway?

Regarding your first point, I replied at pl:Dyskusja Wikipedii:Administratorzy. I am not sure I understand your second point (para). PS. Please create an account if you plan to talk here in the future - it helps identify who is speaking. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Need help

This is not a specific to Wikipedia, but I am a regular Wikipedian and thought to ask fellow Wikipedians. I would like to contact a museum in Poland: http://www.wilanow-palac.art.pl about an item of Polish heritage from the late 18th/early 19th century that is in my possession. Specifically I believe it may have once belonged to Artur Potocki (1787-1832), it has his family crest and initials on it. The museum seems to have other pieces from the same family online. I need help with an email to the Museum as I do not speak Polish. Would anyone be interested in helping me in contacting the museum? I'm in the USA and have no idea how our family came into possession of it. -- Stbalbach 18:13, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Try sending them an email at this adress dzialsztuki@wilanow-palac.art.pl - it is their "arts departament" they are suposed to be educated people so somebody there will probably speak english. And by the way what do you intend to do with this item sell it, donate it, keep it? Mieciu K 00:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I tried emailing all your suggestions and never heard back. I don't think it's worth much (perhaps a few hundred dollars on ebay), but if it has any value to a museum or family I would be happy to donate it. I believe it's probably part of a larger collection that was dispersed at some point in time. -- Stbalbach 21:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Polish soccer (football) in late 1930s

Hi this is Tymek 02:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC) Right now I am working on my project about all things connected with Polish football in the late 1930s Whowever wants to add up something - you are welcome Starting point for me is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Roster_in_World_Cup_Soccer_France_1938

I have just started so I have just described players who took part in 1938 World Cup game vs Brazil I am planning to write about more players, about Polish football team in 1936 Berlin Olympics, about 1939 game vs Hungary and far more stuff


Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw

Heads up. It seems that an article that started out as a relatively neutral take on a controversial building is now being turned into a propaganda piece by User:Ghirlandajo and User:Irpen. Balcer 07:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, if you think that by recruiting revert warriors and making them troll like this, you will spread your POV around Wikipedia, you are wrong. The Wikipedia law: once you start POV-pushing in one place, you will encounter symmetrical response in scores of other articles. Please think twice before posting divisive comments next time, Ghirla -трёп- 09:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for going on record and practically admitting that you are engaged in a campaign of WP:Point edits. It will come very handy in case of any future WP:RfC. Balcer 12:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, please don't start a slander. This board had already seen its share. In what way was I turning this into a propaganda? My edit was explained at talk. When you made a sourced objection, I modified my edit. It was Molobo, who turned the article into propaganda by a hasty copying info from an external site without even bothering to copyedit and integrate his text into an existing article. --Irpen 10:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Note that before you started conversing on the talk page, you and Ghirlandajo first reverted me 3 times without making any comments on the talk page, and accused me of vandalism. So your claim that you "explained yourself in talk" is not exactly chronologically truthful, though I do appreciate that eventually you entered the discussion and attempted to tone down your version. Obviously, as I ran against the 3RR limit and the skewed POV was still there, I made a quick note here so that other people interested in the subject could comment. My comment above was made at a very specific time, and referred specifically to this diff which you were repeatedly making. Now, this is my personal opinion only of course, but I believe that when you inserted this text, you were not guided by objectivity and neutrality. Rather, through your twisted choice of words, you were trying to make the destruction of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw into an event of epic significance with worldwide implications, which it clearly was not. Furthermore, you tried to make the article into an object lesson about Poland's hypocrisy, which is definitely POV. You might convince yourself that you had other reasons, but to an outside observer your motivations seem obvious Balcer 12:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Balcer we need to find a sentence about how the "unruly" Poles didn't know how benevolent the Tsar was in granting them this wonderfull object of art. Sadly the civilising mission of Russia in Poland failed when in outburst of typical Polish Catholic barbarity and Russophobia Poles destroyed this wonder of the world. I am sure Ghirla and Irpen will find necessary sources confirming this. --Molobo 10:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, I did not accuse you in vandalism. I started "conversing at the talk page", as you put it, at once when you started conversing instead of just removing the text that seemed to you inappropriate.
As long as you were removing the text and justified your removal in the edit summaries only, I restored it back and explained why in edit summaries too. Once you started to ask at talk page, I immediately responded. Please don't start a series of unwarranted accusations what were my true reasons. My reasons are explained at talk as well. You might know them better then myself. Than there is no point to argue here since what I say doesn't matter if you convinsed yourself that you know the true answers already.
Once you brought it here, we've got Molobo with Space Cadet and there will soon be more people. The article will turn to an edit war with the prevailing side to be just the one with more friends to do reverts. I think this is worse for an article than the disagreement we had, especially since it was being discussed. It will take much longer to get certain individuals calm down so that the article would leave the rv war cycle and be returned to a normal editing mode. --Irpen 13:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The text you and Ghirlandajo reverted to 3 times ([7], [8], [9]) was not just inappropriate, it was blatantly incorrect. Nowhere in the Polish constitution of 1921 was there any explicit mention of Poland's commitment to Christian ideals [10]. Keep in mind that agreeing to stop inserting false information is not a compromise, it is simply the correct thing to do. As to your intentions, I leave it to each Wikipedian to make up his/her mind.
As for more people editing the article, since when has that been a problem? I always thought that this is the whole point of Wikipedia: the more people edit, the more balanced and neutral the article will become, at least in the long term. In that light, I must disagree with your argument that some people have to be somehow kept out from editing articles. Balcer 15:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, you plainly twisted every word I said above. I thought you could do better than that. --Irpen 15:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, may I suggest you avoid ad hominem and reply to Balcer's points? Btw, what does User:Alex Bakharev, who contributed much to that article, has to say?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Where is the ad hominem, Piotrus? Have you heard of a straw man logic? I don't need to defend things that I haven't said. If you want me to elaborate and explain how Balcer's statements about my views are wrongly inferred from them, I could do that especially for you. I don't need to defend the positions that I never actually took, like that additional editors is bad and/or what are my intent (besides one can never prove an intent). Still, if you are interested, I will elaborate on my intent if you feel like you don't know them and would like to find out.

As for the article's discussion, it belongs to an article talk page. Oh, and while you are at an ad hominem topic, have a word with your wikifriend. This edit summary was nothing but an attempt to get on my nerves (though unsuccesfull this time). Regards, --Irpen!

Józef Zajączek

Ghirlandajo readds false information the the article, mainly that he was "the first and last" prince of Poland. I don't know where he found the information(I will it is in one guess one of the XIX century Imperial Russian books our Russian contributors like to quote), but the information is false as brothers of Poniatowski had that title. Please correct this false information: [11] --Molobo 10:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this time Ghirla is right. His edit is referenced [12], and it was me who added that particular point. Note that according to the source he was not just a 'prince' but a 'prince of Poland'. He was certainly not the first or last prince, but I find it likely he might have been the first and last 'prince of Poland'. Perhaps we can elaborate more on the title to make it not as confusing. Finding what was his title in Polish and Russian would help - it is possible the source is mistaken, or it is possible the title was indeed unique.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments appreciated

At Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Old Swiss Confederacy. Granted, it's not Poland related per se, but I think it should not be equaled to such FAs as PLC or History of Poland (1945-1989). What do you think?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


Interesting article

On damages made by Soviet Occupation inflicted on Poland: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/biuletyn/4/biuletyn4_51.html http://www.ipn.gov.pl/biuletyn/13/biuletyn02_2.html In Polish. Perhaps I shall translate and create article on that. Meanwhile Polish users and editors working are welcome to use the information. --Molobo 15:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Molobo blocked for a month

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Molobo_blocked_for_disruptive_edit_warring.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it is high time for that. Molobo's actions were casting a black pall over all Polish editors on Wikipedia writing on historical topics, and generated a lot of ill will. I am somewhat surprised that we ourselves could not bring him to order and it required an action by an admin.
Molobo's absence should be a good opportunity to go over most of the articles he distorted in a more neutral spirit and create versions everybody can live with, hopefully ending the multi-national revert wars that have become an epidemic lately. Balcer 17:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I only wonder what would happen to the good ol' Molobo and his friends argument once Molobo himself is out on a forced leave. Will our fellow RGB editors change it to some other argument? Did anyone of us earned an equally bad reputation in order to replace Molobo as the scapegoat? I only fear it's going to be me... :) //Halibutt 18:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I guess I have not followed his edit close enough. I really thought he was not that bad, but if even you, Balcer, are glad to be rid of him, I guess I'll have to seriously think about that.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A to temu zaczął spurować na pl-wiki, naja :P Już jesteśmy z nim w zaawansowanej dyskusji o śląskości ;) D_T_G (PL) 19:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Correction: it seems Molobo has been blocked pernamently. This, I think, goes to far. Please comment at User_talk:Dmcdevit#Disagreement_with_indefinite_block_of_Molobo or [[13]].--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

And even his talk page has been blocked (Dmcdevit Protected User talk:Molobo: blocked user continuing to use this page for incivility).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization of Category:World War II ships of Poland

Hello! Just wanted to let you all know that I have started a cleanup and standardization effort of Category:World War II ships of Poland and its subcategories. Feel free to stop by and join in! --Kralizec! (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Czeski Cieszyn

Cześć. Moglibyście zajrzeć na artykuł o Czeskim Cieszynie? Jakiś wandal stale kłócił się ze mną i w końcu dodał tam szablon NPOV. Chciałbym znać wasze zdanie, czy myślicie, że artykuł jest naprawdę nieobjektywny. Dzięki. Jeśli uważacie, że artykuł jest objektywny, to poprostu usuńcie ten szablon. -- Darwinek 21:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: This is about Český Těšín, and possibly also about History of Cieszyn and Těšín.--Austrian 22:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Although this is a Polish Wikipedians noticeboard, our preffered language is English (as to not estrange other contributors interested in Poland but not knowning Polish). Could you translate your message? Tnx.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Translation: Hi. Could you look at Czeski Cieszyn article? Some vandal still fighted with me and finally he placed the NPOV template there. I would like to know your opinion, if you think that the article is really subjective. Thanks. If you think like me, that it is just ok, feel free to remove that tag. -- Darwinek 09:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Rename Polish September Campaign to Invasion of Poland?

See Talk:Polish_September_Campaign#Invasion_of_Poland_1939 and comment.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

We should simply use the most common names of the wars. However, if we are to use strong terms where applicable (no doubt invasion is applicable here) I would ask same users to support renaming articles about Polish invasions to the East to "invasion" as well. We now have a Polish-Muscovite War and Soviet-Polish War. Please invasion their titles too. Same standards everywhere. --Irpen 15:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the issue is not about standards but the correct name. Let's forget about the names we use here and see what are the most common conventions in the relevant academic literature.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I second Irpen here. Let's rename the Polish-Soviet War to Polish and Ukrainian invasion of Bolshevik-seized Ukraine and consequent Russian counter-attack. A lovely name, isn't it. And I'm sure we could find lots of sources to use it, after all it's the most natural and most popular name for that conflict. //Halibutt 19:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Rename Władysław II Jagiełło to Wladyslaw II/V of Poland, Jogaila of Lithuania

Please comment at Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło to stop this monstrosity from happening.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

Gentlemen (I doubt we have any ladies among us, do we), I've recently expanded the article on Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and listed it for peer review. As a large number of sources used in the article are in Polish and a huge part of the inmates of that camp was Polish as well, I would appreciate your comments. //Halibutt 11:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is Sylwia... but she seems to be on wiki-holiday again :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Since nobody seems to be interested, I'll repeat my plea for help. How can I help you ask yourselves? Here's how:
  1. There's lot of red links there... Some red links could be replaced with short bios of Poles who were held in the camps of M-G
  2. There's plenty of typos to correct
  3. There's a permanent problem with dividing the article onto more sections for easier text flow..
Anyone? //Halibutt 22:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, too bad it received so little support so far. But now is a good time for that as the article is currently a Featured Article Candidate. Feel free to leave your comments or suggestions either at the talk page or at the voting page (in the to-do list). //Halibutt 13:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Rename

There is a proposal to move article Sambia to Samland. Appleseed (Talk) 14:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Please always state source for images

Dear fellow users,

there has been some controversy regarding missing sources on images that have been uploaded from the internet and used on various polish-related articles. Please please always state your sources when uploading images. This is necessary and part of Wikipedia policy and rules, see Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. It only takes two seconds to do, and saves a lot of trouble later. If anyone needs any help or requires further assistance, feel free to contact me or anyone else from the image team, always glad to help out. thank you and Happy Easter everyone. Gryffindor 18:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

And I'll just add that untagged images are not only problematic: they are getting deleted. So simply don't bother uploading images without a source - it's a waste of time. Also, if you find an unsoured images (most of Emax and Witkacy's images are like this) please try to find a source for it - otherwise it will be deleted by a bot sooner or later.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:03, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

By bots or by users who aggressively tag even clearly OK images and only get annoyed when referred to m:Copyright paranoia which seems written especially for cases like these. In any case, tagging and sourcing images is a good idea since it saves time and effort. --Irpen 19:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Laugh or cry?

From Red Army (now removed):

At the end of World War I, Poland emerged as an independent state. Shortly after, Poland occupied parts of Ukraine and Belarus, in an attempt to create a state “from sea to sea”. In the Polish-Soviet War that followed, most of thus occupied territory was liberated, but parts of it remained under Polish rule. The Soviet advance halted roughly at the Curzon Line, thus completing the liberation of the lands previously annexed by Poland. Many former Polish subjects viewed the advancing troops as liberators, welcoming them with flowers and “bread and salt”.

Watching if anybody will revert my edit may be interesting.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course there are. Attention needed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Red_Army#Polish_Revisionism.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The use and abuse of history

I just stumbled upon a very, very interesting book, discussing - among other things - how histories are 'twisted' by nationalist agendas. See [14] (Marc Ferro, 'The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught to Children'). Chapters of special interest to us: 8 - Aspects and variations of Soviet history (p.163-210), 10 - History in Profile: Poland (p.245-268). It doesn't seem to have a chapter on German or Baltics, but nonetheless I am adding this to my reading list :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the book's publication date?
Please note Ferro's observation (p. 262): "The memory of Great Poland [my emphasis — logologist] survives..." Ferro isn't speaking of western Poland but of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — an example of the ambiguity, in English, of the expressions, "Great Poland" and "Greater Poland," as compared with "Wielkopolska." (Cf. the recent discussions over the "Wielkopolska Uprisings.") logologist|Talk 13:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The book is from 2003 (see 'about this book' page in Google Print for such info).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
As to what Logologist pointed out above: indeed, the term Wielkopolska cannot be ambiguous in English as it does not exist outside of the Polish language (and Polglish used by the Poles). //Halibutt 16:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Tutejszy

I wuld like to delete redirect from Tutejszy (sb. from here) to Poleszuk, because this word is usred by many group to call them self like that... Radomil talk 12:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know abot appopriateness of this deletion so I won't comment, but the procedural way is Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Another Slavic ethnicity that referred to themselves as "locals" (Polish: "tutejsi") were the Carpatho-rusins. logologist|Talk 15:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
It would seem that Tutejszy shoul not be deleted but transformed either into an article or a disambig, then.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
A disambig seems a decent idea, but a separate article on self-identity would be even better. Especially that the Lithuanian import of that word (tutejsas) seems to have a derogatory meaning nowadays... //Halibutt 17:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
My greatgrandfather usualy call himself "Tutejszy" or "Hier geboren"... he was Pole born in southern Greater Poland (Provinz Posen, Kreis Ostrowo), so that term was not only restricted to Eeastern Borderline/Western Ukraine, Belarus or Central Lithuania Radomil talk 19:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Wow, so here might be such articles? So why not stela :) stela in Cieszyn Silesian means stąd and is very, very common amongst us :) Examples: Od stu lat mieszkańcy Śląska Cieszyńskiego mówią o sobie, że są ludźmi stela (stąd), co pomaga im nie dostrzegać rubieży. Komuś obcemu trudno zrozumieć te słowa, wypowiadane ciężko, z dna przepony, ale tu, na pograniczu, wszyscy używają gwary: górnicy i nauczyciele, kierowcy autobusów i adwokaci, kucharki i lekarze., or Ludzi, którzy nie są „stela” łatwo rozpoznać.... D_T_G (PL) 20:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Alternative history

I must say, the article Polish Empire is quite unique, and an astonishing amount of effort went into it. Looks like a great candidate for deletion to me, nevertheless. Balcer 01:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Now listed for deletion. Balcer 22:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Now deleted. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Polish Empire for voting records.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Legnica

Shortly before his another forced departure Molobo grossly altered the neutrality of Legnica article.[15] That was later followed by Space Cadet's removal of a POV tag Ghirla attempted to use to alert the readers. Since I can't read the source Molobo cites, could other Polish editors look into the matter? The main part of the issue is how to strike a balance in not focusing on too narrow a detail in broad topic articles. If such balance is abandoned, any article can be thrown off-balance in any direction since some episodes favored by bearers of any POV have occured all the time in the world's history. How valid this info is and how much of it is appropriate for the article, is the question to readers that both can read the source and have an idea from experience of what amount of detail is appropriate. --Irpen 02:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

discussion moved to talk:Legnica as per Balcer's request. --Irpen 03:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

LDKMember

Please take a look at contributions of LDKmember (talk · contribs). //Halibutt 20:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Zvin?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Similar topics and disregard for anyone's oppinion, but he doesn't insult people, which Zvin couldn't live without. Also, I doubt Zvin would leave the Polish name. Instead he'd change it to Lithuanian and add some offensive remark. He should be watched nevertheless. //Halibutt 18:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Considering that there is a Polish anon revrting him in a day or so, I consider both of them to be a minor nuisance that I am not sure how we can deal with. Leaving LDK a message on his talk may be a good idea, though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Zawichost

Could someone translate the Polish version into the English article? Thx. --Candide, or Optimism 05:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:Audio-pl

I have created Template:Audio-pl for use with Polish pronunciation .ogg files. Olessi 20:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Take also note of the more general {{IPAudio}} which I've been using for quite some time now. //Halibutt 15:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move

There is a proposal to move article Elżbieta Rakuszanka. Appleseed (Talk) 13:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Kali's morality

Is there an English equivalant of this term (pl:Kali (postać fikcyjna))? Please see history of Polish minority in the Soviet Union. Anyway, references much appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Bory Tucholskie - a joke?

Anon creation, old (Dec'04). Content is: The Battle of Bory Tucholskie, in July of 1944, took place in Lovrejs, between the 57th Europa Armored Brigade, and the 1st Giovanni Lee Army. I was expected to see something about the '39 battle where Armia Pomorze was defeated, but it is plausible there was a '44 battle there too - but the names of the units are strange, and what the heck is Lovrejs?? Google shows only wiki and mirros hits so unless I hear otherwise here, I'd like to delete it - or preferably replace it with '39 battle (unfortunately there is no article about this battle at pl wiki for me to translate yet...).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Definitely a joke. But boy, it managed to live for a long time. Balcer 16:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Not linked from any significant article, it was hard to find. I am replacing it with a proper stub about '39 battle now.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Gadu-Gadu

I'd strongly suggest that 1) if you use it, list your number on your userpage (or at least send it me by email) 2) if you don't, start. Sometimes it is really handy to be able to contact one another quicker then via talk page/email. PS. My GG number is on my page. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Ref converter

I just stumbled upon a useful tool: Ref converter.This converts articles that use the old {{ref}} and {{note}} system into the new <references /> system. A useful thing to know about.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

OT, but a favor for me

If you could take a look at this vote and vote as you wish. I am rather annoyed with abuse of 'T1', and it seems that few users actually know about those userpage fights...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Two n00bies messing Polish monarchs

Please be aware that Tsalreve (talk · contribs) and Shilkanni (talk · contribs) have been recently merrily moving Polish monarchs, disregarding any discussion at Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Polish_monarchs. I think I reverted them, but they made a mess out of redirects (it's a first time I have seen redirect A redirectig to redirect B which redirects to redirect A), so some further cleanup of the mess is needed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Jadwiga Angevin still remains altered to Jadwiga of Poland. I was unable to revert this.
Also, in the past day someone has been moving Polish województwa. logologist|Talk 06:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Fixed Jadwiga. Let me know what województwa need to be move back and I'll do it. Also, tell whomever is doing the moves to discuss them first. If they don't, they can be blocked for disruption of Wikipedia - but that's the worst case scenario and I hope we won't have to do that.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Logologist, I trust you guys not to come up with controversial moves - there is consensus that Jadwiga should be at Jadwiga of Poland on that article's talk page, you should not have listed it here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I must have missed the past month's debate over Queen Jadwiga. (Otherwise I might have put in my own two cents' worth.) My compliments on the choice that was arrived at — it's vastly superior to the other leading contenders.
Regarding the use of Polish vs. "English" or "Latin" versions of Polish place names, there seems to be a growing trend in the world to apply authentic names, as used by the populations immediately concerned. I don't think that having non-natives alter names (save, maybe, in consideration of English grammar usages) is the way to enhance the world's respect.
Regarding "province" vs. "voi(e)vod(e)ship," User:Tobias Conradi presents (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland — "Województwa vote") what I think is a rather cogent and compelling argument in favor of "province." logologist|Talk 05:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I moved Święty Krzyż Voivodship back to Świętokrzyskie Voivodship a few days ago. From the discussion above I gather Logologist now supports such a move (or a move to Świętokrzyskie Province at least). I hope no one has any objections. Balcer 16:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


Four województwa need to be restored to their original titles:

Also, most of the województwa names need to be corrected in the "Republic of Poland" box at the bottom of each województwo's page. I'd be happy to do that; how do I find, and get into, that template? logologist|Talk 15:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Find the template somewhere in the article. 2. Copy it's name. 3. Go to Template:it's name. 4. Edit.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I've tried "Template:Republic of Poland" and "Template:Voivodships," and only get: "No page with that title exists." logologist|Talk 15:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'd rather fix all the remaining voivodships to where they were before Logologist moved them. Pomeranian Voivodship is ok, Kudżawsko-Pomorski is not. //Halibutt 16:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Let me know when you have some consensus. Perpahs RM would be better, let the votes decide.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

pl:Szablon:Grafika Prezydent

I would like to copy this image tag template to en wiki, but there are some issues on it's talk page that make me question if the current en-text is appopriate. Comments?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Translation request from Russian

Molobo asks if anybody could give him here a brief translation of this page (Russian).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Split of pl-geo-stub

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geography_of_Poland#.7B.7BPoland-geo-stub.7D.7D_split.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Voivodships again

They all got moved on May 8, by this user. Please take a look to see if you approve. Balcer 14:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Not much of a difference for me, as both Logologist's and his versions seem equally... errr... wrong. Though indeed some backup for their official status could be a nice idea. //Halibutt 15:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Yep, the fact that the word order is backwards was the tip-off for me. I'm sure these names appear on a website somewhere, translated by Google. Doesn't make them official, or even correct, and they certainly seem awkward. The user did not provide any source for these renames. ProhibitOnions 01:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
They look horribly awkward to me as well. The strange habit of the Polish language of keeping the adjective uncapitalised in proper names does not have to be carried over into English. I would like to see some evidence for this form being official. Plus, the official name is quite often not the one used in Wikipedia (thus we have Kiev, not the official name Kyiv). Balcer 02:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Unless this user can supply very strong evidence that the Polish government now insists on bad grammar in English, I suggest we revert these renames.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 12:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Given the emerging concensus and the lack of any comment by the editor who made the moves, I asked User:Piotrus to move the voivodship articles back to previous titles. Apparently an admin is required to do this, after redirects have been modified. Balcer 15:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm an admin. I'll start on this right away, though it looks like there are quite a few other pages to change besides the main voivodship articles. (sigh)
I've now changed the voivodship articles back. I don't have time right now to fix all the other articles he fiddled with to include the "new" names, so some of you can do this. I have taken the liberty of renaming two as Lower Silesian Voivodship and Silesian Voivodship, which were previous names; the names had changed several times recently, and for consistency with the other voivodships in common English forms.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 19:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I finished the cleanup by removing all the double redirects, Now, I only hope no one springs a suprise on us and moves all 300 Polish counties to some strange names one evening. Balcer 02:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Among people who are Polish, Czech or German and living there I'm quite sure that many are aware that the names Śląsk, Slezsko and Schlesien all refer to the same region, but it's not commonly understood among English speakers that all, or any, of them refer to the region known as Silesia. I feel that it is appropriate to use a commonly understood name to find the article, and then receive additional information inside it. Article names and redirects are not the same, and one obvious example of this would be that article names are the ones that appear in categories, not the redirects. Apart from there being more than one entity named after Silesia, there are also several names relating to the region of Pomerania, which currently follows different namning principles. -- Domino theory 13:21, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I recognize the merits of the above arguments. I would suggest, however, using current national (Czech, German, Polish) names for the various Silesias and Pomeranias, in order to make it quite clear that they do now belong to those several countries. The historic commonalities can then be discussed in global articles on "Silesia" and "Pomerania," and the whole show tied together with appropriate disambiguation pages. KonradWallenrod 16:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Silesia

I used the history section from Lower Silesian Voivodship to create Lower Silesia, so there are now articles differentiating between the historical region and the administrative region. Also, I found an article for Middle Silesia. Is this actually a used term? The article is a stub with nothing linking to it... Olessi 02:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I was born in Katowice and lived there for most of my life, and I've never heard about 'Middle Silesia' (Środkowy Śląsk??).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Update: while not common, the term does seem to exist: Google Scholar, 10 hits, Google Books, 23 books. Google has 600 hits but they include wiki and our mirros. Considering that there are 24 hits for Polish 'Środkowy Śląsl' and 900+ hits for German 'Mittelschlesien', my tentative guess it is a term used mostly in German publications of that region, that has been used in some English publications but has not been adopted by Polish specialists.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Küstrin / Kostrzyn nad Odrą

Information about the formerly German city of Küstrin is currently split between Küstrin and Kostrzyn nad Odrą. The German WP has articles at de:Kostrzyn nad Odrą, de:Küstrin, and de:Küstriner Vorland. Input at Talk:Küstrin about what information should be where would be helpful. Thanks! Olessi 03:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Reminds me of Cieszyn and Český Těšín.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

May 3rd Constitution remaing

There is a suggestion to remove 'Polish' from the name - see Talk:Polish_Constitution_of_May_3,_1791#Rename. I tentatively support the idea, given the arguments there - perhaps other may want to comment as well.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

A false map of German population is being spread on Wiki

Areas with predominantly German speaking populations in 1945
Areas with predominantly German speaking populations in 1945

A false map is being spread on Wiki regarding the presence of German settlements on Polish territory:

The author has ignored massive settlement of Germans into Poland after 1939 (estimated by some at over 1 million with certain number of hundreds of thousands).The author doesn't explain why the same map is used for several different era's-1937, 1945 and WWII ignoring the fact of major population changes in WW2 ? The map doesn't show the exact date and as German population changed in very significant way during XX century in Central Europe it isn't neutral. It isn't clear what the map presents, if the map presents those Germans born in Poland or those people who spoke German as mother language ? Second option would indicate he counts occupation in his map. No mention is made that hundreds of thousands of Germans were settled into Poland during WW2 further adding to POV. The use of colours is very strange since it hardly shows significant populations of Poles in Silesia left after 1921.

  • And finally the map conflicts credible scholary data on German population.

For example-map of Poles before WW2 [16] clearly shows that German settlement isn't as widespread in Poland as the author has shown on the map. Another example, a list of Polish areas with German minority listed: http://raven.cc.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect11_files/11pic2.jpg In 1921 Pomerania 1921-18 % of population is German Poznan 1921-16 % of population is German This numbers obviously don't support the map presented here where the impression is that in those areas Germans made up almost total majority. And in 1931: Pomerania 1931-9% % of population is German Poznan 1931-9 % of population is German Upper Silesia 1931- 6 % of population is German

  • Another data:

According to p.27 of the Reich Statistical Yearbook for 1941 the population of the territories annexed from Poland was as follows in June 1940: Province Ostpreussen: 994,092. Reichsgau Danzig-West-Preussen (not including Danzig): 1,487,452. Reichsgau Wartheland: 4,538,922. Prov. Schlesien: 2,603,550. General Gouvernment: 12,107,000 According to p.6 of "Documents on the Expulsion of the Germans from East-Central Europe" Volume 1, (Bonn, 1954) the following was the German population of these areas when they were annexed from Poland in 1939: Polish Territories attached to the Provinz of Ostpreussen: 31,000. Polish Territories of the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen: 210,000. Polish Territories of the Reichsgau Wartheland: 230,000. Eastern Upper Silesia: 238,000. Generalgouvernment: 80,000. --Molobo 16:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Please take time to comment on this false and misleading map. --Molobo 16:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

And the same map used to describe situation in 1937 also giving impression of huge numbers of ethnic Germans in Poland contradicting the scholary data on their number:

German- and Netherlandic-speaking areas in 1937: yellow: Low Germanic languages; blue: Central German; brown: Upper German. The map uses the (in some cases outdated) German or Germanised names of cities.
German- and Netherlandic-speaking areas in 1937: yellow: Low Germanic languages; blue: Central German; brown: Upper German. The map uses the (in some cases outdated) German or Germanised names of cities.

Notice that both maps are the same ignoring settlement of Germans in WW2 in Poland, both maps presented false image and both maps are biased. For example 100,000 Germans in Pomorze are almost dominating the region according to the map(although Poles made up 1.000.000 people there) , but 530,000 Poles in German held Silesia are hardly seen as existing. --Molobo 16:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


For now the maps are out since the author has provided no source information for the data he used to generate the maps. Until that is provided, there is little point to any discussion about their accuracy. Balcer 16:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
And the caption is in German, so most of us can't figure out what it is even about. Without source, it is certainly a possible WP:NOR violation, if not a copyvio.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, these maps are very wrong. If you look at the description, the author seems to have cherry-picked several sources to make the German language area as big as possible, while sounding eminently scholarly to those who might not know better. It doesn't look like any articles use it, but I'd propose it be corrected, or better deleted.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 21:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


The same map has been discussed in the German wikipedia. There the criticism there was that it includes the Dutch-speaking territory in a map labelled "German speaking territories" which of course does not include Dutch. It could be interpreted in a way that it wants to include Dutch into the German language and thus could be offensive, a a valid criticism. But that has been resolved by changing the description, now it says "German - Neterlandic dialect continuum" which is perfectly valid. Dialect maps published in Germany - and I've seen similar ones on the Dutch wikipedia - often include both languages as they belong in the same linguistic context. factually there's nothing wrong with doing so as long as the wording explains the complicated relationships between the common dialect continuum and the separate standard languages.

On the other hand I don't understand the point of Molobo's criticism. This is not a map on "German population". It's a linguistic map which attempts to show all territories where German (and Dutch, and Frisian) were spoken at the time, which is a completely different issue. It is the usual format of such maps, I've seen various ones in very different publications which are very similar. It does not claim that all the territories shown were exclusively German speaking. Especially in the Eastern part of Germany and in Poland languages mixed, and the map does not claim otherwhise.

I agree the map is somewhat inconsistent, as it shows some other territories where German was not the only language in a lighter shade (e.g. in Lusatia where Sorbian is spoken, and in parts of Austria where Croatian or Slovenian are spoken), but does not so in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary etc where several languages were present, probably at an even grater extent than in Austra. But without further evidence I suggest to interpret this as sloppiness and not take offence at it.

If you think the map shows false data please explain in detail which ones. To the best of my knowledge, it shows the pre-WW2 areas where German were spoken quite correctly, as it is consistent with other sources. Once again: The map is about languages, not about nationalities. Different thing! Anorak2 08:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

You are right, the first map is "bis 1945" ("until 1945") not "in 1945," the incorrect caption here; I have no objection to it if it made clear only that German was spoken at one time or another in these areas, although it would be far more useful to show when. But, as you point out, the inconsistent shading of the Sorbian areas (and Silesia, etc.) on both maps suggests that while German may have been a minority language in these areas (it was not, and had not been for a long time, in the Sorbian areas in 1945) it was the predominant language elsewhere where this shading is not used such as in the "Polish corridor," which is highly misleading. Yes, similar maps appear in German textbooks, but usually with enough context to explain what is meant (and not all of these espouse a viewpoint that would be accepted as neutral by linguists in neighboring countries). Someone without prior knowledge looking at these maps will assume that German was the predominant language in many regions of Poland and other bordering areas where this was not the case, or where the matter was more complicated.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 09:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


Earlier I've suggested to the author to use the lighter shades more consistently. He changed the map somewhat, but it's still inconsistent. Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, parts of Switzerland, Schleswig and probably most of the small enclaves in Poland, Czech, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania ought to be light shaded, as all of these territories are (or were) multilingual. Maybe he didn't get it, perhaps it helps if more people urge him to change it.
But please be polight and don't assume POV, most of Molobo's criticisms fail to see the point of the map.
  1. It is a linguistic map, not ethnic.
  2. The fact that one map shows Polish people in a given location does not refute that German speaking people were present in the same location, because the ethnicities used to mix in a large area (which ought to be light shaded precisely for this reason).
  3. Many ethnic Poles were bilingual (as were Germans), so they figure in the "German language" map too.
  4. The map is very much about pre-WW2 conditions. What happened during WW2 is not very relevant to it, and is probably not well enough documented anyway. From a German point of view the most relevant changes in linguistic spread occurred after WW2, this is probably why 1945 was chosen as the delimiter. Maybe it should be labelled "pre-1939" instead, but again this is probably due to sloppiness.
Anorak2 10:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Again i fail to see how 100,000 Germans in Pomorze dominated the whole region on the map, but 530,000 Poles in German Silesia are hardly visible.

Poles are completely invisible on the map, as are Danes and French and Dutch and Czechs ... Because they're not the subject of the map. It shows in what locations German speakers were present. It makes no claim on who was the majority in a given area. It shows no other languages, and does not claim to do so. Anorak2 21:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Many ethnic Poles were bilingual (as were Germans), so they figure in the "German language" map too. Wrong comparision-more Poles used German then Germans Polish language since till 1918 many of them were forced to live in German state where usage of such language was necessary. If they are pointed on the map as Germans it further contributes to the map being misleading. --Molobo 14:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Further using gray and green is unfortunate-such colourse should be contrasting, in this situation green will give impression of dominating. I express such opinion based on my reading on manipulation of ethnic maps in publication regarding mapping of ethnic groups in Silesia where such tricks were often used. --Molobo 14:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC) # It is a linguistic map, not ethnic. It was used to portay territory of ethnic group not spread of language. --Molobo 14:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC) The map is very much about pre-WW2 conditions Why then 700.000 Germans out of 31.000.000 people in Poland are dominating whole Western Poland on the map ? Furthermore the map was used on several articles as describing situation in 1945. --Molobo 14:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Molobo, you seem to have some misconceptions on language and ethnicity. The two are not as closely related as you think. But you are using them as synonyms, and that causes you to draw some false conclusions. Furthermore a given area can be multilingual. Especially in the area where Germans and Poles overlapped, that phenomenon was very important for a long time. A map on Polish language speakers of the same time would show Polish in many areas where the German map shows German speakers, and both would be true. The two claims are not mutually exclusive. Anorak2 21:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it should be labelled "pre-1939" instead, but again this is probably due to sloppiness. Scholary data and maps contradict the map's presentation of pre-1939 German population. --Molobo 14:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Molobo repeat after me: The map is about language, not ethnicity. Anorak2 21:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

If the map presents people who speak German rather then Germans as you claim, then it has no place on page regarding population transfer of Ethnic Germans as it doesn't portay ethnic groups if what you said is correct. --Molobo 14:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe so. Please complain to the person who put the map on that page for using data from a different context. But please do not complain to the author of the map. It shows linguistic data - quite correctly as far as I can tell - and is supposed to be used on pages about linguistics only. When another person uses data on linguistic distributions to draw conclusions about supposed ethnic distributions, the conclusion may turn out wrong. That is because they are incorrectly equating language with ethnicity, and because they fail to account for the fact that areas can be multilingual. But that is not the fault of the linguistic map they used. Anorak2 21:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

It shows linguistic data - quite correctly as far as I can tell This is contradicted by author's second map of 90s. It seems nobody in Wielkopolska does know German language. --Molobo 22:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I give up. My impression is that you have some nationalist axe to grind. Anorak2 05:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I am only interested in objectivity. --Molobo 14:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, what would you suggest to fix the map, Molobo? As I mentioned, I think the author should take another look at the colors/shading, because to a casual reader they would likely imply predominance of German in these region, rather than its mere presence. Would you have a different suggestion?  ProhibitOnions  (T) 11:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Abecadło

User:Ejdzej asked me to take a look at Abecadlo (talk · contribs) ad his actions. Indeed, it seems the guy should be monitored. //Halibutt 12:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


Prussia

Information on persecution of Poles in Prussia was deleted by user earlier deleting information about Wehrmach't war crimes[17] --Molobo 16:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Biała Podlaska

Needs improvement and verification. Balcer 19:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Slavic mythology/archive1

Some comments would be apprieciated to this new FAC related to Poland.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Mikołaj Kopernik

The article about Kopernik needs attention. The usuall stuff-deletions of refernced sources, trying to prove that he was an ethnic German etc. --Molobo 20:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Image:Wolyn1943.jpg

Image:Wolyn1943.jpg apperes to have no source, so I put the {{nsd}} on it. The source is important not only for the copyright but also for the validation reason. Frankly since the image causes a lot of controversy on the UPA article, I would not mind the image to be deleted. The uploader User:Ttyre does not seem to be active since March, so I am announcing it here, just to be fair.

You can also look on the other image deletion notices on the User talk:Ttyre, some potentially valuable images can be deleted because the uploader is absent and could not provide the required data abakharev 00:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Done: sourced and attributed. //Halibutt 10:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Though my life would be easier if the image was deleted as unsourced :(. Ome more question, are the sources of the image reputable or somehow marginal? Can we trust it was UPA not a photomontage nor a somebody else? I will believe your judgementabakharev 11:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I have no idea. In fact I've seen the album by Aleksander Korman and it was full of such holocaust-like images. You know, piles of bodies, skulls ripped apart and so on. Similar pictures can be found in most other publications on the topic, though AFAIR Korman was the first to create an album devoted entirely to pictures of the massacre. They seemed original to my eye, but of course I might be fouled as I'm not a specialist on forgery of photos. This picture however is not that improbable, as there are zillions of accounts of similarly cruel ways of murdering people in Volhynia in 1943; it seems a simple shooting was not enough for some of these animals. Here is a fragment from one of articles by Korman (further expanded in this book) with a list of several hundred methods of slaughtering people, ranging from shooting to striking a nail in the skull, and from placing people in ditches to reap their heads with a scythe to hanging.
Anyway, Korman seems to be indeed one of the specialists on the matter, though he is far from being a modern, impartial scholar, vowing for reconciliation, as many others are. He was there himself and most of his books simply describe the Polish-Ukrainian WWII history, without much consideration of the Ukrainian motives. I don't think he'd resort to forgery, but who knows... //Halibutt 12:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The main source of the information A.Korman seems unreliable as the text is simply a recitation of various slaughter and torture methods and seems to be doubtfull. The text appeared in marginal newspaper. I would prefer more serious source for such strong photo. The event might be real but exact information regarding the circumstances of it need to be sourced with far more credible and mainstream authors. --Molobo 12:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot abakharev 13:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Molobo, I have really no idea what's the problem here. Alex asked for a source and I provided it. Whether the source is reputable or not is a different matter, as I cited my reasons to believe that the pic is not a forgery, not the reasons that prove anything. I can't say with 100% certainty that it is or that it is not. It's been published in a zillion of books, I simply first noticed it in a pic album with the pics selected by the guy. He was neither the first nor the only author to use it in his publication.
Besides, I quoted the link to the list only for comparison, as the book the list is taken from is not available on-line. //Halibutt 15:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Molobo, I have really no idea what's the problem here. I read the source text and I find not credible. For example he mentions that to become a member of UPA every candidate had to murder a Polish mother or father or a child in his own home etc.--Molobo 15:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC) The other author who gives this photo here gives it as photo from Władysław Siemaszko, who in an interview here[18](titled btw "Without forgivness") claims cruealty is a "natural" Ukrainian trait, and that Ukrainians have no history, national identity and delight in torturing people. These are highly nationalistic and prejudiced people. Their statements and materials can't be viewed as credible. --Molobo 15:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


Please vote on Talk:Ukrainian Insurgent Army#Survey. What to do with the Image:Wolyn1943.jpg? abakharev 12:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Holodomor

Alex Bakharev started a discussion Was the Holodomor genocide? Please comment on talk page--Yakudza 09:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Never knew the Holodomor occured in Poland The fact that it didn't despite Ukraine being in part controlled by Poland makes a certain argument for the opinion that it wasn't a natural famine doesn't it ? --Molobo 15:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

    • Indeed, I put these argument myself a few times, e.g. [19] or [20] abakharev 23:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Molobo and Alex are right here and the fact that none of these events have occured in the Polish-controlled Ukraine is often used to prove that the famine was artificial, a strong argument that makes perfect sense. However, this is not the locus of the dispute. No one involved in the article except a troll or two, denies the artifical nature of the famine in Ukraine. The issue here is whether the category:Genocide is applicable. The argument is not so obvious as it may seem. Read article for more. --Irpen 23:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

PSB move

At Talk:Polish Biographical Dictionary, were I have started a RM procedure, User:Francis Schonken is challenging the 'Polish Cabal' to take part in the vote. I feel we should oblidge him :)--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The Polish CabalTM argument is now being used at Wikipedia talk:No factions of belief and at Village pump (news). And of course it's an old popular at Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło. :) I wonder if we should list all the mentions of the Polish cabal - it could be fun :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks God Almighty we have our Secret Polish Cabal™ to guide us in these times of uncertainty... //Halibutt 21:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

History of Poland

I have been thinking that 1) this article needs much attention but 2) it would not be that hard to make it into a FA, especially if we try to stay out of controversial areas.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

IMO the summary of Polish history at the beginning of that article seems unnecessary unnecessarily long, as there already is a summary of the topic at Poland, which is where I imagine most readers of History of Poland would link from. Olessi 17:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I think that WP:LEAD is an obligatory part of every article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking more of a brief intro ala History of France. I can see how a copyedited summary would be useful, however. Olessi 19:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to rename this notice board

Francis Schonken (talk · contribs), who seems to honestly believe in the existence of the Polish CabalTM has now proposed that our little den of conspirators should be renamed as the first step to break the cabal. See his arguments at Village Pupm (policy). And yes, this is not a prima aprilis, he seems to be quite serious.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Would "Polish-speaking Wikipedians' notice board" be a better title? That name indicates to me the board concerns the Polish language and Poland-related topics, as opposed to a board strictly for Wikipedians of Polish ethnicity. Olessi 17:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this noticeboard needs some work to make it more professional. Also, for those who don't know: My name's Elonka. I was born in the U.S., but have strong Polish roots (my father, though szlachta, was a Polish war orphan due to the events of 1939, and emigrated to the United States). In any case, I have been participating on Wikipedia, but despite my Polish ethnicity and my creation of many Poland-related articles, I have never felt welcome here. Indeed, I have been treated with great antagonism by some of the "official" members of this board. I was basically pounced upon within hours of my first posting on a Poland-related topic, and have occasionally felt stalked ever since, with nearly every Poland-related edit I've ever made, scrutinized (and often criticized). It's been made clear to me several times that this board is sort of like a "clubhouse" for those who are actually born in Poland, while Wikipedia editors who are born in other countries are generally treated as outsiders. I mean, just look at the banner that's been added to the top of this page about the whole "cabal" discussion.[21] Is that really a professional way of handling things? It makes this page looks like a private clubhouse. Yes, one of the members here is an Admin (Piotrus), but (my apologies if this sounds like a personal attack) in my opinion, some of his actions have not been setting good examples of Wikipedian behavior. He engages in name-calling of other users,[22] belittles other people's criticism, frequently makes changes to Poland-related articles without consensus, or, he starts a discussion on a confrontational topic, and then declares his own "consensus" on it, when in reality, the only consensus is from those users that he knows and trusts via this noticeboard (again, other Poles). I've attempted to address this with him on various talk pages, but this generally just results in an escalation of the behavior (for example, when I asked him to stop name-calling, he left a message on my talk-page where he continued to use the name several times).
In my opinion, many of the conversations on this noticeboard are related not to editing articles, but as calls to action to jump into a confrontation somewhere, to fight for the Polish-centric view, especially as regards renaming articles from their English names to the Polish equivalents. And no, I'm not saying that this noticeboard is a "cabal" -- but there is definitely some nationalism involved, and many examples of unprofessional behavior.
Bottom line, I, too, would like to see this board renamed and reorganized, to make it more professional, and more consistent with other WikiProjects. It should have a "participants" list. And it should open up membership to other Wikipedia editors based on interest, instead of discriminating against other people based on their national origin. --Elonka 17:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Elonka. I have never seen (and if I had, I'd not support) any members trying to impress the feel that this board is a clubhouse for Poland-born members, or exclude anybody from here.
However I fully support scrutiny and copyediting of all Poland-related articles (this is why one of my recent pet projects is Portal:Poland/New article announcements. People involved with this NB have extensive knowledge of categories and what related articles exist and can be made into links, thus making us good copyeditors of anything Poland-related; just as, for example, peoplea at Wikipedia:New articles (Aircraft) should be notified of new aircraft-related articles so they can quickly improve and standarize them.
Regarding your accusation of name calling, I looked at the revision you link ([23]) and I see no indication I am guilty of it. But maybe I am missing something - can you be more specific? If I have wronged somebody, I am not above apologizing for my mistakes - if I realize them.
I would also very much like if you could cite specific examples of how I have "belittles other people's criticism, frequently makes changes to Poland-related articles without consensus" and such. Those are serious accusations and if anybody brought them to me as an admin, I'd certainly want to look upon that person's behaviour, they are indicating - in the form you have described them - a serious breach of WP:CIVILITY and the very least, something that is certainly unbecoming anybody, and administrator even more. Let me repeat again: if I have done this, I am willing to apologize and face other consequences, but please, be specific.
Regarding one specific example of 'name-calling on your page', I'd guess you refer to User_talk:Elonka#Re:Calling_other_editors_N00bies. I personally don't find the term Newbie offensive, I have often used it to describe myself in various new areas I enter. Per definition, when I use it, I always intend it as a kind of 'negative reinforcement', but having read the definition again, I can see that perhaps using 'newcomer' or 'new users' may be a better way. Still, I'd have thought that since I have explained this on your talk pages week ago, and you have not replied to me, this issue was settled, and it would not be dragged out of a closet again.
I see nothing wrong with rallying users of similar interests to take a look at various issues. There is an important difference between having similar interests and being an unthinking mob with one POV. I believe that the recent vote by Halibutt on the PSB page is a perfect indication that there not only is no cabal, but we are not like-minded Polish nationalists.
Finally, while I'll repeat again that a Wikipedia:Regional notice boards is not to be confused with Wikipedia:Wikiproject, I have no objections if users want to create any membership lists based around whatever criteria majority feels is best. Again, I'd like to see any examples of discrimination against other wikipedians based on nationality, this is a serious accusation and guilty parties should be sternly warned. I do however know several Wikipedians or Russian or German nationality joining our discussions, and many others (myself included) don't live in Poland. Hopefully they will join this discussion and clarify the matter, and state whether they feel they are discriminated here.
PS. I think that I speak on behalf our cab... I mean, noticeboard community when I say that we feel sorry that that we did not made you welcome when you first came here, and we sincerly hope for a better second start.
--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Olessi, as I replied on VP(P) the name can be better. I don't think that 'Polish-speaking' would be better, as it would indicate that 1) Polish language is used here or 2) if you can't speak Polish language you are not welcomed here, both of which are of course not true. I tend to like 'Country-related' form, i.e. Poland-related notice board.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
"Poland-related" is A-OK with me. Hopefully other noticeboards also would consider name changes. Olessi 19:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I also support the name change to Poland-related notice board if it will make wikipedians of non-polish origin feel more at ease here than why not? Mieciu K 23:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not a regular participant, but if you plan renaming, how about Portal:Poland/Notice board? Is there any value in the Wikipedia namespace for the forum? abakharev 00:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm for any name that fits the scheme, as it is a notice board for anyone and anything that is loosely related to Poland, Polish people, Polish history, culture and language, but also Polish-speaking or Polish-born Wikipedians. The name won't change much in its' content though.
As to what Piotrus wrote above - I'm afraid my vote he mentioned does not prove anything. Don't you know I was specifically ordered by the Secret Chapter of the Polish Cabal™ to vote that way? :) //Halibutt 08:49, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Apart from what I wrote above, two more notes. Firstly, if some people do not feel here warm enough, changing of the title of this notice board will not change that. It's but a tool after all; a hammer helps driving nails, regardless of what you call it. Secondly, as to what Elonka wrote about never feeling welcome here. I don't think I can get the idea behind her post. She indeed turned up at this board several times. Once she filed a request for translation of an article on Agnieszka Baranowska, to which Piotrus responded with a decent stub. Then Elonka took part in the discussion on improving the Polish-related categories and expressed a view that was instantly supported by some of the members of this board. Then again Elonka took part in a discussion and her views were again supported by most of us here. And that's about it. Now a question to Elonka. If such a friendly and cooperative attitude is not enough to make you feel welcome here, then what would you make you feel comfortable? //Halibutt 00:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Please be sure to also check the discussions at this page[24] and your own archive: User:Halibutt/Archive11#New_Black_Book, and then if you really want to dig, check the other places that I and other non-nationals have been flamed by "established Polish editors" on the talk pages of Poland-related articles around Wikipedia. This issue about certain Polish editors banding together against non-Poles, is not a new complaint. Though I may not have been personally participating in all of the disputes, I have still been staying aware of many of them, and it has made me less and less likely to want to participate in this noticeboard. As for me "feeling welcome", a few things would help a lot: (1) an atmosphere here that was polite and unprofessional, and less of an "us and them" mentality, with Poles banding against non-Poles. Start with removing the "cabal" notice at the top of this page which makes it look like a clubhouse. (2) Have a "participants" list. Right now, the main page says that to join, you need to add your name to "List of Polish Wikipedians." Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board However, I am not a Polish Wikipedian, I am an American. So, how are non-Polish Wikipedians to indicate that they are members here? --Elonka 01:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
This issue about certain Polish editors banding together against non-Poles, is not a new complaint.
I think its rather Polish editors banding together to defend Polish related articles from certain POV's or even hostility in relation to Poles and Polish related topics. Seriously I have yet to see Polish users in the role of attackers on Wiki.

--Molobo 13:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, let's stick to the ground for a second before we fly too high, ok? Does your above comment mean that you're complaining here because you don't feel welcome not here but at my talk page, and especially so in discussions you did not take part yourself? If that is so, then perhaps you might want to blame all that happens on my talk, on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ghirlandajo page and so on... on me, rather than on this notice board?
As to other specific issues: perhaps you might want to follow the link and see that the list you mention is a mirror of dozens of other lists (Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Poland) and, above all, it's been made obsolete by a Category some months ago. Also, you might want to point out some specific concerns you have with an atmosphere at this very notice board rather than at my personal talk page, which would be IMO much more helpful. I admit I don't use this notice board too frequently and probably I wouldn't gain a single mile in the frequent flyer program here, but I have yet to see an instance of bad atmosphere. The links I provided in my last post seems to be quite instructive - and typical, even though most of the times this list serves to attract attention to specific pages rather than to discuss them here. But perhaps I'm wrong and you can find such diffs and links to this page's history that would really prove to the contrary? //Halibutt 03:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Regarding Elonka's comment about 'estabilished Polish editors' from Portal talk:Poland/New article announcements, I have clarified my reply there ('estabilished Poland-interested editors' would probably be a better term I should have used). I'd very much like to see examples where those editors (presumably you mean editors frequenting this nb) have flamed ( the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting) you or others. As for your poinsts about changes needed, I'd think we already have a "polite and unprofessional" atmopshere (I honestly cannot find here any comments that look unpolite, and I admit I am not sure how understand 'unprofessional' in that context, perhaps you could elaborate). I believe Molobo has addressed your comment about "us against them" fairly good, and I'll add that certainly the existence of noticeboards, wikiprojects and various other voluntary associations among Wikipedians tends to create factions. They are, nonetheless, a good faithed factions, which should lead to increased efficiency and development of healthy competition (for example, creation of new articles annoucement page and competition between nb's who can post more in a given month), not to the growth of multitude of evil cabals. I think the 'cabal tag' is a funny joke, but if the community dislikes it, well, it will be gone. Finally, you can be bold and as I told you earlier create new lists of participants, that you feel would better represent our desired membership.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, let's start by removing the "Cabal" message on this page, removing the, "Add your name to the list of Polish Wikipedians" option on the noticeboard, and replacing it with, "Add your name to the list of participants". --Elonka 19:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I have no objections, be bold. Although I'd note that the "Cabal message" already has a 'joke alart' symbol: is it really offensive? I always think people (us) have to be able to laugh at ourselves, and my main reason to adding this tag here was to lighten up the atmosphere and show everybody, including ourselves, that we are not some 'serious (professional?) bunch of people with POV pushing agenda'. But if you guys think I went overboard, then I'll have just one request: move the template here for historical reference instead of deleting it from existance.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
For me it was as hilarious as the original comments of Polish Cabal by some users, but perhaps it's just me. On the other hand if we removed the tag, should we also remove their comments? //Halibutt 06:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Why not take up the suggestion offered by the Schonken-Elonka Cabal, and rename this Polish Wikipedians' notice board to "Polish Cabal notice board"? — unless the cabalists prefer, say, "Polish Mafia notice board." Whichever the new title, maybe it would prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. KonradWallenrod 07:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe some people in the above thread were asking me to point out examples of behavior that made me feel unwelcome? And other examples of "hostile" behavior? :) --Elonka 22:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Bah, and I thought sense of irony is common to all speakers of European languages... //Halibutt 23:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Noting the smiley I believe we are getting over whatever problems we had :) Although Konrad has a valid point that it takes two to tango :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we rename this to Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board. This is the red link and a simple move would take care of everything including taking this talk page with it and preserving history. I can't possibly see any cost that would outweigh the benefits. If anyone objects, please voice your objections below. --Irpen 02:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Support for all the above reasons, plus it may generate more attention to Portal:Poland (and it needs any attention it can get, the news section is a joke...).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I am moving then, OK? --Irpen 05:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I embrace Irpen's idea. As much as the Polish Cabal name is funny, it might be a bit misleading. Cabal in Wiki suggests solving problems in a gentle and humouristic manner, and the board is not only for problems, but anything that might be of interest of wikipedians writing Poland-related articles.
Also, I'm afraid that Elonka confused the purpose of this board. It's not a community. It's what it is - NOTICE BOARD. Similarly I could go to a collage and put an announcement on their notice board if I thought it might be of interest of its students, and I would not have to be a student myself to do that. So let's just imagine a large cork board and pins, and it's what we have only in an electronic version. We cannot know who reads the information, or what they're going to do with it. They may find it to their liking or ignore it. Similarly, if someone agrees to translate an article for another person, it's a favour, not an obligation. People's posting or reading messages here is not obligating in any way.
I also strongly object to any list of this board's participants. The list of Polish wikipedians has a completely different purpose. It's to let others know who is Polish or not. It may be helpful when people are looking for someone to translate an article from pl wiki, or to find an information in Polish internet, but it's not a list of people who may or do post here. The list is linked here only because it might be of interest of people writing Poland-related articles. Any list of participants of this board would suggest that only the people listed there can post here. If anything, that would really incline that it's some kind of a club. Moreover, who and how would decide on who can be listed there?--SylwiaS | talk 14:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Why do I always have to agree with Sylwia..? //Halibutt 15:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
She has that effect on people :) Glad to see you back, Sylwia! I will move the page now, I see no objections.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have moved the board. I have also copied the cabal joke tag here, so it is preserved for reference.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Note! Beware: this is the den of the Polish CabalTM. We proudly admit that our goal is to take over Wikipedia.
Read how to properly deal with us.

Well, I'm not back really. I was just checking something on Wiki, and saw the topic on my watchlist. But I'll be back, only can't say when. Please feel free to email me if I'm needed.

BTW

Disclaimer: The following paragraphs of this message may contain specific forms of expression like irony, sarcasm, or satire. If you are unfamiliar with any of them, you might want to decide against your further reading in order to avoid unnecessary confusion. Any resemblance to real persons or facts is completely accidental. End of disclaimer.

  • I like the cabal link, I don't see what the problem is, and I think that no one really explained why it might be offensive. Or maybe...
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
  • To Halibutt - you do not always agree with me. Not that I mind, and I’m not even going to stalk you because of that, however popular the form of “gentle argumentation” recently appears to be. And since it seems to me that Piotr has had his own private stalker for some months now, I’m sure you must recent him. So please, accept my heartfelt apologies. I really tried to change my attitude to a more fashionable one, but no matter how much I try, I’m still very far from thinking that people are unfriendly or impolite, even hostile (sic!) by simply having their own views, “antagonistic” to mine. But just in case someone accused us of, let's say… living in the same city, going twice to the same swimming pool, reading the same book as kids, being on the same list of subscribers to a newspaper, opposing some brilliant ideas of our president (now that would have to be viewed as deliberate activity of an organized destructive group of two), or even something more disquieting like seeing Rejs (how shocking!), thanks to your wise decision to oppose my ideas at random, we'll still be able to prove that we’re not entirely programmed by the above facts, only partly. Why, surely you don’t want to claim that you actually happen to support my view thanks to anything resembling rational thinking. Nay, it must have been my being from Warsaw, disliking spinach as a kid, or being a participant of kolonie. No, forget the last one, that would apply only to a neighbour of someone having a bath installed. Oh well, we know that in fact you have to agree with me, but we're not going to tell them that. ;D
  • To everyone who passed the disclaimer level successfully - Since I find this board extremely anamusing, how about making another one where any serious posts would be severely prohibited, and everyone who’d object to our POV would be laughed at? Of course we'd have to laugh at ourselves all the time too, because we really don't seem to be able to be of one mind all the time. As to the name, I think that “club” is too unassuming, so I would rather propose “league” to sufficiently emphasize our common supernatural powers. Ok, so we just agreed that it should be LPR – the League of Polish Rakes, and since I’m a woman, and you’re all gentlemen here, I’m sure you’ll embrace my favourite slogan: Liga Rządzi, Liga Radzi, Liga Nigdy Cię Nie Zdradzi! Why, I’m even ready to list myself on the list of its partici… members.

Closing disclaimer: I told you not to read. --SylwiaS | talk 11:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

 :) Being a fan of quotations, what about this one: The Corps is Mother. The Corps is Father. Trust the Corps. :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


I like the idea of an open Polish Cabal (Polish Mafia?) page, where participants could, if so inclined, let down their hair and say plainly what they think, rather than what is politic, in any language they find convenient. (For the non-English-language-challenged, the NSA might perhaps be persuaded to provide translations.) If SylwiaS will sponsor such a page, I'll look in from time to time. KonradWallenrod 19:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Prussia

All information about discrimination of national minorities in Prussia was deleted. Information that Poles were subject to discrimination in Prussian state have been stated as "historical revisionism" by a German user[25]. All information about this presented on discussion page was either ignored or claimed that it is a Polish POV because Poles feel unsecure living on others land, despite the fact that sources were non-Polish. Please help in achieving NPOV in the article --Molobo 15:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Some very worrying edits

In Polish Corridor, [26] 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[27]. 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 09:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

NKVD massacres of prisoners was proposed to be deleted

See here: [28] Please vote for keeping this article. --Molobo 11:45, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Rename Poezja śpiewana (Category) to Sung poetry

Feels like deja vu, only I am on the other side of the mirror now :) Comments welcomed at WP:CfD vote.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Hitler wanted peace with Poland and Nazi's only wanted to unite Germany ?...

All information about the role of Lebensraum deleted from information about goals of Nazis deleted, Poland and Warsaw according to the user are part of "Greater Germany" : [29] User doubts Hitler wanted war and Lebensraum in East and pursuses changes to indicate he wanted peace with Poland: [30] Hitler wanted to settle territorial issues but Poland didn't trust him: [31] No comments. I even went as far to give links but the user deletes them as POV. --Molobo 09:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Józef Piłsudski/archive1

I have spent the entire day improving the article and I believe it has now reached PR status. Comments appreciated. Not much need to be done I believe before this can go to FAC. All assistance you can offer in improving this article would be much appreciated. Dziadek certainly deserves our efforts.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

To Reichenbach: STOP

I don't support sockpuppetry, be it by Russian, Polish or Martian editors. Considering that Reichenbach (talk · contribs), who registered only today, seems quite familiar not only with wikipedia syntax, but with Irpen's and Ghirla's edits stance on Polish articles, as well as his 'Polish POV-pushing', I feel very strongly that some more experienced wiki editor is engaging in Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry. I sincerly hope it is none of 'us', I am afraid 'hope is mother of fools' in this case. Whoever you are, please stop this behaviour and use your real account, whoever you are. Such behaviour is never helpful, no matter what side and POV do you represent/fight. And be aware that sockpuppetry is tracable and a good ground for a long term ban.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

My "stance" to Polish articles? Interesting. Thanks. As for the rest, I entirely agree. With Witkacy's departure, one and a half fierce Polonophile POV pusher with attitude issues is more than enough. --Irpen 22:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't support sockpuppetry, be it by Russian, Polish or Martian editors Actually the users comments remind of certain editor that isn't from the groups you mentioned. I have a nasty feeling that this is a provocation in regards to Polish community on Wiki. --Molobo 23:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Whatever he/she/they/it is it is not forbidden to edit from multiple account. What is forbidden is to use socks for the abusive purposes or to circumvent the 3RR or cheat on the polls. So far it was not the case. It is also strongly discouraged to edit the same article from the different accounts as it might create a false impression about the level of support for a Point of View. So far I have no evidence if it is the case. If an established editor for whatever reason decided to edit this article from a different account then there is no reason to object. For the record it is not me, I have no idea who he is, nor do I want to know it on that stage. BTW if this Reichenbach would start to edit the PSW article under his "own name" it might constitute a violation of WP:SOCK, so he would better continue abakharev 23:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

In some retrospect, it is possible that Reichenbach is not a sock but a new user who has gained relevant knowledge through lurking. In that case I have already apologized to him for possible 'jumping the gun'. Time will tell if I was too trigger happy or not, but I'd like to stress here that it is possible I was wrong and so we should not assume he was a sockpuppet without proof.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Toruń's Helgalisms

Could somebody restore the neutrality to article on Toruń. Right now there is a lot of Helgalism's in that Scinurea and Matthead added, Including some unsourced Volteir's propaganda about the usual "despicable" Poles(and we all know how Voltair loved Poland and Catholics [32] anyway). All of which contradicts information on the website of the city. Oh and information how r Germany was forced by British and Polish actions to remilitarise contains to be presented in discussion on Polish Corridor, just as glorification of Prussia. --Molobo 21:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

User Matthead started to delete information on anti-semitism

User Matthead started to delete information on anti-semitism from several articles, please help: [33] [34] --Molobo 22:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Molobo series

Uwaga Molobo!

This guy is continuing to push his anti-German POV. In addition to the fields he is already active on, he is starting to mess with seemingly any article related to Germany or Germans. I'm not going to tolerate this - and others will neither, as the guys knows how to make him enemies. --Matthead 22:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

German wiki contains articles on scholars I added info about, and they contain the information on their anti-semitism and nationalism, which you either remove or dispute. --Molobo 22:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

A sample of said scholar's views: [35]

There he read from his Deutsches Volkstum which he published in 1810. This is a work replete with racial intolerance and Darwinists assertions.
In just one illustration in Deutsches Volkstum Jahn stated: ‘The purer a nation is the better; the more mixed it is the worse --Molobo 22:59, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I was glad to see that the returned Molobo was somewhat reformed. Less revert warring, more civilty, less pasting into pages, less deletions (all of these were there but to a less extent). I am saddened to see this is slowly changing. The common modus operandi by this editor used to be:

  1. get online
  2. introduce a bunch of controversial edits to a bunch or articles on the east-of-PL topics (usually the Russian ones)...
  3. ...thus getting a bunch of people busy to deal with that...
  4. following which run some fierce revert wars trying to recruit help (if possible)
  5. use up the "3RR quota" in a whole bunch of article one step under the block at each
  6. quickly abandon those articles and do the same to the West-of-PL topics (usually German ones)
  7. get off-line
  8. next day repeat this all over.

This started to change but I see the return to the old habbits. For the record, I was the only non-Polish editor who did not call for his permaban and aknowledged his rare legitimate contributions. Perhaps the community could deal with this before it gets totally out of hand. --Irpen 23:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Irpen the articles on German scholars I entered info about are on German wiki, they contain similar information on anti-semitism and nationalism that was deleted by Matthead. Who of course in no way makes controversial edits or beheaves in wrong way... --Molobo 23:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

You recently try to follow the letter of the rules by only adding sourced information (and then shout at others who "delete information" by reverting you). However, you should try to make your additions NPOV, or you will continue to get reverted. In the case of the two German scholars, it is correct that they had antisemitic views and that the article should discuss this. You put this information in the lead section, making it look like the most important thing to say about these people, so reverting your edit as extreme POV insertion is defendable. Try a more neutral and less combative approach: instead of calling other people to help you revert, you could make a compromise edit adding the information in a more appropriate place. Look at Richard Wagner, whose antisemitism is famous: it is mentioned briefly in the introduction, then expanded on later, which is much more NPOV than what you did. Kusma (討論) 23:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

You put this information in the lead section, German Wiki has this information in the lead section also... so reverting your edit as extreme POV insertion is defendable Kusma I know you resited adding anti-Polish views of Forster in article on him, as well as resiting adding information about persecution of Poles in Prussia so I can't view your statement here as objective. It seems you are of an opinion that national discrimination of Poles in Germany or by German scholars isn't a topic worthy of presence of Wiki. I am sorry but this is the impression your actions make. I certainly would like you to act in a way that would change this view. instead of calling other people to help you revert I never called on anyone to revert.Please don't make this insulting allegation. --Molobo 23:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I am talking about the Ernst Moritz Arndt article, where the information in the lead section of the German wiki is quite different. About you "calling other people to revert": well, let's call it "call other people for help". Don't you do this on this page quite often? Kusma (討論) 00:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Calling for help doesn't equall calling for reverts, additional information, attempts of dialogue, expansions of articles are very welcomed. Anyway what Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea do and you tolerate is a clear demonstration of pushing a one-sided German POV with clear nationalist undertones(as for example in Hakata article where Scinurea tried to argue that calling it an organisation dedicated to persecution of Poles is "unnactable bias"[36][37])and tried to remove the word nationalistic from the description), and I am afraid that resited long enough to call those edits as such despite their quite conflicting attitude towards my person. I would like to point out that I tried several times to engage in discussion on talk pages with you and them, to which I was either attacked by Matthead or Scinurea or faced your attempts to defend Matthead's deletions. It's good that this is adressed here, because this matter must be setttled. Both Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea behave in an incivil way, that I don't repeat(Scinurea's comments :

Your disjointed yawning-comment or

most often your replies make me roll my eyes, but this one was so lame and empty and evasive an answer, it made me laugh for a minute :-)') I have yet to see you criticising them for it.Please adress this issue of incivility. --Molobo 00:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have discussed this with you on your and my talk page before, and see no reason to repeat this. Could you please return to the topic: your too extreme POV in Ernst Moritz Arndt. Kusma (討論) 00:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I wish you finally take a stance on incivility and behaviour of denying discussion expressed by users whose activity you seem to be defending. :I have discussed this with you on your and my talk page before, and see no reason to repeat this What exactly ? I mentioned several issues in my previous post which I think are relevant to the issue here, and that I didn't discuss with you before.This is a wider problem then a single article and it needs to be adressed. The ongoing activity of Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea which often concentrates on reverting information regarding isssues involving German nationalism, persecution of other nations by German state or ideologies, presentation of a one-sided view of German history often with information that seems to have nationalist undertones(like mentioned attempts to remove the term nationalistic from Hakata article in regards to the organisation), and extreme incivility are a problem that doesn't simply fade away. Could you finally adress this issue and the invcivility of both users which I have given examples of ? --Molobo 00:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you please return to the topic: your too extreme POV in Ernst Moritz Arndt. I will gladly return to this topic as soon as we find a solution that will let us avoid a situation where Matthead, Jadger or Scinurea delete any information on persecution of Poles, German nationalism with comments such as "revert of lies"[38], "no MoloPOV"[39], refuse to discuss these reverts or at best engage in personal attacks on discussion page. Such situation isn't acceptable on Wiki. --Molobo 00:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps they have decided to treat you as a troll and not to answer you via WP:DNFT? Anyway, I have just added a POV tag and a mentioning of his antisemitism to Ernst Moritz Arndt, which is a 1911 article in need of attention. Kusma (討論) 00:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

My two cents:

1) there is no doubt that at times Molobo is showing very strong Polish POV. Which in itself is not against any policy, but of course means that his edits need to be toned down for POV. And when he clashes with similar strong POVed editors from other countries, well, the fireworks are not always pretty :/ Still, while the resulting short run edits (revert wars...) are annoying at times, in my experience in the long run they end up with articles being both expanded and more NPOVed. Not that I defend revert warring in any case.
2) setting the POV issue aside, I have seen some glaring examples of incivility used against Molobo. Certain users seem to act under the assumption that since a) Molobo has a clear and strong POV and/or b) he has been know to break 3RR several times (and have been punished for it) rules of civility don't apply to him. From calling him a troll to using edits summaries like 'demobolizing article' those users have evidently acted in bad faith and ignored WP:CIV. On the other hand I have not yet seen Molobo acting uncivil.

--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed Molobo has been quite civil since his last block. I guess the current noise comes from laziness: it is much easier to revert POV than to recognize useful information that was added in a POVish manner and to work it into an article. On the other hand, Molobo should know from experience that this will happen if he doesn't try to be a bit nicer towards German or Russian subjects. He could probably make his wikilife a lot easier by going a bit easier on POV insertions in lead sections, for example. Kusma (討論) 01:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Since Molobo tried to get us sidetracked by focusing attention on the negative aspects he seems to see in other contributors (a tactic which here becomes perhaps most obvious in his answer to Irpen's comment), I should briefly take the opportunity to defend myself (though that would be probably just what he wants). Just for the record, you, Molobo, should definitely know by now how to vaguely spell Sciurinæ (I'm not calling you Moobol, either, am I?) I find it quite interesting that someone saw a routine in the way he mixes his antipathy of Germany and Russia, but I still believe it is more by chance. I'm not surprised that his dislike is not directed against the whole of Poland's neighbours, because apparently he bears the Ukraine no grudge and can play diplomat to form an alliance against "the Russian users" (whether the national trenchwarefare he plunges wiki into is intentional or not, I can't tell for certain). Even if his behaviour is more careful, in substance the agenda remains the very same. There are also the good old deceptive "minor" edits again that, I thought, had long vanished for good. What I and probably others find confusing is that he can usually count on a condoning indifference or even a small amount of support in this notice board. It is perfectly understandable that in the atmosphere of conflicts between "German" and "Polish wikipedians" (and "Polish" and "Russian wikipedians"), both in the past and at times in the presence, lead to a different perception of people who have an extremely strong desire to vent their pro-Polish, anti-German and anti-Russian at the same time feelings, because who does not need a fighter for their own POV in a conflict when you're confronted by someone with a different POV. Yet this all sends the wrong message and you run into the danger of idiolising Molobo. Never incivil? Aren't you realising that Molobo is implying when he doesn't say "user who undid my contribution stating it was POV", but "user who deletes information about persecution of Poles"? Intentionally or not, he's implying that the deletion was denial and/or a an attempt of concealment.

Examples just below the headline Uwaga Molobo !:

  • "German wiki contains articles on scholars I added info about, and they contain the information on their anti-semitism and nationalism, which you either remove or dispute .--Molobo"
  • "Irpen the articles on German scholars I entered info about are on German wiki, they contain similar information on anti-semitism and nationalism that was deleted by Matthead. Who of course in no way makes controversial edits or beheaves in wrong way... --Molobo"
  • " 'You put this information in the lead section', German Wiki has this information in the lead section also... 'so reverting your edit as extreme POV insertion is defendable' Kusma I know you resited adding anti-Polish views of Forster in article on him, as well as resiting adding information about persecution of Poles in Prussia so I can't view your statement here as objective. It seems you are of an opinion that national discrimination of Poles in Germany or by German scholars isn't a topic worthy of presence of Wiki. I am sorry but this is the impression your actions make. I certainly would like you to act in a way that would change this view. instead of calling other people to help you revert I never called on anyone to revert.Please don't make this insulting allegation. --Molobo"
  • '"Calling for help doesn't equall calling for reverts, additional information, attempts of dialogue, expansions of articles are very welcomed. Anyway what Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea do and you tolerate is a clear demonstration of pushing a one-sided German POV with clear nationalist undertones(as for example in Hakata article where Scinurea tried to argue that calling it an organisation dedicated to persecution of Poles is "unnactable bias"[2][3])and tried to remove the word nationalistic from the description), and I am afraid that resited long enough to call those edits as such despite their quite conflicting attitude towards my person. I would like to point out that I tried several times to engage in discussion on talk pages with you and them, to which I was either attacked by Matthead or Scinurea or faced your attempts to defend Matthead's deletions. It's good that this is adressed here, because this matter must be setttled. Both Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea behave in an incivil way, that I don't repeat(Scinurea's comments : *Your disjointed yawning-comment or * most often your replies make me roll my eyes, but this one was so lame and empty and evasive an answer, it made me laugh for a minute :-)') I have yet to see you criticising them for it.Please adress this issue of incivility. --Molobo"
  • " I wish you finally take a stance on incivility and behaviour of denying discussion expressed by users whose activity you seem to be defending. ':I have discussed this with you on your and my talk page before, and see no reason to repeat this' What exactly ? I mentioned several issues in my previous post which I think are relevant to the issue here, and that I didn't discuss with you before.This is a wider problem then a single article and it needs to be adressed. The ongoing activity of Matthead, Jadger and Scinurea which often concentrates on reverting information regarding isssues involving German nationalism, persecution of other nations by German state or ideologies, presentation of a one-sided view of German history often with information that seems to have nationalist undertones(like mentioned attempts to remove the term nationalistic from Hakata article in regards to the organisation), and extreme incivility are a problem that doesn't simply fade away. Could you finally adress this issue and the invcivility of both users which I have given examples of ? --Molobo"
  • " 'Could you please return to the topic: your too extreme POV in Ernst Moritz Arndt.' I will gladly return to this topic as soon as we find a solution that will let us avoid a situation where Matthead, Jadger or Scinurea delete any information on persecution of Poles, German nationalism with comments such as "revert of lies"[4], "no MoloPOV"[5], refuse to discuss these reverts or at best engage in personal attacks on discussion page. Such situation isn't acceptable on Wiki. --Molobo"

Tthis has become a kind of taunting and defamation to me. After I once reverted his version of Germanisation whose changes included but were not at all limited to a sentence about Polish children kidnapped from their parents to be Germanised, it all started sometime last year. I told him to stop more or less indignant several times. It continued. To make it clearer. It would be similar if I said

"A Polish sysop who likes to undo the blocks of a Polish user, even if the block is based on an uncontroversial violation of 3RR (he thought he could engage in a rollback war against a "German administrator", under the illusion maybe that this is all a matter of nationality and ignoring the fact that admin Wiglaf isn't even German), has done this and that again. Please help."

Of course that would be incivil, Piotrus! And just have a look at the examples Molobo presented here:

  • Only after Molobo wrote "Yawn I have the book since 7 years at my home Sciurinæ. And as always you ignore any source you don't like. --Molobo", and "==I added the tag== Since the debate and sources provided have been ignored completely and currently the page is vandalised to whitewash the organisation, infamous in Poland for persecution of Polish people, as doing something "normal" in order to preserve national unity. I will return the neutral version as soon as possible. --Molobo", I made my "incivil" yawning-statement, to which Molobo replied "Not my problem if you don't like the sources because they contradict your nationalists POV. You are free to find sources supporting your view.--Molobo"
  • What's so incivil about the other? Yes, Molobo's reaction made me laugh indeed.

Of course I'm not the only one affected. Shauri and Thorsten1 were probably the first and I'm only somewhere in the middle, Kusma can now be seen as one of the most current victims (only as of today). And even before he came to Wikipedia, Molobo reserved a place in the hall of infamy of forums for his special civility. Well, I guess my entire answer does little good because Molobo will cherry-pick some statements (maybe even misquote me again) trying to shift the focus on others, and I would have to spend still more time on him. It's not completely true that he's ignored due to trolling, but rather because not everyone can waste an endless amount of time just for chatting. Sciurinæ 08:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Examples of Scinurae edits Removal of information about persecution of Poles in Prussia[40] Removal of information and links to Herero Genocide made by Germany in articl[41] [42], calls the mass murder of Herero people irrelevant to the history Deletion of information on atrocities committed by German soldiers in Poland [43] Deletion of information that Poles were targeted in Kulturkampf by Prussian authorities, disputing that xenophobia was present in German Empire: [44] Removal of information regarding hostility to Poles in Germany [45] Let others judge what it means. I also would like to ask what is usuall procedure in stalking, since Scinuraes edits seem to indicate he concentrates mainly on following me and articles I engage in, he hasn't written a single article, and focuses his activity on my person. This seems like stalking. --Molobo 09:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This sentence shows what I believe the problem with Scinurea his antipathy of Germany and Russia Scinurea isn't interested in history, he simply believes writing about Soviet, Russian, German history that will show something not favourable is expressing "antipathy". He can't distance himself from his personal views and look objective at history. Instead he engages in deletions of information that to him is "antipathy" towards Germany rather then historical knowledge. The examples include Kulturkampf and German Eastern Marches Society articles where Scinurae for long time has blocked any information about persecution of Poles and nature of organisation, it seems for sole belief of "antipathy" towards Germany by presenting information not favourable to it. It wasn't till Halibutttook his precious time to fully expand those articles that Scinurae no longer can object and disappeared from them. I also would like to point out, that while I present scholary sources Scinurae rarely does present anything that contradicst scholary work I show. Instead he engages in responce in line " I don't know that so it isn't true" or "It isn't in my history books". --Molobo 09:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

See what I mean when I said "Well, I guess my entire answer does little good because Molobo will cherry-pick some statements (maybe even misquote me again) trying to shift the focus on others"? As for the examples that were well-noted down and range back many months, the first edit is completely true and in line with the major historical perception, the Polish part does not usually play a (great) role. The second edit is also completely true and in line with the major historical perception, shown on the talk page twice. When I carelessly wrote "irrelevant to the history", I had though the definite article made it clear that I was not talking of history in general. I clarified it after that by saying it was irrelevant to this history section, which is completely true). Third: if you couldn't even convince anyone in the discussion on talk:, who do you think you are, stubbornely re-inserting the disputed section? It never was your strong POV that got you blocked, but always the strong will prevail in the article, no matter what. Fourth, I never said there was no xenophobia in the German Empire, that's a lie. You were completely unable to source the sentence "Some historians also point out anti-Polish and xenophobic elements in the policies", POV in the lead section of the Kulturkampf article. And lastly, yes, it is complete nonsense, it has no context and is sensationalistic nonsense. "In the opinion polls Poles rank lower than Turks or Russians, and 87 percent of German youth regard Polish people as "worse than themselves"[46] Based on a single poll from twelve years ago with unknown background and no notability on the web except in the article.
Well, I guess that's a smart tactic, defaming me everywhere you can even when you're the subject, and when I disagree, you'll resort to your usual list of my "wrongdoings", well-cherrypicked to give the worst possible impression and get the discussion sidetracked.
As for stalking, it is defined as this:
"The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.
This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful."
I couldn't care less whether you're editing an article about astronomy or China or something else. But when you want to vent your feelings in a subject related to German history, then you often come into conflict with policies, and if not a German user interested in German history should try to prevent POV crusades in subjects related to German history, who would do it then? Large parts of the Polish wikipedians' notice board apparently not. I wish I wouldn't have to bother with you, I really do; but for me perhaps no-one would want do the job which must be done and you'd continue to impose your strong views even in a more unrestrained way.
Your dogmatic assessment of my views lacks any basis and reality. I had 13/15 points in my A-levels in History, which included a focus on the German Empire. If I had known more about Russian history, I would have scored even better. You, by contrast, made it your mission to "enlighten" the world about your views on history, certainly not because they're so widely-believed. Your endless list of anti-German slander got you banned from a forum. Sciurinæ 11:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


I had 13/15 points in my A-levels in History, which included a focus on the German Empire. Nice, I had 6 exams in various History courses at my university. All of which I passed with an equivelant of A. As I said before your arguments amount to "I don't know this" "I had an exam from this" "It isn't in my history books", and no scholary sources. But when you want to vent your feelings in a subject related to German history, Again this shows that you are unable to see facts but instead believe that anything regarding German history is representation of people's "feelings". and if not a German user interested in German history should try to prevent POV crusades in subjects related to German history The fact that you consider adding information on war crimes, genocide, discrimination comitted by Germany as "POV crusade" speaks itself for what your actions are becoming. --Molobo 11:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

(deleted my message, I'd never thought I'd go that far. My apologies for reacting too indignantly. This wouldn't help go anywhere, anyway. Sciurinæ 12:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC))

Yes, please cool down and start to engage in discussions where civility is respected and scholary sources presented. This would be much welcomed. --Molobo 12:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Self-criticism! Sciurinæ 12:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Molobo

Please read it again, it contains a lot of problems with Molobo without attacking him. Most of the problems are still there, as evidenced by the thread above. Especially, the bait-and-switch tactics mentioned by Marskell and the irrelevance of many of Molobo's cited sources for the articles that dab and I discussed in Halibutt's summary. Molobo needs to learn from this criticism so we don't waste more time and bandwidth that is better spent building an encyclopedia. Kusma (討論) 13:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Kusma could you comment on incivility of Scinure, Jadger, Matthead, Scinurea's only focus on Wiki being following of my edits and deletions of information on war crimes, persecution of Poles, and discriminatory policies of German state towards other nationalites, their lack of any serious argumentation, lack of scholary sources ? I think the main problem of those users is they reject historical information that contradicts their private opinions. --Molobo 14:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, the name Sciurinæ is six months old and suddenly Molobo starts to misspell it for several times, even after I told him some hours ago. Why does he continue? What does someone want when you've told someone for an uncountable number of times to stop implying you were trying to deny something ... and the user goes straight on. And assuming also that the user is an academic and excels at his university. It can't be categorised as simple-minded anymore. It must be taunting. As for incivility, you and me noticed some. And how severely you punished it twenty minutes later! Flatterly will get you everywhere... Sciurinæ 15:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Cause: (underscored notable words and phrases)

"[...]

OK .. 213 no discussion with you no more, all your changes will be reverted if you really removed something from the discussion. You are an idiot. ackoz 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

"millions were killed on their way to the west" is an example of German home-made history. The total number of German victims wasn't "millions" and many of the victims died of infections. The German government was responsible for the too late and poorly organised evacuation ("Flucht").

The Germans created many myths about the expulsion. Now a German demands academic treatment. Yes, yes, yes! But the academic treatment has been done. There are thousands of pages of published documents.

[...] ackoz 14:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)"

and effect:
The Epic Barnstar
For your efforts to improve article on population transfer of Germans and deconstructing nationalist claims and myths--Molobo 14:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
After you had filled this page and several others with requests to criticise Matthead, Jadger and me in connection with incivility, on the same day you would reward someone generously after they had made an incivil comment which showed a willingness to join your front. 213 had several revert wars against you over your section in the article and now someone might finally join your ranks. Do you actually know how incredibly credible this all makes you? It simply doesn't! Sciurinæ 17:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

on the same day you would reward I awarded him for longstanding effort to deconstruct nationalistic POV-pushing in a very important article.Particulary for this information that I couldn't find for months and which Ackoz was generous to find[47]. --Molobo 17:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh surely it was not because he decided to finally join you against 213, who had troubled your mind on the article for such a long time, but because you're so particularly interested in Czech history! While inventing a pretext, you should have a look at the contribution serving as pretext. It is a copyright violation, copying text from a copyrighted page saying it doesn't look to him to be copyrighted (you've to proof that s.th. is not a copyright violation, not that s.th. is. In this case it even is, Copyright © 2003 - 2005 Country Studies US) and apart from lenghtening the "background" section playing down the actual expulsion and providing more room for moral relativism, you couldn't care less about that paragraph. You read his comment on talk:, you'd engaged yourself on the page and would read it. Then you would look for an appropriate award and that was the real way. You even included the word "myths" in the award, just like in the comment. You awarded someone who had made what is uncontroversially identifiable as a personal attack on a talk page vowing to help you fight 213. And shortly after Ackoz also reserved the right to make personal attacks on his talk page, which of course is not allowed by policy in the same way. Yes, I consider you a cold-blooded lawyer, I can't and won't deny your intention, not after I've seen you for almost a whole year. You're an educated man but your ambition stands in complete contrast to the spirit of Wikipedia, and you've invariably shown a lack of readiness to change. Why isn't it as easy as the Guardian article wrote? Spin doctor --> ban! It is a disgrace that Wikipedia allows someone who has been banned for at least three times from forums for the same incivil and annoying agenda, at least if he won't change, and, needless to say, he has not. Sciurinæ 18:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, the name Sciurinæ is six months old and suddenly Molobo starts to misspell it for several time

æ<---I don't see this letter in your name on my computer. It is present but as some blurp that I can't reckognise. Looks like S combined with E. As for incivility, you and me noticed some What are you talking about ? --Molobo 15:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC) Flatterly will get you everywhere... Please stop this personal references. --Molobo 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


This is about criticism of you. One point that you just proved again is that you typically react to criticism by criticising others. You have to address the criticism, not the criticisers. Kusma (討論) 15:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
And please learn to use preview, I just edit conflicted with you threefour times. Kusma (討論) 15:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

You have to address the criticism, not the criticisers. The discussion was started by information about deletion of information by certain users, information like anti-semitism in German political thought, discrimination and crimes made by German state in history, incivility, lack of scholary sources and use of purely private opinions to justify reverts of sourced information. Please finally adress those original issues instead of turning the problem into claiming I should be criticised me for some unexplained reason. Like I said the ongoing incivility of Matthead, Scinurea, Jadger and their refusal to engage in discussions, and continued reverts of such information remains the problem. I see that you want to defend them in some way and are starting to get emotional, therefore I suggest a pause for calming down, as I also see that you are unwilling to adress those issues, I think I need to find somebody that will engage in solving that problem. Have a good day. --Molobo 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This discussion was started because someone reverted your too POVish addition of the mentioning of antisemitism. Please address this issue. I have talked to Matthead that he should not revert you blindly. Please don't go offtopic again. Kusma (討論) 15:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Molobo be blocked permanently?

After reading the stuff above, I suggest Molobo should be banned from editing Wikipedia. His actions bring the project into disrepute. He has been given plenty of opportunities to reform. Enough is enough. --Ghirla -трёп- 17:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Pro During the time of his last block, most articles in which he had been busy were brought to a compromise, for example cities related to Copernicus like Torun. Editors finally could focus on contributing to Wikipedia rather than wasting time for cleaning up "Molobedia". Since he is back, trouble is back, as he e.g. needed to insert his POV in EB1911-based biographies on Germans that died before 1870. And today, he accused me right here of "info about brutal opression of Czechs by German Reich-deleted by Matthead", based on my edit, before removing his lie an hour later. A permanent block from editing, except on his user page, is the only thing that can stop his habits. Like during his last block, he can still "contribute" to Wikipedia by listing the links he considers interesting. Other users then can be inspired by these - or not. --Matthead 18:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the mistake about the Bohemia. I deleted this as soon as I noticed the matter. However could you explain your other behaviour and deletions that contradicts even German wiki ? I see that you continue to beahave in rude and incivil manner. ck, he e.g. needed to insert his POV in EB1911-based biographies on Germans that died before 1870. The same "POV" is found on German wiki. --Molobo 19:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I am engaging in discussion and hoping for solution to the problem in a civil manner. Why do you have problem with that Ghirla ?--Molobo 17:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about permanently but another month or a couple of weeks would be a good idea IMO. It helped a little last time. Perhaps it would help again. --Irpen 18:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I neither broke any rule, nor engaged in revert wars Irpen. Anyway I am limiting my activity due to studies for about a month anyway. --Molobo 18:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Please consider moderating your attitudes when you are back. Good luck with your exams. --Irpen 18:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

As you are still editing, please moderate your attitude now. Thanks, Kusma (討論) 14:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks like he isn't... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 16:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have read wikipedia and comments by Molobo on and off and I am very surprised that he is still at it. Why is such hateful, spiteful stuff still going on ? Molobo should go !—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.189.49.151 (talk • contribs) 09:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Issues after the move

I have moved the board, as was proposed and discussed above. I have also done some eye-candy changes to our main page. I have significantly redesigned the awards section, and on that note see the formal proposal for the The Polish Barnstar of National Merit. Please also add your name to the new 'Participants list' which Elonka started; I think that a brief description of one's 'specialization' may be a nice touch, too.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

While we are doing some much needed cleanup, I'd like to do a quick summary of various projects we have started and how are they doing. This should prove useful, as even I was not watching some of the pages I found while doing this review for us.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography of Poland - concentraiting on naming issues involving voivodships/province and to a lesser extents powiats/gmina/etc. Seems somewhat active whenever any renaming proposal is suggested.
  • Wikipedia:Wikiproject Polish Heraldry - mentioned in few places, redirects to Talk:Polish heraldry. No meaningful activity for almost a year.
  • Polish Collaboration of the Week - seems inactive, which is a shame. Would anybody be willing to help with restartign of this project? It even has its own logo :)
  • Portal:Poland - Witkacy was the person who took care of it. After he disappread from Wiki about a year ago, the Portal has not been updated...

Comments? Did I miss anything? Should we try to reactive some of the old stuff, mark it as inactive, rename it, put more effort into something...?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

While I was on the redesigning spree, I also made us a template that we can use to invite users who contribute to Poland-related article but may be unaware of the existance of this board.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)

Recently our dear collegue, Ghirlandajo, has suggested there that "It seems to me that every opposer is Polish. One ethnic community cannot dictate its terms to Wikipedia, hence their votes should be discounted." Perhaps some of you would like to comment on his eloquent critique of the voting structure and this novel idea to reach consensus by excluding an obviously biased (Polish) party... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

How about fighting your own battles, rather than asking other people to do it for you? --Elonka 22:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Huh? What battle? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus can you provide link/links to suport your claims? If it is true what you are saying then, maybe we should do Ghirlandajo a favour and present that "idea" to the Arbitration Committee so they may comment it? Comments? Mieciu K 00:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that on the merits, Ghirla is right here. Persistence with forcing English readers use/read non-English characters seems like a Polonization of English attempt. Russian and Ukrainian names are always transliterated to English characters, not to some obscure latin variants, like Drahomanivka or Lacinka. However, no one is prohibited from submitting it to ArbCom. This would be fun to watch case, though a hopelessly short one IMO. --Irpen 00:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Here you go, Mieciu.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I will not comment the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) dispiute since it is not my specialisation. But Ghirla's comments that the votes or opinions of wikipedians of one ethnic origin (polish) should be regarded as less valuable than the votes or opinions of other wikipedians can be considered pure trolling. We should react to such uncivil comments. Mieciu K 01:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I am sure that most other wikipedians would simply ignore his racist attack, although it does appear that those who support him seem to be quite vocal at the moment. But I am sure reason and civility will prevail, as it has always done on Wiki. For the future reference, if anybody deems any behaviour (Ghirla's, mine, etc.) uncivil the WP:CCD is a good place to bring it up.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I was commenting exclusively on the merits of Ghirla's position, not the tone of his message which I don't support. I also disagree with generalizing over the editors by their ethnicity. If Piotrus is so outraged by this infrequent mistake by Ghirla, I invite him to comment on the user who calls his opponents by their ethnicities in every single talk page entry.[48][49][50][51][52][53][54] --Irpen 02:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I had not interacted with Ukrained, but from the edits above it does appear he is indeed in need of cooling down. On the other hand, seeing as much of his problems stirr from interractions with Ghirla I'd suggest that advising one's fellow co-editor to be more civil may result in the other side being civil as well. Especially if you don't support the tone of Ghirla's message, perhaps you could talk to him about it on the talk?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
LOL, no Piotrus, not Grirla, but myself is the main issue the UA-nationalists are conserned about (see for instance this unspeakable fellow, who, as Ukrained, both happen to be Wikifriends of Molobo). I am not pleased (neither conserned) with this honor but Ghirla they view as just a Russian chauvinist while myself, they view as Isidore the Apostate :). Funny enough, it is the nationalists in Ukraine rather than the moderates like myself (and most Ukrainian editors) are the fringe outcasts (see for instance the book by Andrew Wilson (historian)). Now, be sure, I do tell Ghirla when he goes over the top. OTOH, on the merits IMO he is much more rarely wrong than it may seem from your end. As far as diatrics are conserned, I am really ticked off every time someone corrects things I write by crossing "l"s and other thingies as if I am writing the Polish people/towns wrongly. I am trying my best to write them in English. We have an ambiguity about the usage of diatrics. General English usage has little ambiguity as to what letters are English and what aren't. Neither Ukrainian, nor Russian Wikipedians have any problem with that. I hate to use ethnic words, but please try to understand that many (if not most) non-Polish (sorry) editors, find the imposition on diatrics into the English Wikipedia rather annoying. --Irpen 02:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Polish PD?

Although the {{PD-Poland}} is pretty good, it would be nice if we had an equivalent of {{PD-US}}, i.e. one where we could say that 'this image was published in Poland before...?' thus is in public domain. See also #Template:PolandGov rewrite.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Pije ocet

This came up at the translation desk. I wouldn't be surprised if it is nonsense and can be speedily deleted. Please either tag it with a speedy tag with explanation that you understand what it is about or comment at WP:PNT (or translate it if it is useful). Thanks, Kusma (討論) 23:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It is/was nonsense. Someone writing about himself, about how he likes drinking vinegar (ocet in Polish. Mieciu K 00:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I have deleted it. Kusma (討論) 00:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Polish monarchs, episode #56

It has been proposed below that Zygmunt III Vasa be renamed and moved to Sigismund III Vasa. RM vote is at Talk:Zygmunt III Vasa.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

See also Talk:Zygmunt II August and Talk:Zygmunt I the Old. Perhaps I should warn some readers that 'Polish nationals [who] force Polish spelling on various articles' seem to be discouraged from partcipating in this discussion, as the issue should be decided preferably by the 'consensus by the non-Polish majority of the Wikipedia community'. After careful consideration of this, I can see the merit of the above logic. After all we can safely assume that Poles, being obviously POVed in the matters of Poland, should be stopped from contributing to the Poland-related articles. Flawless logic, I agree.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I moved the page back as the user who moved it didn't inquire of the community in the first place. It is the original move than should be voted for rather than we have to vote to return the article to the name it used for a long time which coinsides to all major EL encyclopedias. Proponetns of the move are welcome to propose the move to the Polish rather than anglicized name. --Irpen 03:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I apologize. Details at the article talk. --Irpen 04:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

And this is the same style Polonization of English discussed a couple of sections above. I think I will add the issue to Polonization article, along with the introduction of diatrics into an English media (of which one is Wikipedia). In no way I want to offend anyone's sensitivities. But it amazes me that my colleagues here can't see how the most commonly used names should be used as you can find in other encyclopedias. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) actually prevails over other rules which come into play only when the name isn't clearly defined by the UE which says: If you are talking about a person, country, town, movie or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. For example, Christopher Columbus, Venice. Why Columbus but Zygmunt? --Irpen 03:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
WP:POINT, WP:NOR, and interrupting a started WP:RM vote. Irpen, are you feeling all right?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:13, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

All right, we all make mistakes. In the meantime, the discussion seems to have moved to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)#Need_of_particular_exception.2F_convention_for_Polish_monarchs, the other places being reserved mostly for Piotrus-bashing :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A proposal to change the current guidelines is discussed here. I suggested adopting my current Polish monarchs naming scheme here, feel free to comment.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Armia Krajowa in need of attention.

Some Lithuanian user claims that Armia Krajowa worked side by side with Germans and in 1941 Germans begun arming Armia Krajowa with arms quote "sixty horse carts of weapons". Seems very dubious. Somebody should check it out. Most of Armia Krajowa article looks now like it was a para-military organisation of Nazi Germany, anyway. --Molobo 20:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I asked for some clarifications on talk. Lithuanian referencs are better then no references, but they are even harder to verify then Polish (there are less lt-speakers and the language is quite different from your average Slavic language). If the references can be confirmed as academic lt refs and/or English academic refs supporting them can be found, then the modifications should stay. Otherwise...we will see. They are certainly controversial, but before they are removed some sources to the contrary would be useful.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation requested by me in the Polish Cabal case

I have decided that there is a limit to the number of accusations I can take regarding this board being the 'Polish Cabal' and me being its head cabalist. I have filled a request for mediation at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader. You are welcome to comment in the 'comment' section, as well as - if you feel you have personally been influeced by this case - to make a note of it in the 'Who's involved?' section. I am sure that the fact that I am notifying this board about the mediation case will be used as further evidence of me using this board to "call for support", I nonetheless am taking this chance as I believe I was not the only one offended by the 'Polish Cabal' argument.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Double proposal to move

There is a proposal to move Wladyslaw Jagiello to one of two (!) names: Wladyslaw II Jagiello of Poland and Wladyslaw Jagiello of Lithuania, King of Poland. The page has been moved even before the vote ended. Feel free to cast your vote (if you can find it due to the circular redirects). Appleseed (Talk) 15:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The page is currently at Wladyslaw II Jagiellon of Poland. I tried to restore it pending the result of the voting but was unable to. Appleseed (Talk) 15:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
A side-question: why aren't we using polish diacritics? I recall seeing many pages under their native names, with many {{R from misspelling}} redirects... Misza13 T C 17:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Not all users can see them. On many computers, they just show up as little boxes. They also make it difficult for non-Poles to correctly link to articles, since including the proper diacritic (especially when someone is not familiar with the Polish language) can be very difficult. --Elonka 18:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... So I guess Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, Wisła (why isn't the river the main article?), Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Jarosław Kaczyński and Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz are all in violation with this guideline? ;-) Misza13 T C 18:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the diactrics display propoerly on all computers since Wikimedia software was updated some months (years) ago. Problems may appear is some strange html is used in the article, or in some very odd symbol not supported by unicode, and possibly some very old operating systems may have some issues with unicode in general. I believe Wikipedia:Unicode should have relavant information (but it doesn't seem to be very useful), so you may want to enquire at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) for more info.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Diatrics letters are non-English. Britannica doesn't use them in titles and in articles except in the first line to provide a native spelling in addition to the anglicized one. Most books written in English don't use diatrics, while some do. Some people consider forcing the non-English letters into the English Wikipedia as arrogant and even ridiculous attempt of Polonization of the English language. I don't see this as an ultimate intent and I don't see this as a goal of those who "correct" my spelling of Polish names in the articles but I still find this annoying. I plan on writing a section on this curious phenomenon and appending it to the end of Polonization article. (By all means 'do correct my English as well as anyone else's.)

I should add that if indeed on 'many computers' the Polish diactrics in Wikipedia articles are displayed incorrectly, then I would certainly argue they should not be used on en-wiki.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Pilsudski isn't incorrect in an English text. It is no less appropriate to use as Piłsudski (again, in the English text of course). Why is someone always "correcting" others on that? Diatrics letters are Polish letters (well Czech and others' too but not English). They are latin all right but this is English Wikipedia. The usage of diatrics separate discussion currently ongoing is rather fierce and by no means settled towards their acceptance. If you must write them, do so. But please, at least avoid them in article titles and give it a thought before "correcting" others who wrote Polish names without diatrics. --Irpen 19:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The Poland-related articles with diacritics are a small fraction of the WP articles that use non-English letters, so I don't understand all the negative attention. When you're done with the Polonization article, you may want to take a look here and update the Germanisation article. Appleseed (Talk) 19:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Why not start closer at home with Category:Russian loanwords?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus, while the merit of some of the articles in this cat (AfD-ebility) may be subject to the dispute, note that the article titles consist exclusivley of English characters. I am familiar with one cyrillic typed article title "Добрий вечір, тобі..." and I said elsewhere that it needs moved to the English latin letters. Like, say Den Pobedy song. Only obscurity of this Dobry Vechir song article is the reason why I didn't raise the issue. Loanwords is a legitimate issue. Using non-English symbols is a separate one. --Irpen 20:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Some diacritics are widely accepted in English, others not so much. For example, ä, ö, and ñ are typically accepted. The use of ß and ł is disputed; typically, the weirdo foreign characters have to go if the article is about a person widely known in English in non-scholarly publications (like Michael Groß, whose article is at Michael Gross although Groß and Gross are considered different names in Germany). Anyway, we have {{foreignchar}} and {{R from title without diacritics}} to control the "problem" when there is one. In general, I'd rather find articles under their native name with all the diacritical glory. Why should we transliterate anything that is not a foreign script? For things that do need transliteration, I support {{R from alternate language}} redirects in Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, whatever script, to make it easy to find the article even without knowing our method of transliteration. Kusma (討論) 20:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
The difference, as far as I am concerned, is about the alphabets. En-wiki uses the Latin alphabet, and Polish diactrical letters are considered a part of it. Cyrillic is not Latin, just as various Japanese, Chineese or other alphabets, and thus are not used as ilinks or article names.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not read the Latin alphabet WP article as well as in EB first? L.A. consists of 26 letters, it says, btw. Then give it another thought.

Also, where does it say that WP uses the Latin alphabet rather than the English one? I understand that there may be cases where we must use symbols other than those 26 and, on rare occasions, even in the titles. But those are few cases. There is no doubt that they is an extra complication for readers and editors. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Depending on whether their non-usage creates "incorrect words" in English. I am sure this is not the case here. The discussion about diactrics isn't settled. What's more important, to make more readers to read and learn about Pilsudski or to teach them that it is "more correct" to write him with "ł" (at least a questionable statement for English grammar). For me, even writing it requires copy/pasting. ł is not more correct. Both are correct. "l" is just more English and we are at en-wiki now. --Irpen 23:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointint that out. I should have said, more correctly, that we seem to be using the letters found in Alphabets derived from the Latin. However, interestingly, let's look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English): Article titles should use the Latin alphabet, not any other alphabets or other writing systems. This raises a logical question whether an 'alphabet derived from Latin' is considered Latin or not for the purpose of this definition, especially if we define the 'alphabet derived from Latin' as the one using diactrics and note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Disputed issues states: There is disagreement over what article title to use when a native name uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics (or "accent marks") but general English usage omits the diacritics. A survey that ran from April 2005 to October 2005 ended with a result of 62–46 (57.4%–42.6%) in favor of diacritics, which was a majority but was not considered to be a consensus. This would indicate for me that there diactric letters are considered part of the Latin alphabet for the purpose of the WP:NC(UE) definition. There is a proposed policy at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), although I am afraid it still needs a lot of work.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I have no objections to Latin-based diacritics. I do prefer the usage of English-language terminology if it is more common than the native language term (for instance Munich instead of München), but I don't support the removal of diacritics if there is no common English name (I support Fürth instead of Fuerth or Furth, Weißenburg instead of Weissenburg, Łódź instead of Lodz, etc.). Olessi 02:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Duchy of Warsaw

Does anyone know why we have Category:Polish historical departments (1806-1815) when the Duchy wasn't formed until 1807? Appleseed (Talk) 21:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope. But it's an anon created category. I'd recomend going to WP:CFD and renaming this category if nobody has any better idea.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting template

I found Template:German. I think it is useful to indicate articles translated from national wikis when the original articles are not referenced, to give the users some idea where the information comes from. Do you think we should create a Template:Polish?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Here ya go! Olessi 23:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I think those template should also have corresponding categories, so we can seasily see which articles are based on translations.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I am thinking we can further increase the usefulness of those templates. I'd suggest creating several variants:

  • first for articles which were translated from national wikis, but the original article (in national wiki) gives no references. Such temlate should say: This article incorporates unreferenced text translated from... and put the article Category:Articles lacking sources
  • second should be used for articles which were translated and the original article gives references but no inline citations. They should say This article incorporates text translated from... which uses the following general references:
  • third should be used for articles which were translated and the original article uses inline citations. This article incorporates text translated from... which uses the following inline citations:

The question remains what to do with articles which were translated from unreferenced articles but references where added later to the English version. It is likely that those articles wil contain some unreferenced info, but also some referenced and verifiable one. I am not sure what to do in such cases?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this is m:instruction creep. These templates are there just to provide author attribution. The lack of sources (or wrong language of sources; often many English-language ones exist and should be cited instead of the original ones) is a different problem. Kusma (討論) 21:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Jagiello

Check: is Jagiellonczyk the precise feminine form of Jagiello? does it have those difficult diacritical letters? Maed 00:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No and yes. Jagiellończyk is a diminuative of Jagiełło, or perhaps more correctly, an adjective meaning 'of the Jagiellonian dynasty'. Or another one of those historical inventions that make our life more complicated on Wiki :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Page moves

The voting on Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło has apparently been restarted. There is also a proposal to move Talk:Zygmunt II August. Appleseed (Talk) 12:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

As well as Zygmunt I the Old and Zygmunt III Waza.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Polish noble families

Some issues: 1) shouldn't Category:Polish noble families be renamed into Category:Polish nobility families of Category:Polish szlachta families? 2) it seems logical that all families in List_of_szlachta#By_family should have a subcategory in this category, and vice versa, that all families with their own subcategory should have be listed there. Also, it probably would not be a bad idea to split of the 'list by family' to its own subarticle, with the same name as the the category 3) however Wikipedia is not an address book or such, so we should definietly not try to list all noble families, only notable one. Some time ago I took a stab at defining what is a notable (important) noble family, see header at List_of_szlachta#By_family. But I think we should have a more clear definition. What do you think about a criteria: at least two members mentioned in Polski Słownik Biograficzny and/or PWN encyklopedia?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Lies of Polish media

Recentely Ghirlandajo's has gone further in his view, while he proposed recentely that Poles should have their votes deleted based on the fact that they are...Poles[55], now he claims Polish media can't be used as source since I quote:"Polish media are severly biased against Russia" "their lies about Russia have been exposed". The statement can be found here: [56] If somebody has a thought how to stop this attitude he is welcomed to comment. I find that it is impossible to deal with Ghirlandajo as he openly attacks sources and contributors on basis of their nationality. It is not only in regards to Poles. Here he calls a user from Bulgaria "new Bulgarian pest" [57] --Molobo 12:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts is in order? Or another another RfC? Although as the first one didn't seem to change his behaviour, I am not sure if a more radical alternatives should not be considered. On the other hand, I would recommend trying mediation before them - who knows, maybe this time it will help.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Teutonic Knights

Could someone advise me how do Teutonic titles translate into english? I Know the main ones liek the Grand Master, komtur and Great Treasurer, but there were some other ones like "Wielki Szafarz" and "Wielki Mincerz" that I have no clue how to translate it into English.

Thanks in advance. Norum 9.9.06

This link gives the following translations:

During the first twenty years of its existence, the institutional structure of the Order developed and stabilized. The Teutonic Order followed the lead of the Templars and Hospitallers by creating a system of provinces. Unlike monastic orders composed of independent abbeys, the Teutonic Knights had a hierarchical chain of command with commanderies (house, Kommende) at the lowest level. Provinces or bailiwicks (Ballei, Komturei) were parts of "countries" that composed the Order as a whole. Its first independent rule was adopted in 1264.

The officials governing the Teutonic Order at the various levels were commander (Komtur, preceptor) at the local level, province commander (Landkomtur), national commander (Landmeister), and grand master (Hochmeister, magister). The highest leadership positions (including grand master, grand commander [Grosskomtur], marshal [Ordensmarschall], draper or quartermaster [Trapier], hospitaller [Spittler], and treasurer [Tressler]) were elected by the general chapter.

Membership of this mostly German-speaking order was composed of various, distinct classes: knights, priests, and other brothers (lay brothers, sisters, and "familiars"). There was a large number of people who supported the professed members of the Order, ranging from auxiliary knights to slaves. The highest ranking were secular knights, serving for free. Turcopoles (Greek for "son of Turk") were originally probably lightly-armed, half-breed cavalry whose name applied to Turkish mercenaries employed in the Byzantine army, later the term was adopted by the military orders. There were attendants called squires (knechte), and sergeants-at-arms. Footsoldiers were usually coerced from the local peasantry. Sister-aids (halpswesteren) were employed as domestics as were halpbrüderen; they took religious vows. Married and single lay domestics also were employed by the Order. Artisans and laborers (e.g., gardeners, carpenters, masons) worked for charity or wages. Many serfs and slaves were owned by the Order.

Hopefully that is helpful. Olessi 00:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"Polish-nationalistic minority" in Wiki

Nothing unusuall, another person who declared his intention to oppose "Polish-nationalistic minority". [58] The user quickly made a list of proposed changes and is adressing people to support him, Irpen, Ghirla, Dr. Dan etc. [59]. Might be valuable to see his proposals... --Molobo 19:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


That person is User:Marrtel, who has made some additional proposals to move:

For the record, it is difficult to name the Polish monarch articles for a number of reasons:

  • Some given names are difficult ot translate (Władysław vs. Wladyslaw vs. Vladislaus vs. Wladislaus vs. Vladislav, etc.)
  • Some agnomina are difficult to translate (Jogaila vs. Jagiello vs. Jagiellon vs. Jagiellonian vs. Jagiełło vs. Jagiellonka vs. Jagiellończyk)
  • Not all monarchs were kings
  • There are problems with ordinals
  • Problems related to the union with Lithuania ("of Poland" or "of Lithuania" or "of Poland and Lithuania")
  • There is no consistency in naming in the English historiography. In many cases the Polish names are used.

There is a reason we have Wikipedia:Ignore all rules--to avoid foolish consistency. As another editor pointed out, there are many other cases that avoid WP convention, such as Ivan the Terrible and Juan Carlos of Spain. I hope editors are aware of these issues before voting, and certainly before accusing others of nationalism. I hope we can avoid the types of compromises that have yielded such redirect gems as "Wladyslaw II/V of Poland, Jogaila of Lithuania". Appleseed (Talk) 20:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent points. KonradWallenrod 07:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


And there is a poll at Talk:List_of_Polish_monarchs#Poll:_article_names_of_Polish_monarchs.2C_diacritics_accepted_or_not.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Request for translation

A reader wrote in to info-en to request a translation of pl:Siemiatycze to English, to replace the stub that is currently at Siemiatycze. Your assistance in fulfilling this requestion would be greatly appreciated. Kelly Martin (talk) 02:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Diacritics poll

User:Marrtel asks: should Polish monarch articles use diacritics? I believe previous polls have already demonstrated that the WP community favors their use. Appleseed (Talk) 13:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

As this poll could have very large consequences, I strongly invite everybody to read through the discussion and vote as they feel is appopriate.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

New Gdansk absurdity.

User Matthead had decided to change the category of people born in Gdansk to born in Gdansk-Danzig[60]. I think that such changes should be avoided without consultations and that it is an unnecessary one, since it refers to current city, and the the people born in the past have the Germanised name in their entries. Anyway this is annoying, soon we shall have people born in Warsaw-Warschau. --Molobo 00:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool, how about People born in Brest-Brisk-Biarescia-'Brest-Litovsk'-'Brzesc Litewski'? I agree, the move is not well-thought. `'mikka (t) 01:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Agree, it should simply be "List ... Gdańsk". Olessi 03:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
In some cases the naming of such lists/categories can be made neutral by usage of adjectival forms (cf. List of Varsovians, Famous Leopolitans, and so on). However, I don't believe there could be a single Polish-German-Latin root for people born in Gdańsk/Danzig/Gyddanzyk/Dantzik... //Halibutt 08:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

How about "List of Gedanians" :) Shilkanni 23:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Soon someone will propose "List of Gedanians-Danzigers". We won't escape this problem. ProudPomeranian 05:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to move

Talk:Zygmunt I the Old -> Sigismund I the Old. Appleseed (Talk) 23:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Marcin Kromer changed to Martin Cromer by Matthead

A new target of Matthead's edits is Marcin Kromer, Matthead insists on changing his name to Martin Cromer despite the fact that it isn't supported by sources[61] --Molobo 11:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Another proposal to move

Talk:Kazimierz II the Just -> Casimir II the Just. Appleseed (Talk) 20:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo is deleting references and replacing with some unsourced statements

User Ghirandajo is deleting references about cultural differences among Slavic people and inserts unsourced statements that are very biased. The same is done on article regarding Panslavism. Here[62] and here[63] --Molobo 19:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

And that's news? :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

article move

Talk:Kazimierz IV Jagiellon -> Casimir IV Jagiellon. Appleseed (Talk) 01:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

For some, no consensus to move means... move

After recent RfM resulted in no consensus for the moves of some Polish monarch, Shilkanni (talk · contribs) apparently decided that 'no consensus' means he can move the articles... See: Boleslav II of Poland, Boleslav I of Poland. He also decided that some other articles don't need a RfM to move at all - good point, as he doesn't seem to care for RM anyway. See John II Casimir of Poland. So far it is just those three but I am sure he doesn't intend to stop there. Comments? There is also some interesting debate going on at Casimir III of Poland (moved with RM consensus). Anybody care to start a RM for Casimir III the Great which I believe is a reasonable compromise? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 07:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

"Voting is evil." "Matters of fact cannot be decided by vote." "No language is going to have its own exception to general manual of style." "go propose change to general manual of style." I thik this farce of Polish spellings has continued long enough, and "anyon is within their rights to move these from impossible names." Congratulations, Piotrus, you succeeded in keeping your wishes pushed over others for half a year. Aren't you satisfied with such success. This is not intended as any sort of insult, it is a sincere congratulation, and recount of facts on what has happened. ObRoy 10:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It is really sad to see that Polish editors are treated with such hostility on Wiki. --Molobo 15:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it more understandable, now that it has been proven that a Polish editor was engaging in rampant sockpuppetry in order to move articles to Polish names, and then influence the votes when these changes were challenged? The following accounts were all controlled by the same user [64]:
Logologist's votes and page moves have therefore all been placed in question, and especially because Piotrus was systematically using his admin access to backup Logologist's changes, this increased the perception of something improper going on. --Elonka 18:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
It is unfortunate that it took so long to discover Logologist's sockpuppetry. I hope this doesn't do any long-term damage to the reputation of our Polish editors (Molobo, please believe that hostility is not related to your nationality, but to the perceived behavior of the alleged "Polish cabal"). I suggest to just drop the matter of Polish monarchs for the moment and leave it to the royalty naming conventions experts, who are just trying to get things named consistently (probably an impossible goal, but a worthy one). I am willing to assume good faith that Piotrus did not know of Logologist's sockpuppetry. Using admin powers for moves that appear uncontroversial (I don't know in this particular case) is fine, by the way. Kusma (討論) 18:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree. And let me state here that most certainly I didn't knew about Logologist being a sockmaster; and he would be quite low on my 'list of suspects' if sb told me there was one among the Polish editors :( Score one minus point on 'judge a character' for me. Considering how close were most of the Polish monarchs vote, now that Logoloist&Co. votes are dismissed I expect that we will soon find ourselves where we were half a year ago, although I still stand by my original proposal. On the other hand, as Kusma (and others in the mediation) pointed out, I have not done anything wrong. If anything, I am as victim to Logologist trickery as anybody, considering how his behaviour has damaged my reputation :( This doesn't however change the fact that Shilkanni acted against consensus on RM (the consensus may now be invalid, but when he moved the article it sure was not challenged).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Consensus or not, Shilkanni moved the page to a new name of his invention, disregarding the vote completely. Appleseed (Talk) 19:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I'm not really happy about Shilkanni's moves either. --Elonka 20:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Shilkanni now moving geography articles

And so we have Kuiavian-Pomeranian Voivodship and other nice things... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The EU uses Kujawsko-pomorskie Voivodship, see [65]. In the case of German government subdivisions, we managed to end a long conflict by agreeing to use EU terminology (unfortunately the translation guide does not include Polish topics yet). Kusma (討論) 19:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
August III the Saxon was also moved without WP:RM. I reverted the move temporarily and encouraged the editor to use WP:RM, but he refuses. Another user (200+ edits, perhaps a sock?) is helping him revert me, so I can't restore the page without 3RR. Appleseed (Talk) 19:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Do not lie and state that I am being helped or make it seem like I am partnered with Henq. The naming conventions are on the side of Augustus III of Poland, since very, very few people in English call him "the Saxon" or a translation of any other variant Polish form. I explicitly told you this held true for Augustus III and not August II, because I haven't investigated the usage for him. Charles 20:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
It wasn't a statement. Notice the question mark. It's common on WP to be wary of new users. And if you're so sure that your proposed name is the right one, then I'm sure WP:RM will be a breeze. Appleseed (Talk) 20:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
It would have been such a breeze that the vote would not have mattered. Hence the move in accordance with existing conventions. Elaborate on your sock puppet accusations (i.e. sockpuppet of whom) in addition to your other slander (i.e. me being helped to block your edits... a joke, really, since Henq is reaffirming what I said about conventions). A sockpuppet check would show that Henq and me are not the same person. Charles 20:13, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Very well, I'll concede I jumped the gun by suggesting without proof that Henq may be a sockpuppet. Now, in the spirit of collaboration, would you restore the page and propose your move at WP:RM? Appleseed (Talk) 21:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe such a RM is not necessary, nor recommendable. It seems to me that the only hope of the so-called keepers of the Polish names, is to stick with their own unwarranted moves made in last December, and require anyone else to have an over 60% majority to return any of those articles to an English name. That makes an obstacle: it requires much work, and so forth. Then, if and when the minority vote stack somehow is close to 40%, some of them use all sorts of tricks to sway or to hinder any move (as evidenced by sockpuppet vote stack confirmed today, but apparently there are other means too). Rather, the question should always be for such Polish name to gather at least that over 60% support. How about Appleseed opens RMs on those articles Appleseed wishes to be at Polish names?? would it be acceptable to you, Appleseed? Shilkanni 21:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

If any of Logologist's sockpuppet votes made a difference between moving and not moving a page, do point them out so we can return the pages to their original places. However, I'm not sure what "tricks" you're referring to. As you pointed out, the pages have managed to stay at their current location for a long time, so the only thing that I would consider a trick would be to unilaterally move them and to force me to use WP:RM to change them. Elonka has recently used WP:RM to good effect. Indeed, I have voted in favor of some of her proposals. It doesn't have to be this painful. Appleseed (Talk) 23:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the voivodships need to be fixed and moved back to their English names IMO, just as many other names formed in part with names of geographic regions. Why not use English names when we have'em? On the other hand I'm not sure if doing it right now - and with so much bad blood spilled around lately - is the best idea. Perhaps we could take a deep breath and leave those articles for some week or so? //Halibutt 01:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism in articles on Otto von Bismarck and German Empire

Information on persecution of Poles is being deleted from articles on Otto von Bismarck[66] and German Empire[67]. I added references on Bismarck's policy and treatment of Poles but it is continued deleted regardless by a vandal that seems to be stalking me and deleting my every edit that speaks about situation of Poles in Germany. Please help resolve this situation. --Molobo 21:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't normaly edit this page

Here is what happens : The page you tried to save was blocked by the spam filter because it contained a link to a blacklisted website. If you didn't add the link (see below), it was probably already in the current version of the page. Alternately, it might have been added by spyware on your computer. You will need to remove all instances of the blacklisted URL before you can save. If you believe that the link should not be listed on the spam blacklist, or that the spam filter is mistakenly blocking the edit, please leave a request on the spam blacklist talk page. The following is the section of the page that triggered the filter: It really is annoying and the link I can't find. --Molobo 21:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have asked for help at the spam blacklist page on meta. Kusma (討論) 01:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and someone should archive this page. That and a binary search should help find where the offending link to www.cieszyn.naszemiasto.pl has been inserted. Kusma (討論) 01:42, 24 June 2006 (UTC)