Talk:Propaganda in the Soviet Union
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[edit] Unsubstantiated claim by a single KGB member does not merit lengthy paragraph
There is a long paragraph on the claim by Sergei Tretyakov (intelligence officer) that the Soviets invented the idea nuclear winter as propaganda, but the only evidence for this claim is Tretyakov's word, and the author of the book which reported it notes that whether this is true is "impossible to discern". With no evidence given that historians or members of the intelligence community find this claim likely to be true, devoting so much space to it seems to violate Wikipedia:NPOV#Undue weight. I suggest either removing the paragraph entirely, or adding the following to the existing list of Soviet propaganda:
- Senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov made the claim to writer Pete Earley that the KGB "created the myth of nuclear winter" as disinformation (see Sergei Tretyakov for details), although Earley said that the accuracy of this claim "is impossible to discern".[1]
Also see the existing discussion on an attempt to add a similar section to the nuclear winter article at Talk:Nuclear winter#Edit Conflicts on this page. Hypnosifl (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- We need a at least a couple of phrases to explain what the claim was about and put it in proper context. What others think?Biophys (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Why are details needed here, when anyone interested can just click the link to Tretyakov's own article as suggested? I copied all the same information you had written here into that article. Again, putting lots of info here is giving "undue weight" to a completely unsubstantiated claim. Hypnosifl (talk) 21:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Information about Soviet propaganda that large numbers of experts in the field believe to be true belongs here, but mere unsubstantiated assertions by individual KGB members should not be given "undue weight", if they are mentioned at all. As I said in the disinformation talk page, putting a disproportionately large paragraph on one unsubstantiated claim just because you have the information is not the way to build a good, encyclopedic article. Hypnosifl (talk) 23:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Well H did make a compromise, but you reverted it [1]. The idea the NW was a massive disinfo campaign is insupportable, even if we take all your sources at face value, and I don't William M. Connolley (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Yes, I would have been happier deleting it entirely, but this was meant to be my compromise version:
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- *Senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov made the claim to writer Pete Earley that the KGB "created the myth of nuclear winter" as disinformation (see Sergei Tretyakov for details), although Earley said that the accuracy of this claim "is impossible to discern".[1]
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