Talk:Serbs of Croatia

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[edit] NPOV sources

We need NPOV sources in writing articles. I know that we will not agree but best NPOV source for writing about Yugoslav Wars is Haag tribunal. When I speak about that I speak about court decisions not about "witness" statements, not about statements by Prosecution of Defence but only court decisions. Only accepted witness is person which is talking who he has killed or ordered killings.

I am sure that nobody can attack neutrality of this sources.

Now because we are having new editors on this page I will speak about other NPOV stuff.

Because all this is very controversial we need internet sources and not obscure books. If somebody is interested I will show here link for 1 article which has been edited by 2 POV users with different thinkings. When you see 2 versions of that article which are confirmed with obscure books you will understand problem.

Internet pages can be sources if they are NPOV. When I say that I want to say that it is not possible to use internet page (or internet books) and say this statement is NPOV and other statement is POV. Page can be NPOV or POV and nothing else. Similar thing is for internet books. It is not possible to say book page 77 is NPOV and book page 78 is POV.

Last thing is that we can't write something like this:

"this was best seen on January 22, 1992, when the Croatian Army Attacked the regions of the Republic of Serb Krajina"

You need to write place of attack (town or village). In Yugoslav Wars there has been many stories of battles or massacre in unknown location and must of them has been false, created by state to inspire hate towards other side.

If I have missed something about NPOV sources you can tell me...

For the end it is important to notice that if we start looking for sources about all "incidents" during time period 1991-95 we will find more Serbian crimes of Croatian crimes (I think that it will be 4:1 or 5:1). I only saying that because of possible wish that there will be many writings about Croatian crimes. Only possible response will be to write about Serbian crimes..--Rjecina (talk) 08:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

We can show here sources and then speak if it is NPOV or POV. For example I will show here The New York Times of October 14 1992 . On wikipedia The New York Times has been declared NPOV source (if I do not make mistake).

Serbs of Croatia is difficult to research. There are only a few sources tops. These sources are mostly sided but are usually built on facts. We should combine one sided Croatian and Serbian sources, then we can see where they differ.

Mike Babic (talk) 14:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you started this section, Rjecina. As you know, I tried to initiate a discussion on reaching consensus on NPOV sources over on the Operation Storm talk page under the heading "Consensus on sources", but did not get much constructive response there. Many of the arguments about Balkans articles tend to revolve around sources. Perhaps if this issue were resolved, we would all be able to better work on content and improving the articles as to accuracy and NPOV. Again, I will propose that it might be useful to take a lesson from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation. As you all can see, they have managed to reach consensus and developed a table for rating sources. Does anyone think this might be useful for articles relating to the former Yugoslavia? Should we try to make this a project-wide effort?

My thoughts on some sources, submitted for consideration:

Reports of the Secretary-General to the Security Council: NPOV

United Nations Security Council Resolutions: Facts; best NPOV source is the UNSCR itself.

Statements by Council members: POV, but accurately reflect the position of the member's country.

Reports of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly: NPOV

Statements by GA delegates: POV, but accurately reflect the position of the delegate's country

ICTY: Indictments and decisions are facts, and the obvious NPOV references are the documents themselves. (Indictments are hardly proof of guilt, of course, but they are facts.) Statements by prosecution and defense attourneys are, by their very nature, POV (they are arguing their cases). Statements by witness, in my opinion, should be handled with care if used at all, They also should always be attributed if used, in my opinion. (Example: "Norwegian forensic specialist Dr. So-and-so testified....) Transcripts are probably more useful as a resource for discovering information to look up and verify in other sources (news articles, UN documents, books, etc.) than as sources in and of themselves. I have asked for help in finding or creating a template for citation of ICTY documents on the talk page of WP:International law.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): As I stated above in the section headed "Sources", I believe the best and most accurate NPOV source for refugees and returnees to be UNHCR reports.

Human Rights Watch: Also, as I noted above, HRW reports often summarize the reports of other agencies (UNHCR, for example), and occasionally even summaries of summaries of reports. It is best to go to the original report if possible, for obvious reasons.

UNHCHR (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) NPOV

Letters from government representatives to UN bodies (such as the UN's Economic and Social Council's Commission on Human Rights are POV (can even take on a Baghdad Bob tone in some instances) but accurately reflect that government's POV. If used, these should only be cited in reference to that government's POV, and correctly referenced. (They should NOT be identified UN Human Rights reports!).

Croatian Helsinki Watch is held in very high esteem among human rights professionals, and I would consider it an NPOV source, as well.

For ICFY, the obvious choice is The International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia: Official Papers. This is a very long book, and I will be happy to provide the page numbers for specific information upon request so editors can find it easily in the online version. For example, one can find information on the Z-4 Plan beginning on page 1097. Reports of the Secretary-General often include information about the negotiation process conducted via ICFY and these may be easier to reference when available, however.

Press accounts can be problematic in regard to accuracy and POV. For example, a media outlet (broadcast or print) may report inaccurate figures during the early stages of an event (battle, refugee crisis, etc.) simply because the situation is confused at that stage. Some inaccuracies can be attributed to ignorance and/or assumptions on the part of certain reporters and editors. For example, I have seen coverage of funerals in BiH on CNN and other American broadcast outlets clearly showing Catholic or Orthodox symbols, but the victims being buried were identified as "Bosnian Muslims", not Croats or Serbs! POV comes into play somewhat as well in this age of "advocacy journalism". Analyses (as opposed to news articles simply relating events) have a much higher degree of editorializing in general. In addition, the account of a situation in, say, the Washington Post may read rather differently than the account in the Washington Times, for example. While I don't object to classifying some news outlets as NPOV, the news account itself might be subject to discussion such as whether was it written/broadcast before final figures were available, etc. Does anyone have some thoughts to add on this?

Books and journals: After so many years, many of the reports from international agencies and press accounts are no longer available online. Many more are not available for free online. I don't think we should entirely rule out using books and journals not available for free online, if information is not available online. A number of books are fairly commonplace in the personal libraries of people interested in this subject. It might be possible for editors on both sides of the fence (and neither side) to cross-check information in these books for accuracy. WP Military history/Logistics has a list of editors with access to JSTOR. That might be helpful for information hard to find elsewhere. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Does ethnicity of the author determine whether NPOV/POV? Regarding the New York Times piece by Chuck Sudetic proposed by Rjecina, I think we need to reach consensus on whether authorship by Croats, Serbs, etc. is a POV problem. Rjecina has objected to an Oxford Journals article as a "Serb source" because (I presume) he/she thinks the author is of Serbian descent. Chuck Sudetic makes no bones about his Croatian descent. Discussion of this issue is needed.

Forums: Accuracy, verifiability, and POV are big questions with these. I do not believe anything should be sourced to a forum. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

YouTube videos: Problems abound, from copyright to verifiability. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Civilaffairs (talk) 18:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

I think that {Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation} is a great idea.

Mike Babic (talk) 23:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Fully agree with Civilaffairs on this one. Official UN documents and sources especially cannot be questioned. I believe we should disregard both Serb and Croatian sources entirely. Though I am not implying these are "all the same" (a frequent mistake when going into this matter is the "they're-all-the-same" attitude), I think we need to establish a "level playing field" of sorts. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 04:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Lets user Croat and Serb sources and then compare the difference. We must reply on those sources in oreder to have any content to the article.

Mike Babic (talk) 15:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree they are not "all the same". It is true that, for some subjects, there may be no online sources that are neither Croat nor Serb. Some editors may insist on online sources, but perhaps a compromise could be worked out? In cases where information is disputed, could online sources be checked against offline sources that are neither Croat nor Serb?

Meanwhile, Mike Babic was asking for some sources for Operation Storm. You can find my list of sources for Op Storm here: User:Civilaffairs/Sources Civilaffairs (talk) 21:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

I agree that it is possible for us to make agreement which sources are OK. My only condition is that this agreement will be for Yugoslav Wars and not only for Croatia related articles. If we agree about that then we can start to create list.

Tip: Add new rows using the following code:

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On list there are no forums and blobs because they can't be source on wikipedia. Online books can become source only after voting (book for book), but books which are not on internet can't be source because of this and this . 2 fundamentalist versions of 1 article and both are confirmed by obscure books.

The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press are declared reliable sources by Wikipedia.

I am calling new users to read Wikipedia:Reliable sources before trying to add new sources.

If we reach here agreement about sources we will then call all users which are editing Yugoslav Wars to vote about this sources.--Rjecina (talk) 07:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I have forget to say something about Youtube. Wikipedia policy is that Youtube movie can be source if it is confirmed by other sources. if not .....

I agree that consensus on sources should be project-wide for the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Perhaps we can move this to the proper project talk page once we have discussed and refined here? Or start a project page similar to the one for Sri Lanka?

I added UNHCHR and UN Commission on Human Rights, to include ONLY reports of UN officials and experts, not letters or statements from various governments. I also added OSCE (which would include ECMM for that time frame).

I put a question mark for the Serbian Helsinki Watch, not because I have particular doubts, but because I have not looked into it carefully. I will do so and remove the question mark when I am satisfied one way or the other. I know Croatian Helsinki Watch (HHO) enjoys a very high reputation among human rights professionals.

I put a question mark beside ICTY self-incrimination because I have read of cases where witnesses or indictees gave false reports including self-incrimination. I don't recall whether any of these actually made it into an ICTY trial or transcript, but I would like to look into this before voting. I will try to research this in a timely manner.

What about ICTY indictments? These are facts, but not proof of guilt. How do we handle them?

I am unclear what is meant by United Nations Security Council. If this means Security Council resolutions, then OK. They are facts. If statements by members of the Security Council are included, then I would say these are POV, but accurately reflect the position of the member's government.

For the United Nations General Assembly, I did not vote OK. Reports of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly would be OK, however.

Would it be easier just to have a column for "Reports of the United Nations Secretary-General"? The Secretary-General makes reports to various to various UN bodies including, of course, the Security Council and the General Assembly.

Concerning the media: Wikipedia:Reliable sources says "Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press" (bold mine). I don't object to listing them all out one by one if it is necessary, but we may end up with a very long list. Could we go with "mainstream newspapers such as...", "mainstream broadcast outlets such as..." and wire services such as..."? I am not trying to nitpick or quarrel, just wondering how to make this job easier. Does anyone have a problem with, for example, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Washington Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), etc?

We still have the question of authorship, as I noted above, even if the source is "mainstream". How do we handle cases where the writer is of Bosniak, Croat or Serb origin?

What about images taken from forums? The image of the "Martic Order" was taken from the CroForce forum. It appears in this article and in the Operation Storm article. How can we know this is authentic, especially considering parts 17c and 28 of the ICTY Amended Joinder Indictment of Gotovina, Cermak, Markac. For specifics on what the prosecutor is charging, see the trial transcript of 11 March (scroll down to page 426, line 25).

This is an excellent start. Kudos to Rjecina for making this table. Civilaffairs (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

I have changed Croatian and Serbian Helsinki Watch in Helsinki Watch because in articles we will use Helsinki Watch from all countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia). Maybe because of that somebody of us will change vote ?

I am having problem with The Washington Times and Sydney Morning Herald (Australia). First is controled by church and it is small newspaper (see article). On other side influence of Sydney Morning Herald outside of Australia do not exist.

Because New York Times is OK then International Herald Tribune must be OK (see article). Reuters and Agence France-Presse are without question OK.

About Martic Order we have discussed earlier. Order is confirmed by NPOV source (Human Right Watch) [1] so it is staying. We can question place from which this order has come to Wikipedia (I question many Babic pictures) but say for example that I delete this picture from wikipedia and few days latter DIREKTOR put this picture again on wikipedia with words selfmade (example from Babic pictures which has been deleted on wiki and then returned with other text). Order is OK because it is confirmed by accepted source (Human Right Watch). If latter court make decision that order is false it will be deleted from wiki but from now we are not having NPOV right to question this order.

Because in this voting we are having users which support Croat and Serbian position but nobody speaks for Bosniaks (and we will make agreement for Yugoslav wars) I will call somebody who support Bosniaks positions in other articles. --Rjecina (talk) 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)--Rjecina (talk) 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Key to my asterisks: *Better to use reports of agencies (such as UNHCR) summarised in HRW reports than the HRW report if available. **OK so long as there are no reliable sources proving the self-incriminating statements were false. ***OK so long as: (1) the news articles are not used to support figures based on preliminary estimates, etc (time factor) and (2) the news articles do not contain errors (for example, differing from UN reports) and (3) the writer is not of Bosniak, Croat or Serb origin.

I am now okay with the Helsinki Watch organisations. I wanted to check them all out before casting my vote, and I have done so now.

I understand objection to The Washington Times based on the Moonie stake in it, but I am not sure it is reasonable to base a decision on excluding a media outlet such as, for example, The Sydney Morning Herald based on location or perceived "world influence". Should the test for NPOV not be journalistic integrity and independence from state (and/or faction) control? Shall we add more newspapers to the list, such as The Guardian?

As I have pointed out twice before, we still have the question of whether authorship is a problem with NPOV (in cases where the writer is of Bosniak, Croat or Serb origin). Would anyone like to comment on this?

Ref the "Martic Order" I cannot find any reference to it in the HRW link you gave. I am not saying there is no reference, only that I cannot find it. Would you be so kind as to point out the section of the report where it appears so that I might find it? There is still the matter of Gotovina's book. According to the ICTY prosecutor, Gotovina bragged about dropping these fake leaflets in his book. This must be verified, of course.

Ref reports of the Secretary-General, again, should we make this simply "Reports of the Secretary-General" or add more entries for "Reports of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly", etc.? I consider all reports of the Secretary-General to be OK.

I proposed earlier that we move this effort to reach consensus on sources to a project page once we have worked out a basic format for discussion and voting (which we are doing now) and I repeat that proposal now. This would give all sides a chance to discuss and vote. An effort to reach consensus on sources on a project-wide basis should be on an appropriate project page, not here. Reaching agreement for all Yugoslav wars simply does not belong on the talk page of this particular article. Civilaffairs (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

About Martic order there has been my mistake. See this:"On August 4, 1995, Milan Martic, the "president" of the RSK authorities, issued an order26 calling for the evacuation of all persons incapable of military service from the Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac, Drnis and Gracac municipalities."[2]

• Question is what will we do if there is HRW report about incident which is not in UNHCR ?
  • Maybe is better to say that self-incrimination is accepted if it will result in latter court actions or if it is given to recieve clemency of the court.
    • This is my greatest problem with newspapers. If you ask me about media we need to use only The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press (which are declared respectable by Wikipedia), CNN and BBC which are creating world thinking, and Reuters and Agence France-Presse which are news agencies. In my thinking this is more than enough. If you extend and extend this list we will enter trap of POV nationalistic editors which are writing for not so respected newspapers.

I have called to vote users HarisM , BalkanFever and Berkowitz which are in my thinking NPOV editors.

We are having administrator support for this creating consensus about sources [3]

When we reach consensus about sources (on this page) we will move this discussion (table) on talk page of Yugoslav Wars. I think that this will be OK :)--Rjecina (talk) 11:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Hbercowitz) Hey guys, I have voted on those possible sources. Just one thing: if there is useful information found in a POV source, you can still include it, by saying "Croatian sources claim..." or "Serbian sources claim..." etc. But it would probably be best to leave them out or to bring them up on the talk page first, and work on the wording before it is added. Cheers, BalkanFever 13:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi all. I am very glad to see discussion about sources is started finally. I support all neutral sources (especially ICTY). I think there are two more neutral sources not included in the table:

Sense Tribunal agency [4] - This agency is specialized for ICTY trials, and is very relaible sources (covers all trials with key points).

Radio Free Europe for Former Yugoslavia [5] - This is only media focused on the Balkans, without any nationalistic speach.

And I have to say that I don't fully support sources such as CNN, and BBC because they are not very familiar with Balkan, but they can be used as the second sources. --HarisM (talk) 16:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Rjecina: Thank you for providing the correct HRW report. I can find it now. The HRW has based this piece of informaton on reports from three Serbian media sources. I am not, however, disputing the infomation as given in the HRW report: "On August 4, 1995, Milan Martic, the "president" of the RSK authorities, issued an order26 calling for the evacuation of all persons incapable of military service from the Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac, Drnis and Gracac municipalities. The decision indicated that the civilians should be evacuated toward Srb and Donji Lapac,"

As I noted in the section headed Operation Storm above, civilians did move toward the interior and away from the front lines, sometimes apparently at the direction of local Serb leaders. Srb and Donji Lapac are in the Lika municipality of Croatia, away from the HV/ARSK CFL during Op Storm, while Knin, Benkovac, Obravac, Drnis and Gracac were on or very close to the frontline. This matches with what I have written myself above in the Operation Storm section.

The image from the CroForce message board seems to have disappeared now from this article, but is still in the Operation Storm article. The caption reads "August 4th order by the Serb Supreme Defence Council ordering evacuation of civilians from the main areas of RSK." This is apparently used to support the contention that "The Krajina Serb Supreme Defence Council met under president Milan Martić to discuss the situation. A decision was reached at 16:45 to "start evacuating the population unfit for military service", which resulted in the majority of the civilian population fleeing for Bosnia." This contention, is, in turn, referenced to the opening statement of a defense attourney in the Gotovina, Cermak, and Markac ICTY trial.

I still cannot tell what this document in the image from the CroForce message board is supposed to be, exactly (quality is very poor), and whether it matches the description of the fake documents allegedly dropped from Croatian aircraft or an authentic document issued by Martic. All I can say at present is that the caption as it is written and the information sourced to the defense attourney are highly questionable.

I recommended using the original UNHCR report instead of the "summary of a report of" as found in an HRW report if the original UNHCR report is available. If it is not available, then fine to use HRW. This would also apply to other reports summarised by HRW, but, of course, only if the original reports are available.

We are in complete agreement, Rjecina, about refining here and then moving to a project page. No problem :)

Hello and welcome to BalkanFever and HarisM. True, BalkanFever, there will be instances where the POV of a certain side might be mentioned in an article and good sources for those are needed as well. I have mentioned this before, too, and glad you brought it up again. HarisM, I share your concern about inaccurate media articles, as you can read above. I have found some appalling errors in the mainstream media, especially CNN, but also newspapers and news magazines. "Pack journalism" and "advocacy journalism" also eroded the quality of the coverage of the conflicts. Christianne Ammanpour was discredited after the falsity of certain claims came to light during the Kosovo conflict of 1999; perhaps that will keep other journalists from the more egregious false claims in future, at least I hope so. Thank you for suggesting Sense Tribunal and Radio Free Europe for Former Yugoslavia. Would you like to add them to the table? Civilaffairs (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

[edit] Some general approaches to sources

Please take my comments in the spirit they are offered: I am, by no means, an expert on the region, but I think I can make some reasonable observations on the overall problem of working on a conflict where many of the sources are POV, and there is a shortage of NPOV. There's been an informal discussion of the general aspects of this problem in userspace, a discussion that actually started with some dispute over Iran-Iraq War, but soon broadened to several European subjects. I've also been studying one of the best examples of fairly successful POV handling at the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Project WP:SLR, and I've drafted an essay, User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-FactsFromPOV, that reflects, I hope, the successful experiences there and also in some related problems, such as how competent intelligence analysts work with all-POV sources. Please feel free to use or comment on any sources there. :-) I'm now writing some things that I'll probably add to the essay.

Before I go to work on the table, let me make some general observations on what I would call "often reliable sources". My [Note 3]: electronic media like CNN are excellent for finding out that something may have happened, but, if it's outside a courtroom or the like, it's wise to remember that they are under time pressure and also don't have much space to explore complexity. My general approach is to use them to get alerted but try to confirm the report. One note where CNN can be excellent: they sometimes go back and do in-depth interviews, especially for Cold War events. See Time Magazine below.

I agree about the Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press , CNN and BBC with the understanding they are electronic media and their "special reports" are most apt to be reliable; and Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Several U.S. news outlets need more caution. The Wall Street Journal is very good in its news sections, but generally POV on its editorial pages; this is even more so with the Washington Times, which can do some good news reports but is POV both in editorials and columns, but also some reporters are more accurate than others. Not as good as it once was, but generally reliable, is the New York Times.

Of weeklies, while the title might seem POV, the Christian Science Monitor tends to have excellent international coverage. Time Magazine often is good; since it is owned by the same organization of CNN, I often get the first note from CNN, but look for a more detailed article in Time.

NGOs are more of a challenge. My note [1]: HRW and Amnesty International have lots of valid material, but, to some extent, they may tend to want to find atrocities. They are most accurate when they say something didn't happen, and are useful but probably should be verified on the more extreme claims.

[2] The UNGA can be OK, but it also can get caught up in politics of a certain bloc. Almost by definition, UNSC is good because it can often enforce its decisions.

Forums are like electronic news, but much less accurate. As far as anonymous or pseudonymous blogs and YouTube, I'll want full independent confirmation. For blogs by a respected analyst, (e.g., Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis), I'll trust them.

Let me mention one unusual source, which are very authoritative on primary and secondary government documents: the National Security Archives at George Washington University (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/). Their commentary is highly reliable, but the government documents themselves have to be considered on their own merits--other than you can trust they did come from the indicated source.

As far as things like self-incrimination, see my essay. This is an area where Wikipedia's WP:OR policy starts to clash with legitimate academic and intelligence analysis. If I were not limited by WP:OR, I would ask a question posed by many lawyers: cui bono, or "who benefits"? If the individual shown remorse and there is confirmation, the report might be very good. You may, however, run into something like the Tokyo tribunal after WWII: there was an agreement among the defendants (and to some extent the Occupation) to say nothing that would incriminate Hirohito.

Using cui bono again, a POV source, even outside a court, may be useful in a restricted sense: if it is speaking of something fairly objective, as to who commanded a unit, it may be OK. An apparently self-incriminating statement makes sense if it's consistent with the side's overall policy. Beyond that, looking for trends is a valid research technique, but probably not for Wikipedia.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

We are having agreement with sources and from table is possible to see that all users which has voted are having consensus about 12 sources. Next 3 sources are declared NPOV by Wikipedia (The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press) so we are having 15 sources. If you do not have nothing against I will move table on talk page of Yugoslav Wars and on talk page of Croatian War of Independence, Bosnian War and Kosovo War so that all users know about consensus (and can say thinking) !

In my thinking example of Martić order is not needed in articles and we can move it in talk page. To tell truth I do not know what people are learning in Serbia or Republika Srpska but we are having many users which are coming to articles Serbs of Croatia and Croatian War of Independence and start writing how there has been Serbs has been expelled by Croatian forces. This order need to be in article or on talk page because of this users.--Rjecina (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Howard C. Berkowitz You obviously have a great deal of experience in working out NPOV/POV issues on WP, and have put much careful thought into the best ways to deal with these situations. Would you like to weigh in what our next step should be here? Taking this to a project page, or ...? Should we refine the table so that UN sources are rated as more accurate and NPOV than media sources, for example?

Good questions. Increasingly, I'm beginning to think that some general Wikipedia structure, which I'll tentatively call a "project on POV and sources", is appropriate, but I don't know how to set it up. In any case, there would need to be a [sub-?] project page on the particular conflict, so there could be a unique source and POV table for it.

Is anyone reading this an admin, or otherwise knowledgeable enough on Wikipedia policy and procedures to suggest a technique?

As a bit of an aside, I would never say any source is always accurate. The Washington Post, for example, is a superb newspaper. Some years ago, one of their reporters was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles about a troubled young boy, but, some months later, the articles proved to have been total fiction written by the reporter, and the Prize was revoked. When I was in college in the late sixties, I did some part-time science reporting for the Post, and discovered something in a column by a syndicated columnist was absolutely wrong from a medical standpoint. While I mentioned to an editor, their policy was essentially that they didn't argue about details in syndicated materials, which, after all, were generally not written by a member of their staff. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I would say all editorials are POV, in any newspaper or magazine, by definition. Especially since about the late 1980s/early1990s, many "news" articles border on editorialising, as well. And, when it comes to former Yugoslavia, it is also possible to find news articles which directly contradict each other even in the same publication, including the New York Times. Sometimes AP will say one thing, Reuters another. How to sort out conflicting reports? It seems to me the best way to deal with this is to go to "higher" sources whenever possible, such as UN reports. When this is not possible, either consensus will have to be reached on whether one (or some) report(s) are more accurate than another (others), or both sides will have to be presented.

Giving both sides is one possibility; the challenge is presenting them without emotional bias. This is a constant challenge even for excellent analysts not under Wiki constraints; see cognitive traps for intelligence analysis and intelligence analysis. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I have outlined some of the problems with media coverage of the 1990s conflicts already (see above). Another problem with news coverage during the 1990s conflicts in former Yugoslavia was the predominance of green journalists who knew nothing about the area. For some reason, experienced Eastern European bureau chiefs and reporters who had reported from the region for years and understood it well were cast aside by some publications (including at least two from the New York Times staff) in favour of younger, relatively inexperienced journalists. In addition, restrictions on journalists' freedom of movement necessarily meant that some areas of the conflict went unreported or badly reported. Also, as I noted above, the media (both print and broadcast) sometimes got facts very wrong, either out of an editorial desire to "simplify" matters because the "American public is incapable of grasping complexities" (such as in the case of the famous clip of the tank chewing up the little car presented as occurring in Slovenia, when the footage was actually shot in Osijek, Croatia) or because of the "fog of war".

If it was indeed a tank and merely in the wrong country, you may be doing well. I've seen news coverage that claimed that an armored ambulance, clearly marked with the Red Cross, was leading a patrol of tanks and armored fighting vehicles, when the combat vehicles were escorting the ambulance. Still, although I've mentioned it before, my all-time favorite was the report from a very new U.S. television journalist, from a local station, who announced that "the former Yugoslavia was becoming (gasp) Balkanized!" Had any professor of journalism, history, or international affairs had killed her on the spot, I would argue justifiable homicide. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Rjecina: I'm fairly new to WP and not sure what is the best next step, but it seems to me we might want to streamline the process by having one "master table" in one place, perhaps on an appropriate project page, rather than several tables scattered around on selected article talk pages. Editors could then come to that one place first to vote, and later, for reference. We could also put notices on related article talk pages, such as the ones you noted, to alert editors to come and vote on the project page. I hope other editors will suggest what they think best, too.

Ref the "Martic order", I still have problems with misrepresenting what the HRW report actually said. The HRW report said, as noted above, that the "Martic order" indicated the population unfit for military service was to move away from the front lines toward interior towns within the borders of Croatia; it did not say they were to "flee to BiH" as misrepresented in the article(s) and referenced to defense attourney claims. Perhaps these people you speak of did not learn anything at all in Serbia or RS, but rather got their information from the ICTY indictment of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac and/or other widely available international sources.

There has still not been any discussion of whether authorship by someone of Bosniak, Croat or Serb origin pushes a "mainstream" news article into the POV category. I will go on record as voting that such articles are affected by the author's/reporter's POV.Civilaffairs (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

That's a delicate call, as even people from highly partisan organizations can have an individual reputation for total honesty. I'm reminded of two posthumous awards of the highest British combat decoration, the Victoria Cross, awarded on the basis of Nazis who reported the gallantry through the Red Cross. In one case, there were corroborating British witnesses, but in the other, it was only survivors from the submarine the aircraft sank before it crashed. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes Civilaffairs you are right. We will move table in right time on talk page of Yugoslav Wars and only after end of discussion on that place we will make copy (or something similar) on talk pages of Croatian War of Independence, Bosnian War and Kosovo War.

About Martic order situation is simple and we are having 2 answers. First is panic created by evacuation order and second is order to flee toward Bosnia. Order is speaking about fleeing to interior but then it is speaking about towns Srb and Lapac like final destinations. Small problem is that this are border towns (between Croatia and Bosnia).

You can find many witness statements that Evacuation order has been given. Until now you are having order, HRW now I will add testimony of Milisav Sekulić officer and member of Krajina Serb General Staff:"At the [Supreme] Council of Defence [of the Republic of Serb Krajina] the worst possible decision was taken - for the evacuation of the population....." [6] . Yes this site is POV, but you must not forget that UN has asked Croatia to open roads toward Bosnian territory controled by Serbs.

Another thing is if Croatia which is spying Krajina and Serbia has used this order to create greater panic and started to send order copy from planes (example) to all towns in Krajina. In the end we will agree that similar order has been given all other things after that are not important (because of panic).

You have given link for 1 superb web site ([[7]] ). Thanks.

It is possible to see that we have refused all electronic media and about last 3 we can't do anything because they are proclaimed respected by Wikipedia....

On other side I do not like United Nations Security Council because great powers are having too great influence. I know that they are having great influence in United Nations General Assembly but in my thinking this UN body represent all people on Earth.

Sorry Howard C. Berkowitz but we need to have clear sources which will be supported by many to reach consensus. I, you and Civilaffairs can reach agreement about many more sources and rules but to be accepted by great number of wikipedia users we must use simple rules. Saying that The Washington Post (example) is very good and respected newspaper which is making mistakes from time to time will create situation where this source will be attacked again and again by POV users using that argument. Because ot that maybe it will be best that we do not speak about any "respected" source in our consensus ? "Older" wiki users will known about Wikipedia respected sources and it will use them, but younger and possibly POV users will not know ? Your thinking ?

I would be very hesitant to give in to restricting to "simple sources", which is the exact reason that people are confused by mainstream media reports. It is unrealistic to say that it should not be said that a normally good source can make errors, in order to avoid POV attacks. If a POV warrior attacks generically because of a specific mistake, and there is no strong reason for believing a particular report is wrong, that, unfortunately, may become the job of an administrator to enforce. If a source generally meets WP:RS, and someone attacks all its coverage in an area, I believe that becomes a dispute resolution process that needs an admin or possibly a mediator to resolve.

While national intelligence services certainly make mistakes (see cognitive traps for intelligence analysis, I would rather see Wikipedia take on the more difficult role of reporting ambiguous matters, with appropriate caveats and monitoring, than to become the equivalent of television reporting with 30-second sound bites. If Wikipedia does the latter, why have it at all, rather than relying on television? Things worth doing are not necessarily easy. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 08:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

My experiance in articles related with Yugoslav Wars is that administrators start to look for exit if somebody speak about problems with Yugoslav related articles. It is enough that user (we can say vandal) start to scream editorial dispute and everybody (administrator) will say this is editorial dispute and we are not having anything with editorial disputes. --Rjecina (talk) 13:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, this is not a problem limited to Yugoslav-related articles. Just in the last few days, I can think of several such disputes going on with wars in very different parts of the world, and with subjects that have any political character to them, such as intelligence or diplomatic material. I've stopped editing in one of my own professional fields, computer network engineering, because I grew tired of reverting the same technically wrong changes, putting back the absolutely definitive source references, and then being told that the source that develops the standards was wrong and some undergraduate textbook was right.

I can think of one military confrontation article where admins constantly have to protect, because there is constant vandalism -- nonsense rather than arguments. To be honest. if Wikipedia is going to be viable, it has to get a number of problems, not unique to Yugoslav matters, under control. While I haven't given up yet on Wikipedia, I have started contributing to a Wiki with quite different policy and enforcement. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there are questions what will happen with this consensus ? Best answer about that you can recieve from administrator Future Perfect which is Boss in things related with edit warring in articles about ex Yugoslavia [8]

In articles other sources will be used, but it is possible to say that sources about which there is consensus will be protected (other sources will be without that protection).--Rjecina (talk) 07:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I have recreated this table with our votes on talk page of article Yugoslav Wars.--Rjecina (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Rjecina, I am confused about what you mean by "protected". Would you be so kind as to to explain, please? If it means these sources are sacrosanct or incontrovertible, then I will change my votes. A definition of how these sources are to be considered is perhaps in order. I would prefer that they be used as a guide. For example, “higher sources” like UN reports should be considered more reliable and used whenever possible. Organisations like HRW and AI and the better news organisations would be considered more reliable than state-controlled Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian media, etc. In other words, the table should be an index of reliability, not a set of “rules” to be misused by contentious legalistic editors. WP has not cast in stone that certain news outlets as bastions of truth and not to be questioned. We merely have “Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press.”

Ref the Security Council, yes there is the issue of certain countries wielding the greater power here. Security Council resolutions are facts, however. General Assembly resolutions are sometimes a result of arm-twisting by powerful nations. The 1947 GA resolution on Israel is a famous example of this. Still, GA resolutions are facts. Reports of the Secretary-General (no matter which body is being addressed), on the other hand, are careful summaries of what UN observers on the ground have reported, updates on peace negotiations involving his envoys, etc.

Back to the "Martic order". Yes, those towns are near the BiH border. It is a very narrow strip of land there. To get away from the Western border, one winds up on the Eastern. Then again, perhaps that was the idea. That corridor (Donji Lapac – Srb) had been allegedly deliberately left open by HV for the flight of (driving out of) the Croatian Serb population. Was this "panic" you describe entirely caused by an "evacuation order"? Or was panic caused by shelling and an advancing army? How about the torching of houses and the strafing of refugees? A combination of factors, perhaps? Alas, things are not always simple. The "Tudjman tapes” in which he and his generals and advisors discuss how to create panic among the Croatian Serb population and force them to flee during Op Storm have been transcribed and translated and printed in a number of sources, as well. Also, let us not forget the area under discussion is only the Knin area, a fraction of the area affected by Op Storm. What about Banija, Kordun and northern Lika? This “Martic order” does not appear to cover those areas.

Further, the leaflets dropped from the Croatian aircraft were not faithful copies of the problematic "Martic order" (as I presume you are saying-- not sure what you mean) they were complete fakes. These fake leaflets are described in Gotovina's book and in the ICTY transcripts. (No, I am not proposing using the transcript as a source.) Spying has nothing to do with the leaflets so far as I know. The quality of the CroForce forum image in the article is so poor I can't tell what the thing really is--the fake ones (as described) or the elusive genuine "Martic order." One more problem: This "Martic order" is translated as having been being issued by "Mile Martic". "Mile" is the first name of Mrksic. "Milan" was Martic's given name.

Yes, that blog you cited is extremist, and I will not consider it. Ref "the UN asking to open the roads" see my first post to you about this under the section headed "Operation Storm" above. Do you have a new and more reasonable source for this? Considering the source, why does this piece of “information” appear in more than one WP article? The only other source I could google up for for anything like this was some disgusting white power racist site. (This “white power” site also has the very same poor quality “Martic order” as the CroForce forum). Where did this thing come from, and is it a genuine document or one of the fakes, or even something some nut on a forum photoshopped?) Where this thing originated needs to be tracked down. Ah, the “Stormfront” (white power site) “Martic order” is hotlinked to Wikipedia. How nice.

Why do I get the feeling I am riding on this bus? Civilaffairs (talk) 17:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

In controversial articles popular sport is to declare sources which somebody do not like POV and delete statements confirmed by this sources. Because of consensus this will not be possible, but user will need to show many sources to defeat statement confirmed with consensus sources. This will be only real difference between sources from this consensus and other sources. Maybe somebody will say that this is very small thing but believe me that this is not small thing. In the end if there will be problems administrators will enforce this sources. Way in which they will act I can't know but it will be used against nationalistic POV editors to protect Wikipedia NPOV policy. For more information you will need to ask administrator future perfect

I am becoming tired of Martic order... About this order we are having 3 questions

• 1 Evacuation order has been given by Martic ?
• 2 Order has been droped from airplanes on Serb controled territory by Croatian forces to create panic ?
• 3 After "liberation" of Krajina Croatian forces has destroyed Serbian houses with aim to stop Serbs from returning ?

Answer on number 1 is Yes

Answer on number 2 is Possible

Answer on number 3 is Yes

Maybe I am mistaking but if answer on number 1 is Yes then answer on number 2 is not important (for me)

In your thinking answer on number 1 is Yes ? --Rjecina (talk) 05:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I can see what you are saying about some POV editors rejecting pieces of information with no regard to source. That is one reason I think this table will be useful in curbing POV edit wars. I should hope that in cases where there is a conflict between accepted sources, reasonable editors can work out a solution. A simple example: A battle took place between 1 January and 14 January. Obviously, press reports on the number killed as reported on 6 January are not the best reports to cite. Later reports with the final count should be used instead. All of these reports may be from accepted sources, but some are clearly better than others. There will be times when accepted sources conflict and the answer is not so simple, however, expecially when it comes to analyses rather than simple reports of events. In such cases, either both views will have to be presented, or there will have to be an agreement to simply stick to the facts as reported, leaving out the whys and wherefors.

Attention must also be given to the ORIGINAL source. Press accounts, HRW reports, and even UN reports sometimes simply quote the statements of this or that government. This must be handled by either discounting these pieces of information or only using them with in-text attribution ("The XYZ government stated...").

Ah, we agree on something! I am past tired of the "Martic order". It appears in multiple articles, however, and you continually use it to "prove" the Croatian Serbs "cleansed themselves": Then there is claim about ethnic cleansing in 1991-95 and how all Serbs are expelled. Creator of this article know very good that this is false because rebel government of Croatian Serbs has given order to all population to leave Croatia and go to Bosnian or Serbian exile [9] (only one example).

Now, taking your premise that the only reason for the flight of the Croatian Serbs following Op Storm was this elusive "Martic order", how can you logically ignore any effect the fake broadcasts and the fake leaflets dropped from Croatian aircraft might have had? What if few people were aware of the "real" Martic order but many were aware of the fake orders and fake radio broadcasts? If the fake orders dropped from Croatian aircraft were of no importance, why did Gotovina write in his book that he was so pleased with the efficacy of this tactic that he later repeated it to good effect in BiH?

Furthermore, this order applies only the Knin area, a fraction of the area affected by Op Storm. How do you account for all the other people fleeing the front lines in all the other areas? Do over 200,000 people flee an area of over 10,000 square km because of one piece of paper issued on 4 August affecting only the southernmost tip of that area?

Might they have fled because of shelling, an advancing army, torching of homes, the killing and strafing of refugees from Glina to Dvor, the mistreatment (and worse) of refugees trapped in the interior? Am I saying all HV acted like the Black Mambas and the most unprofessional of the Home Guards? No, but enough of them did. Then there was ABiH 5th Corps. Somehow Dudakovic has escaped indictment despite evidence of widespread serious human rights abuses (around 200 civilians slaughtered in Zirovac alone).

Finally your premise is "evidenced" by a very poor quality image from a very questionable source (and translated as having been signed by "Mile Martic" yet), but you quickly revert any notation that this thing is in dispute or that evidence has been gathered by ICTY that fake leaflets were dropped by the Croatian forces over the area.

Ref your #3, houses were being torched during Op Storm as well, as evidenced by UN reports.

You asked whether I think your #1 is true. I suppose it very well could be true, and probably is true. I do not think it was the only or even main reason people fled. I really don't know how much of a factor it was in people deciding to flee. I don't even know how much a part the fake leaflets and fake radio broadcasts played. I believe there is no one simple answer for why they fled. From evidence based upon UN reports and reports of various international organisations (and refugee interviews), it appears they fled first from the front lines because of shelling and fighting, then, after seeing and hearing about some of the more egregious abuses, they became terrified. There were also the past events of the Medak incursion and Op Flash which I am sure played a part in the fears of the people. The RSK leaders fled first, of course; some fled before Op Storm actually began. Many (if not most) of the people who fled hoped to return when things calmed down and the fighting was over. The best explanation I have ever found for the whole thing is the "fizzy bottle" as described above in the Op Storm section of this page.Civilaffairs (talk) 19:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Will you stay if government has given evacuation order ? [10]

Will you stay in hospital if Health Minister has given evacuation order ?[11]

Will you stay if officers are giving withdraw order ? [12]

Who know maybe you will stay but 99 % of population will leave.

Facts are simple: Serbs government has given evacuation order, Serb military has recieved withdraw order and Serbs Health ministry has ordered evacuation and in the end Croats are guilty ????? Persons which supports this stand on wikipedia are POV editors. With this my discussion about Martic order is ending. Question if Croatian forces has used fake Martic orders is entering domain of war strategy and not domain of Martić order. My short thinking about Operation Storm is: "Government of Krajina has given evacuation order and ulmost all Serbs has left for Bosnia. Of Serbs civilians which has stayed maybe even 1000 has been killed by Croatian forces. During next month empty Serbs houses has been destroyed or Croats from Bosnia has started to live in them."

I do not believe that question of Martić order has ended with our agreement but question about NPOV sources has ended with agreement :)--Rjecina (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Ad hominem attacks are not conducive to productive discussion, so I will simply ignore them.

You ask me to continue the discussion by asking me questions, but say you are "ending" your end of the discussion. That strikes me as rather odd, but I will do my best.

Will you stay if government has given evacuation order ? That would depend on whether I was aware of the order (and on who/what my government was and whether I thought it was a good idea for me to follow that order). Furthermore, the "Martic order" specifies only a small area. What about the rest of Krajina? And could the people have even been aware of this order over such a huge area during a time of such confusion, especially considering Serb comms were jammed compliments of my country. If my real life goverment (USA) ordered the evacuation of Washington and I lived in Topeka, no I would not evacuate. On the other hand, if Topeka was being shelled and people fleeing from a nearby area where enemy soldiers were already present were full of tales of unpleasant happenings, I might very well evacuate with no order from my government.

Will you stay in hospital if Health Minister has given evacuation order ? If I were a patient lying in hospital, I daresay I would have no choice about whether I was evacuated. I don't see how evacuating a hospital in a city which has been under heavy artillery fire all day accounts for over 200,000 people fleeing former Sectors North and South.

Will you stay if officers are giving withdraw order ? Your link for this question is the same link as for the hospital, so I am not sure how to answer here. Suffice it to say that not all ARSK officers evacuated. Colonel Bulat, for example. A certain few ARSK officers fled over the border a day or two before Op Storm began. If I were a civilian, why would this order affect me, anyway?

No, facts are not so simple. The order covered a very small area and we have no idea how many people even knew about it. If you believe people fled because of an RSK government order, then why do you think the fake leaflets purporting to be RSK government orders had no influence on their decisions to flee? If these leaflets were a war strategy of the Croatian government, what was the goal? Obviously, it was to convince them to flee.

Again, destruction of houses began during Op Storm, although it continued for months afterward.

If you choose to see this complex situation as having one simple cause, that is your perogative. It is based on OR, of course. As is my "fizzy bottle" explanation. Where does this leave us?

I will be content if you (1) stop overgeneralising the "Martic order" (implying or outright saying it ordered all Serbs in all of Krajina to flee to BiH) and confine your edits in articles to what it actually said as per the HRW report and (2) you do not present your OR as fact in articles (state they all fled strictly because of this order) and (3) you stop reverting any mention of the fake documents, provided the text is supported by agreed NPOV sources.

It would also be nice if a better quality image could be found from a more reliable source. And the "Mile" thing needs attention, too. Civilaffairs (talk) 21:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

It will be nice that you give link to statement of Martić, Babić or somebody else from high Krajina officials which is saying that they have not given that order. Until now only thing which I see are attacks on sources provided by me. --Rjecina (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There must be some misunderstanding. I already said the order was most likely given by Martic. I have found nothing stating that Martic himself either confirmed or denied issuing this order, but I am not disputing the order itself. I do question whether the image from the CroForce forum is an authentic document signed by Martic, as I have no clue where the guy on the message board got the image. I am not insisting that a new image be found, only that it would be nice, especially if it could be authenticated and/or was of better quality. I have not attacked the HRW report you use as a source. I have only asked you to stick to the facts as given in the HRW report and not overgeneralise about what the order said nor expand the area to which it applied. Civilaffairs (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Yes there has been misunderstanding. I have been thinking that order is in question and not copy of "order" on Wikipedia.--Rjecina (talk) 22:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Very well, then. I am sorry if I did not state my position clearly enough. I don't know if you're a drinking man, but it's Friday and if you are, then I'd buy you a nice cold Karlovacko (that's a kind of beer, folks) if were talking in person. Then we could toast the end of the discussion of the tiresome Martic order :)Civilaffairs (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

[edit] Srpska banka

In the end sources are not problem but what users want to write are. Like example I will use Srpska banka. Our "source" is saying:

"The Srpska banka was founded in Zagreb in 1895 and the painstaking life's work of our grandfathers was invested into it. This labour was robbed first in the name of Croatian statehood by Ante Pavelic, and after him in the name of creating socialism by Josip Broz (Tito). Tudjman and Milosevic gave our remaining property to their associates. The current authorities are trying to sell that property to foreigners for a pittance" The cited text is part of the introduction to the Srpska banka web site ......[13]

user Mike Babic want to write again and again: "The Srpska Banka company was founded by a Croatian Serb family in Zagreb in 1895. It was the life's work of Saskijevic family that had thier property robbed first in the name of Croatian statehood by Ante Pavelic in World War II. In addition, the Serb family owned two hotels in Dubrovnik Hotel Lapad and Hotel Imperial that were also robbed by the goveremnet of Independent State of Croatia in World War II"

In doing this he is broken 2 NPOV Wikipedia rules but in he want that his truth is known (I think that because he has reverted my NPOV changes).

• First he has used words of POV heirs (which want bank restoration) for truth
• Second he has been happy with first sentence how bad Ustaše has stolen bank, but he has not wanted to write how good Tito has again stolen bank (he has deleted that statement [14]) because Croats must be bad (my thinking) ! This is clearly POV position of editor.

For the end it is best that we do not play with nationalization because if we are NPOV we all know how many things have not be returned to heirs of original owners after end of communism (I do not believe that more of 20 % is returned).--Rjecina (talk) 07:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

LOL, if nothing else, the wording has to be altered. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 12:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm just going to answer on the fly. I removed tito/tudjman/milosevic because the section was WW2 and Serbs in it.

The bank is a great example to illustrate what happened since its a widely known complex

Once again the attack on me was lame.

Also, i wrote down' a note in the history that im alright with people changing the words as long as the meaning is left alone.

Mike Babic (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English

All edits with poor english should be reverted because they take away from the quality of the article and take too long to correct. Mike Babic (talk) 23:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, don't take this the wrong way, but your English isn't too hot either Mike :) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, I'd like to discuss your removal of info about Croats being expelled from the Krajina, which is true and directly related to the context. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You also added

":On November 1991, civilians of Serbian origin were dragged out of cellars and shelters, after which they were killed in front of their homes.^[1]"

While this is possibly true, I'm not sure about the reference. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm a university student, hence, my english is more than correct. To reply, I removed the contents cited above because they don't relate to Serbs of Croatia since the sentence describes Croatians of Croatia. Also, the information quoted above "Croats being expelled from the Krajina" should be added to Republic Of Serbian Krajin article. You must agree. Don't you?

Mike Babic (talk) 01:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, "Croats expelled from Krajina" involves actions by some Serbs of Krajina. I could agree that a longer and more detailed account of this might belong in another article (such as the article about RSK), but I don't agree it can be entirely left out of this one.

If there are problems with poor English, I will do my best to correct them if asked to do so. I am a native speaker of English. My spelling fluctuates between Brit and American, but I have now installed a US spell-checker on my machine and can use it to check article content to make up for this shortcoming of mine. Just put a note on my talk page if help is needed. I don't think that contributions should be limited to editors with perfect English. Civilaffairs (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

It would be awsome to have someone proof-read the article (it would be time consuming as well). I don't want to restrict people from adding because of their english skills. It's extremely painfull to edit bad english since sometimes you dont know what they waanted to say. Thus if you change it you might be changing the meaning. On the other hand, if you don't change it, it makes the article look unprofessional. Mike Babic (talk) 04:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Mike Babic (talk) 04:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yea, I must agree. I have added the "Croats expelled from Krajina" part but i added also how it related to Serbs. Also, i have added the actions of Serbs against Croatians while mainly talking about the Serbs.

Mike Babic (talk) 04:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you serious in your thinking that article is NPOV if it is speak about Croatian crimes but it is not speak about Serbian crimes. It is important to notice that if we look wikipedia articles Serbs has commited 7 massacres and Croats 2 and because of that if you want to write about massacre commited by Croats I will add in text 3 or 4 massacres commited by Serbs.--Rjecina (talk) 06:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

"Are you serious in your thinking that article is NPOV if it is speak about Croatian crimes but it is not speak about Serbian"

Rjecina, I have added two sources, one Serb and one UN for the massacre at Borovo Selo. And I dont care if you add that Serbs commited massacres to the article. As a matter of fact, I have added how Serb police killed 40 croatians 2 days after the Borovo massacre.

Mike Babic (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Rjecina, I have seperate your statement into two dates. For example, on July 31 and December. Also, I have added a time period called "retrospect". Change anything you want, i just think its more organized this way.

"On 31 July 1990 Milan Babić has become President of the Serbian National Council and in december he will become President of the Temporary Executive Council of the SAO Krajina. Latter he will declare "that during the events, and in particular at the beginning of his political career, he was strongly influenced and misled by Serbian propaganda"

Mike Babic (talk) 15:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll proof-read the article, per Mike's request. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That is noble of you since it take a lot of time. Thanks a bunch. Let me know if I can help.Mike Babic (talk) 17:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem :), it'll be done today. I've got to go for an hour or so --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops. I had gone a long way with editing for correct English, but when I went to save it, DIREKTOR had already got started (it would not let me save because of conflict). I'll let DIREKTOR continue with his/her good work and bow out for now. Civilaffairs (talk) 19:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Done. The article still needs work though. Copy-editing and better text organization would improve it significantly. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, DIREKTOR, I wasn't complaining :) just explaining. Some of your edits were almost the same as the ones I tried to make (for example fixing the sentence about the 2007 elections). You've done a great job. I ran into some cases where content was something of a problem, not just copy editing. Maybe we can all discuss this and then do a final copy-edit and perhaps some organisation? I'll join in the census questions below for now. Civilaffairs (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Who said you were complaining? With the spelling & grammar now fixed, we can get to work on sourcing statements and "weeding" out the more radical statements, in accordance with the sources criteria we've established. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagged statements

Ok, going through the text I found a very large number of rather controversial tagged statements. Some of them might stay in this form, but there are many that should, in my opinion, be corroborated or removed as soon as possible. These are:

"The total population of Serbs originating directly from Croatia is estimated at around 700,000 people..."

"During World War II, Serbs comprised 30% of the population of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945) and lived on one half of its territory,"

"The 1931 census in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia recorded around 633,000. 504,179 Serbs were registered in the 1840 Austrian census conducted in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia (Croatia withot Dalmatia and Istria), making up 32% of Croatia's population."

"Football player Milan Rapaić." (whether or not the man's Serbian)

"One of the theories about the arrival of the Serbs to the Balkan peninsula says they first came to western Dalmatia, more specificly to Srb on the Una river) and then Solin (near Split)." (!)

"According to the population census carried out by the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 31 1910, the Orthodox, i.e. 'Greco-Eastern' Serbs accounted for 24% of the population in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia."

The census information should especially be referenced or removed. We can't have people writing censi reports in accordance with personal approximations or something. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, these elusive Austro-Hungarian censi. I've seen them often quoted without any reference in all sorts of disputes. Is there any site that lists the results of this research? I for one would certainly be interested in the exact population numbers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Its hard to find the source of the information. I don't think that it is made up because they seem to have a lot of details. However, its safe to remove unless we can sources them. Mike Babic (talk) 03:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, a great job editing! The article is much nicer to read now. Mike Babic (talk) 03:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I should hope so :). I'll remove the statements, then. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 08:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pakrac

This is the place where the war started. I'm going to research more about the incident in 1991. Also, to remain fair, someone should also add information about the incident that is Croatian.Mike Babic (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

A couple of sources (in alphabetical order):

Croats killed (Pakrac area 1991): Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established pursuant to security council resolution 780 (1992) Annex III.A Special forces S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. I) 28 December 1994

Serbs killed (Pakrac area1991): Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established pursuant to security council resolution 780 (1992)Annex X Mass gravesS/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. V) 28 December 1994

Please note that the original sources in these reports were in some cases the Croatian or FRY governments. Some reports were confirmed by UN, while others were not. Civilaffairs (talk) 20:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

It started in Plitvice Lakes area and Borovo Selo.--(GriffinSB) (talk) 16:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I ran across this article on Mercep (mentions Pakrac) based on a declassified CIA report: . I think this same story was also released by HINA (Croatian news service).

Actual declassified CIA report (Be sure to click "next" at the bottom of each page to read it all.)Civilaffairs (talk) 16:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

There are times when I've wanted just five minutes, in a locked room, with the programmer that wrote the CIA FOIA reading room search engine. May I offer a few tips in getting it to work to any reasonable extent?

• First, understand that there are no URLs that will take you directly to the document. You have to go to http://www.foia.ucia.gov/ (a little different than Civilaffairs wrote), and put in the search term.
• Next, assuming you have found something of interest, the document reader, at least with the browser I use, won't show the complete page. The best workaround I have found is to select the "print document" option, which collects all pages. If it's a small document, I simply print it. If it's larger, your choices depend on your software. Since I have full Office 2003 and plenty of disk space, I send it to the Microsoft Document Image Writer pseudo-printer, which then can be used to read the document as full pages on the screen. If you have Acrobat or a browser that produces PDF, that's another alternative. On UNIX/LINUX, print it to .ps and use a PostScript/GhostScript viewer. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't this all belong in the Croatian War of Independence article? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Howard C. Berkowitz: Oops. I goofed up on that one! Thank you for your kind help and good advice. I changed the link and it appears to be working now, but maybe others can check? I use Opera (browser), so maybe things work differently for me?

DIREKTOR: I hear you. On the other hand, there does seem to be considerable overlap between articles about the former Yugoslavia. If this were an article about the Medak incursion and someone wanted to include Gospic or Pakrac, I would say, no, that belongs in those articles and in the main article about the war. Same thing if someone wanted to include Vukovar in an article about the Zagreb rocket attack of 1995. This article is about a people, not an event, so I find it harder to see where lines should be drawn or what should be excluded. If Pakrac is included in this article, I think the violence committed by both sides should be included, of course. Civilaffairs (talk) 19:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

[edit] Serbian nationalists are trying to equalize the "guilt" trough Operation Strom

This is a Serbian democratic website

http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Lobby.html

--(GriffinSB) (talk) 16:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Nation as a problem or a solution(Historical revisionism in Serbia)

Omladinski Centar Novi Sad - Srbija

http://ck13.org/en/nationalism_and_revisionism --(GriffinSB) (talk) 16:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I find it very strange that noone was charged for ethnic cleansing "trough shelling of towns" in cases of Vukovar,Erdut,Dalj,Glina,Osijek,Slavonski Brod,Zupanja,Pakrac,Kostajnica(91),Dubica(91),Zadar,Sinj,Dubrovnik,Cavtat,Cilipi,Sarajevo,Zvornik,Bjeljina,Srebrenica,Zepa,Foca,Prijedor,Derventa,Bihac(pocket),Tuzla etc. troughout the whole war.Shellings that caused thousands and thousands of dead.Snipers that killed few thousand people in Sarajevo only.

But somehow they managed to accuse Gen. Gotovina of shelling Knin for few hours witout consideration that there WERE military targets in the town. It's not Gen. Gotovinas fault that Serbs ran like cowards because their political leadres advise them to do so. My city was shelled for 4 years and they all stayed there to defend their homes,aldough they knew what happened to Croats and other non-Serbs in Bosanska Posavina!!!--(GriffinSB) (talk) 16:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not understand point of your writing in this section. Can you help me ?--Rjecina (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Shelling is not ethnic cleansing on its own, we agreed on that earlier. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 16:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

hahaha sorry,i just read some of the comments on the talk page written by ultranationalist Serbs and got pissed off!! :D --(GriffinSB) (talk) 17:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Rjecina thanks for that comment. On a seperate note, I want to add the Medak indicent to the timeline but i would prefer it if a Croatian user added it because I'm trying to keep a NPOV in the article.Mike Babic (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not try to add it yourself? It does not have to be added by a Croatian user to make it NPOV, just make sure you use the most neutral wording imaginable, and include only reliably referenced info without any unnecessary embellishments. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the article about the Croatian war of independance has covered that all.--(GriffinSB) (talk) 22:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking if I should work on this article or add it to the article Croatian war of Indep. I'm 50% 50% undecided as of now.Mike Babic (talk) 02:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Certainly it should be in the Croatian War of Independence. If it seems to belong here as well, there is no reason not to add it yourself as DIREKTOR pointed out. I have learned that those who scream loudest and longest about "nationalism" are themselves nationalists (projection?). Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain. Civilaffairs (talk) 22:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

Timeline will be deleted. Reason is that we are having timelines and we are having articles. We are not having articles inside which there is section timeline. With your timeline you can create article Croatian War of Independence timeline or Serbs of Croatia timeline. Like example you can take "my" project Timeline of Yugoslavian breakup--Rjecina (talk) 20:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This whole section is fallacious from the start, as there is no such thing as collective guilt of an ethnic group - not for individual crimes, whole wars or historical leadings... --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 20:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent point. Applause. Civilaffairs (talk) 21:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

[edit] Privilages

Found 'em finally online here. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 18:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)