Talk:Warsaw Uprising/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Early discussion

The sentance "Soviet assistance to the Home Army was limited to collaboration only on a tactical level and then shooting or sending the Home Army soldiers to Siberia" does not fit into the text.

I think the references to Armia Krajowa, Home Army, and AK should consistantly be to "Home Army", after they have been explained. Since this is an English article the Polish is awkward.


The following part was moved to talk, since it doesn't fit into text.

However there were also accidents of killing Jews during uprising. Between 20-60 Jews was killed, although number is highly controversial. The best documented case is murdering Jews by unit of cpt. "Hal" (Waclaw Strykowski) in Dluga street.

Killing of Jews and non-Jews is moved to the section of killings of civilians.

As I understand in the Uprisisng was killed 200 000 people. There is no sense to underline killing of 60 people.

200 000 civilians was killed by Nazis. 50-60 Jews were killed by Polish soldiers (who were killing also other Poles) - although "soldiers" should be in apostrophes in that case [[Szopen]]


1st August Anniversary

It would be nice if for the 1st August we could transform this into an article worthy of Main Page Featuread Article section, don't you think so? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:21, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yup. What needs to be expanded/corrected/modified? Lets share the work and prepare it for the article for the upcoming anniversary. Halibutt 06:47, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)


Headers

I will just point out that if we want to use more 'article-like' headers, I have compiled a list in Talk:Warsaw Uprising. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:20, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The names in this project are temporary. However, I suggest we used more encyclopedia-like titles. Halibutt 23:00, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

I have proposed the start of the Warsaw Uprising as an anniversary for the August 1st. Would it be possible to get this article integrated into place by then? This would have the advantage that any extra edits which are done go to the right article at the same time, if the article is mostly complete by then it would make the page better at the time when it becomes very visible. Mozzerati 07:17, 2004 Jul 28 (UTC)

It should be ready by then. I'm almost finished with the first section, we have some more pics. The only thing we lack is help from someone who actually knows something about the Rising to complete the other sections. Halibutt 09:30, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

Materials to contribute:

I am willing to share with wiki materials (text, photos, art, documents) from warsawuprising.com. Also, would like to make some suggestions for the selection of pictures. Please contact me thru the site email or here. Ttyre 05:05, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mail sent to info@projectinposterum.org. Halibutt 06:56, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)


I don't feel sufficiently like "someone who actually knows something" to take on a whole section, so I volunteer to go searching for materials and links on the internet. I'll propose putting them directly on the talk:Warsaw Uprising page rather than here so that others can see those bits we don't use after this small project is finished. I can also copy edit, if materials are up on line. Also I'm in Warsaw, with a digital camera, a day mostly free and it's a sunny day, so I can take some photos (monuments/bullet holes etc.) later (suggestions?). BTW I also mailed to volunteer to put stuff up (between edits).
Mozzerati 07:15, 2004 Jul 30 (UTC)

I've gathered the pictures (about 100 came out, including photos which show the street name where I'm taking other photos). They're on my personal server so I'm not publishing the IP address (public, but not published :-). Halibutt is looking at them and uploading the ones he wants. Piotrus also has the link. If anyone else would like to see them before they are uploaded, please email me agreeing not to pass on the link I give and I'll send it to you. In any case please wait for Halibutt to decide which ones he wants to upload. License of those uploaded will automatically become GFDL as with my other images. N.B. some of them, especially in Zelazna may (or may not) show Warsaw Ghetto Uprising damage, not Warsaw Uprising damage. The ones taken in Mokotow are more certain as far as I'm concerned. Others may have better knowledge of course. Mozzerati 18:03, 2004 Jul 30 (UTC)

Tnx for the pic! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:48, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've updated the current Warsaw Uprising article to make it a bit more grammatical and better organised, though I've not added any significant new content. People will already be looking at the article now that the uprising commemorations are beginning, so it's best to have a reasonable version in place before this much better version gets published. -- ChrisO 19:37, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good. However keep in mind that we are working here mostly and it I am not sure if we will be able to accommodate changes made to the orginal article, or will we just move what we have here and replace it - so if you would add your changes here as well this would ensure your work does not go in vain. Btw, I see you have nominated WU for Featured Article...I hope we go through. C'mon ppl, let's vote! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:36, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Idea in general

Dear Halibutt,

despite I respect your intention to make the article even better, I suppose it's wrong idea to make preparations here and then to move a better article to the proper place. It's not how wiki intended to work. As a minor effect, you have to insert numerous warnings into the body of the article to inform others that it is being edited somewhere else. As more long-term and worse effect, such moves drop editing history, and, to the some extent, violate GNU FDL...

So, please consider if it is possible to achieve your goals without moving the page.

Thank you!

Dr Bug  (Volodymyr V. Medeiko) 09:50, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We will do so in the future. ATM we are moving the article and all further changes will be done on the official page. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:16, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Detailed chronology

August

September

October

Work in progress on 'detail' section continues here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:22, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sections needing eventuall expansion

Those were in our primary project but till today we haven't gotten to expanding them:

Churchill and Roosevelt: good wishes from far away

List of names to be considered

  • Mariensztat
  • Aleje Jerozolimskie

Mozzerati 17:31, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)

  • Jerozolimskie Avenue (Jerusalem Avenue)
  • Zoliborz (Jolibord)
  • Czerniakow (Cherniakov)
  • Powisle (Riverside)
  • Srodmiescie > Center City
  • Plac Bankowy > Bank Sq.
  • Teatr Wielki > Opera House
  • Plac Zamkowy > Royal Castle Sq.
  • Plac na Rozdrozu > Crossroad Sq.
  • Plac Krasinskich > Krasinski Sq.
  • Ogrod Saski > Saxon Garden

Ttyre 14:36, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Festung Warschau (Fortress Warsaw) -- I really hate the phrase "Warsaw was declared a Festung Warschau"... the article clashes with what should be a proper name. I think it should be "The town was declared `Fortress Warsaw'" by the Germans.

Mozzerati 17:41, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)

Yes, I am all for Fortress instead of the German term which is almost as unknown as Polish words :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:27, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
IMO they should be left as they are. Jerusalem Avenue might be more informative, but this article should also be a reference for those who want to learn more about the Uprising. I doubt they will find any info on Jerusalem Avenue anywhere but in Rising '44. Also, Mary's Town sounds bizarre. Halibutt 20:42, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
So just leave them translated once in parenthesis for informative purposes and then use the orginal term. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:44, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't care which term is chosen (that's easy for me to say since I use the Polish every day) but I do care that it's consistent. Same name all through the article. Home army is used 46 times, Armia Krajowa 13 times; Even if we want to repeat it, we should choose which is the main one and always have it whilst having the other one in brackets. Warszawa is used a couple of times, but these are names, so they could be okay. The fighting section on the "old town" is followed by a section on the loss of the "stare miasto". etc.. I'm willing to do the fixes, but let's get some agreement about which way first. "Old Town", "Home Army" and "Warsaw" are ones I'm fairly sure should be in Engish (with Polish in brackets on first use); much of the rest could be Polish (with English in brackets if it's valuable, like Royal Castle square) Mozzerati 17:41, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)
IMO use original names wherever possible with upper case Sq. St., etc. with its English phonetic version or translation when appropriate. See proposed convention above. I currently translate the Warsaw Uprising-era city maps and am wrestling with the proper name convention.

--Ttyre 14:36, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. So basically, we have two choises here:

a) use English translated name everywhere, and Polish in first case in brackets b) use Polish translated name everywhere, and English in first case in brackets Isn't there a Wiki policy for that somewhere? Otherwise I recommend a 3 days voting and we will go with the option that has most votes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:27, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm for translating only the City Centre and the Old Town since that is how those areas are usually referred to in English. All the others including the street names should be anglicized only (Bankowy square instead of Plac Bankowy, but not Bank square; Saski Garden instead of Ogród Saski but not Saxon Garden, and so on). Some of the others are simply Daviesism and their usage in an wikipedia article is totally out of the question. Halibutt 20:50, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
To try to state the problem more clearly. There is a matter of taste. Certain ones have to be in English (Warsaw), Certain ones have to be in Polish (Mariensztat) due to lack of good translation. There's a grey area in the middle. We have to decide where the dividing line is. Since it seems that everybody agrees that Polish is better here in most cases, we can easily and simply list the ones which we think should be in English. "Old Town", "Home Army" and "Warsaw" as before + "City Centre". So we can't vote simply since yes or no. We have to list.
So there are probably only three geographical names that should/could be translated to English - the ones I mentioned and Warsaw itself. I can't think of anything more. Halibutt 09:00, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
Oooops! I just noticed that due to recent CVAs edits the Home Army link does not point to Armia Krajowa anymore. The user did not correct the links so far so probably we'd have to stick to the latter, Polish name. See the Talk:Home Army page as well. Halibutt 10:38, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
Interesting. I responded there as well, but since this term *can* be apparently confusing, I would recommend using Armia Krajowa instead Home Army in most of the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:16, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it's okay to be globally ambiguous as long as it's a clear term in this context and we give links directly to the proper page [[Armia Krajowa|Home Army]]. N.B. Warsaw is Warsaw (disambiguation) ambiguous! Home army is used in all news reports so it makes it much easier for a native English speaker to follow. Aim for a "simple" principle of least surprise...
As to te Festung Warschau case: I'm against translating it to English or Polish. In Polish the term is almost never translated and is left in German. The reason for that is that the Polish equivalent of Festung Warschau is Twierdza Warszawa, which is usually reserved for one of the Armia Krajowa redoubts in the area, not for the German defensive plan.
Similarily, in English the term Warsaw Stronghold or Warsaw Fortress should refer either to the Cytadela fortress in Warsaw or to the redoubt. There are lots of articles here on this wiki that have names in German and are not translated to English for similar reasons. Halibutt 12:13, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
Happy to see some activity here. For starters - names. There is no name of Polish commanders and such. Icreated a section where we can list all important names with short description who was who. We could also try to divide the description into some section - I am not sure how they should be based. Time (weeks)? Side activity/POV? Btw, do check my page for my IM info (ICQ and GG whatever u prefer). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:54, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'd suggest dividing the article as follows:
  • Header
  • Eve of the Battle
  • The "W" hour
    • Initial advances -> First moves
    • Massacre of Wola -> Second move: The Wola Massacre
    • Siege of PAST building Third move: Siege of PAST building
    • failed attacks on Okecie, Pola Mokotowskie and Warszawa Gdanska train station -> Failed moves: Okecie, Pola Mokotowskie, Train Station
  • 63 days
    • description of the battle after the front lines were established -> Stabilization of front lines
    • loss of Żoliborz, Stare Miasto -> The circle tightens: loss of Żoliborz, Stare Miasto
    • the sewers and the barricades -> The scenery: the sewers and the barricades
    • Berling landings on Powiśle -> Soviet 'help': Berling landings on Powiśle
    • Allied airdrops -> Western Allies help: the airdrops
    • life behind the frontlines (theatres, post offices, Błyskawica, newspapers and so on) -> Life behind the frontlines: Few weeks of Poland reborn
  • International situation -> Outside Warsaw: Poland, Europe, World
    • Soviet policy towards the Home Army, Wanda and Kościuszko radio stations, and so on -> On the East: No will to help
      • 1st Belarussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, Polish People's Army -> or merge with the above
    • Churchill and Roosevelt -> On the West: good wishes from far away
    • Jan Karski -> ??
  • Aftermath
    • capitulation -> The end is here: the capitulation
    • Destruction of the city -> A city was here: 85% of the city in ruins
    • civilian casualties -> The butcher's bill: the casualties (note: merge civilian and military, or divde with smaller subheaders
    • concentration camps around Warsaw -> Nazi's tools of trade: the concentration camps around Warsaw
    • Warsaw Uprising and the Operation Tempest -> Aftermath of the...
    • "Liberation" in January 1945
  • All the rest
    • List of imporant people
    • List of military formations
    • Tables, footnotes, related reading
What do you think? If you agree with my overall idea I could create a project page and we'd prepare a new, rewritten version for the anniversary. Halibutt 20:05, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
Nice. I have reworked the titles into more 'captivating' article titles in italic (if a replacemnt for your header I put -> in front of my to the right of yours), if u like them we can use them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Quotes

An idea for a new section: quotes about Warsaw Uprising (or related). So far I have those (I will translate them shortly):

  • before the Uprisng:
  • More then 1000 members of German Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitspolizei have died in the course of their normal police duties, this does not include the losses during the participation of any special operations. Alongside those losses, the number of 500 casualties among the various officials of all administration sectors deservers a separate mention - from the speach of Hans Frank on 18 November 1943
  • If not for Warsaw in the General Government, we wouldn't have 4/5 of our current problems on that territory. Warsaw was and will be the center or chaos and a place from which opposition spreads throughout the rest of the country - [Hans Frank]] in 14 December 1943, Cracow
  • during the uprising
  • Contrary to our expectations, the enemy has halted all of their offensive actions alonside the entire front of the 9th Army. - from the operations journal of German 9th Army on 16 August 1944, entry shows the German amazement with Russian responce to the Warsaw Uprising
  • after the uprising
  • one the most deadly fights since the begining of the war, as difficult as the fight for Stalingrad - Heinrich Himmler to other German generals on 21 IX 1944

--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:48, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Featured article objections

Jeronimo 09:26, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC) wrote the following as objections, which should be fixed to make this a featured article:

1) The infotable doesn't explain what the abbreviations (KIA etc.) mean. Also, the numbers are different from what is discussed later in the text. I would also like to see sources for the estimates, since these tend to vary wildly. Statements like "German MIA were never declared dead in order to lessen the total casualties rate." are quite bold and should be attributed, even if they are true.

Abbreviations are interlinked now - all work except WIA. Numbers are unified. Sources known to me added. Statement wasn't made by me. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
linked in MIA / KIA / WIA also Mozzerati 11:25, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)
Links are OK, but numbers are still conflicting, also with the lead section. POW is mentioned for Poland, but not for Germany. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Lead section has the most common used averages, while the detail sections has all estimates from lowest to highest. POW is mentioned for Germany. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:05, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't think we have to attribute this statement. Neithr the Third Reich nor Germany declared those missing dead. In other words the Federal Republic still thinks that there are some 7000 German soldiers wandering in Warsaw in search of their units. I cannot think of any other purpose of such policy. However, I'll attribute the statement to please you. Halibutt 11:50, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

2) There's still "editing notes" in the article, such as "I don't think we need that part here? It is repeated in above paragraph anyway."

Removed that note. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

3) I'm not quite sure we need the huge table of military formations in this article, especially since only the Polish formation are discussed in such details, while the German troops are listed briefly with "various support and backup units". This should be made into a separate list article.

I think it is an informative piece of info, but if more ppl object to this table here we can move it to a dedicated one. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it is background information at best, and doesn't belong in this article. Also the unbalance between information on German/Polish troops is disturbing. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I vote that the Polish section be replaced with a sumamry (five lines or so) and moved to a page such as Warsaw Uprising Polish Participants. It should be linked in clearly, but the need for it comes mostly from inadequate reference to specific facts in the article. It will also be easier to cross reference to from other pages, especialy if the Warsaw uprising espands (e.g. separate pages for the fights in Mokotow / fate of participants etc.). The German section can be left as is, (later someone can make a separate page if they wish). It should be noted though, that the make up of the Polish forces is in some ways more interesting and how they were formed with sufficient secrecy to survive to take part in the uprising makes this more important for the article. The study of what happened to the "German" forces is also quite instructive. Some of the Russians among them were eventually handed over to the Soviets by the British it seems.

4) Just yesterday I read an article about the Warsaw Uprising, and it mentions several things not discussed here. There is now a musem about the uprising, and the uprising wasn't remembered until after the fall of communism. Also, several Poles taking part in the uprising say that the uprising was doomed to fail from the beginning because of the differences in strength, and insufficient ammunition is also quoted as a major problem. The article only lists the lack of Soviet assistence as the only reason for failure.

Added section 'After the War' and expanded 'Reasons for failure'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Not bad, but I corrected many spelling errors in these two sections; they seem to have been added hastily. Please review them for spelling and correctness. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

5) I personally find the interchangable use of "Nazi" for "German" inaccurate. Poland was occupied by Germany, so I propose to use that term.

I personally don't mind that, but if more ppl agree with you it will be corrected. Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the sentiment, but it has to be clear that some Nazis were not Germans (e.g. Austrians and Ukranian's took part in surpressing the uprising) and many Germans, even some of those in the German army were not Nazis. E.g. the guy who saved Szpilman. Someone needs to think the use of these two words through and write a policy proposal about when to use which that can be more or less defended. The BBC is currently using Nazi in their coverage of the uprising. Because of the complexity mentioned, the use of the wrong term (either one) in the wrong place can definitely be seen to be problematic. Mozzerati 11:26, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)
I would still prefer the use of Germany, since that country occupied Poland (and many other nations). Many Germans, and the government were indeed Nazi Party members, but I find the use of "Poland was occupied by the Nazis" incorrect. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, if you feel it is necessary feel free to correct it. I agree with Mozzerati - since it is not clear which term is the best, better to use both to avoid confusion. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:05, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

6) There's no mention of World War II in the lead section.

Added. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

7) I don't think "General" (as in officer) needs to be abbreviated; if it is, it should be either Gen. or gen., but not both.

All gen. and Gen. to genral converted. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

8) The writing is something confusing. E.g. I don't see what the sentence "Even after the war soldiers of Armia Krajowa who took part in the Warsaw Uprising were usually captured by the NKVD, interrogated and imprisoned, awaiting trials on various charges." has to do with the section ""Liberation" of the ruins".

Moved this to 'After the war' section. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

9) Sectioning is non-standard. Double = should be used for main sections.

One less == everywhere and some minor changes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

10) There are two separate sections dedicated to the Wola massacre; they should be combined.

Done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

11) What does the "W" in W hour stand for?

I am not sure ATM. I could speculate that it is for 'W-wybuch' ('expolosion, start' in Polish) but I can hardly put my own speculations on the Wiki article can I? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Norman Davies calls it the "L" hour which suggests it's actually Polish crossed l (transliterated as W). He also doesn't explain where it comes from anywhere that I can find (I haven't had the book so long so I haven't searched properly).

Mozzerati 09:39, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)

Kirchmayer used the term 'W' hour and all materials on the web I browsed also used the 'W' term. I have NO idea where ND could find the 'L' hour...strange. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13:46, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If it is unknown what the W is for, I think it shouldn't be used as prominently as this, using it as a section heading. As long as the exact meaning is unknown, just use it in parentheses in the text. Jeronimo 13:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
On the contrary, in all publications I have access to the term 'W' hour features prominently. What does D stands for in the D Day? Would you want to remove it as well? It is the same logic here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:05, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The D in D-day is derived from the word "day", as is the H in "H-Hour", see D-Day. Jeronimo 20:36, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The only source I can find[1] says it comes from "W for wybuch, outbreak in Polish". (wybuch can also be translated as explosion). Mozzerati 16:01, 2004 Aug 1 (UTC)
So I think this one is answered to your satisfaction, Jeronimo? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:43, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

12) Sentence "...Also, a number of RAF and USAAF airmen who were shot down over Warsaw and kept hidden from the Germans in various places by the Home Army joined the fights." implies a number of the Allied airmen fighting Germans in the Warsaw Uprising. I know only about one, John Ward - where there more? If not, I will re-write this sentence. --Ttyre 14:04, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've heard of six or seven allied airmen, however I don't remember the source and it is probable that they fought with the units outside of Warsaw. There was an article in Gazeta on those guys some two years ago. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 18:40, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
Interesting. Please add that info, Tyre - I would like very much to read more about such details. Although this may be best done as a separate article expansion if you have the time and will (for example, a John Ward article? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:35, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
OK, over this weekend, I will correct the sentence about the airmen participating in the Uprising. Also, will start writing an article about John Ward see: www.warsawuprising.com/witness.htm section on him. --Ttyre 16:23, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Captions

Many thanks for editing the captions. However, I have to revert most of your additions since there are simply too many mistakes and the captions seem too long. Sorry for that. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 13:10, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC) (originally written at User Talk:Richard Taylor

I think we're certainly improving the captions here between us. There was need for clarifications. I have endevoured to make all captions full sentances, and generally in line with the pointers at Wikipedia:Captions. In my opinion captions such as "...in 2004" appear scrappy. As an alternative to my previous strategy (of expanding the captions) I have attempted to introduce a table to display the 1944 and 2004 images next to each other. This also avoids the problem that comes with having three images next to each other, stacking and leaving unsightly gaps in the text. On another note, perhaps you could add to the Image:Uprising_bank_polski.jpg page, why is it as it is, what has been proposed for its future etc - if it is not as it appears - left as a monument? Richard Taylor 17:00, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, those long captions look bizarre, but if that is the official policy of wikipedia... I expanded the info you requested, contact me if you needed more. Short captions (as the original ones) give no false impressions since everyone can see that they are short and only describe the picture. At the same time longer captions are often misleading and cannot be corrected since there is not enough place. After seing the caption under the grave I thought "hey, what about all the other 150.000 graves?". But again, if this is the wiki policy on captions then nothing can be done...
I still have a serious problem with the caption under the picture of the Monument to small partisan. The sentence On August 1, 2004 a commemoration cermony was held at this monument to all the children who fought and fell in the Uprising. is 100% true, but sounds bizarre since there are such commemoration ceremonies held there every two or three months since the early seventies. Mentioning just one such ceremony is like mentioning a particular July 4 under a picture of Independence Hall or the constitution of the USA. Could you please shorten the caption to inform on the monument only? The rest could be moved to the pic page instead.
Also, the caption under the pic with ruins of the Royal Castle is too enigmatic to be true. Why not just leave it as Ruins of the Royal Castle? All the history of the castle is described there, while a caption is not the place to state that The castle was heavily damaged in 1939, later in heavy fights during the Warsaw Uprising and after that was completely destroyed by German engineers. Let's describe the picture, not the history of the place. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 22:21, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
I've made the change to the caption for the Monument to small partisan. I'll leave any further tweaking of the captions on this page to others who know the subject well. We don't have to follow the caption guidence, however, I do believe that it is inline with what would be applied in professional publications, and good captions are good for the wikipedia. I will see if I can find somewhere I can post a request for a "tables" expert to see if they can improve the table. Richard Taylor 09:26, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Re-structuring

There have beem comments on the featured articles page that the TOC is to big. This is a big topic and flow is important so I worry about some of this, but I myself finally begin to think we have now reached the stage where the material we have justifies multiple pages.

I suggest that we have

  • warsaw uprising - (main page) - mostly summaries materials match pages below, but are written simply and minimally
  • warsaw uprising - build up - discusses the political situaiton leading up to the uprising and particularly areas of lack of knowledge
  • warsaw uprising - battle - all militry actions
  • warsaw uprising - capitulation - where the people went and what happened to the city
  • warsaw uprising - after effects - discusses the effects on the participants and on Poland
  • warsaw uprising - symbols and media presentation - (better title?) discusses discusison and censorship around warsaw uprising
  • List of military units in the Warsaw Uprising - list of units participating
  • (maybe) warsaw uprising - facts and figures - equivalent of appendixes

since most of the articles form a sequence it will be easy to keep flow by having a one follows the other navigation bar...

Mozzerati 21:43, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)

Do you suggest moving most data into separate articles or just restructuring headers by limiting their number? Or both? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:01, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I suggest moving to a number of separate pages/articles using a Wikipedia:summary style. Header restructuring should also be considered, but I think that alot of the pressure to do so will go away once the material is divided into separate pages. An important aim is to get the minimum (required for educated understanding) facts across in the main article, so people who only have time or inclination to read that know the basics, but to have everything backed up in the main articles. Mozzerati 20:05, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
Just to butt in here - if you are considering breaking up this article, you might want to use Dreyfus affair as an example of how to do it well (for the record, that is a featured article). →Raul654 20:17, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
Right. Do give it a try, Mozzerati. I don't *see* it yet though, but if that is what everybody likes, then let's do it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:35, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I have begun. See links from Template:Warsaw Uprising Mozzerati 22:34, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)
I see now what you meant. The lead sections split off looks good so far, and I think we will be able to reduce the anchor box in the front as well. I don't think we will need a new special box for it though. Good job! I think that after you are done we can resubmit the article and finally be featured :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:29, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Restructuring Complete

The initial work for restructuring is now complete. A few edits which went in on material I had already copied elsewhere have been deleted (check uprising page history) and should be copied over. There needs to be verification that everything is preserved. I have been doing brutal sumamrisation and so it should be checked that I maintained facts correctly and didn't add anything wrong.

In summary, this seems to have helped quite a bit since there were several sections of repetition of the same material and some basic facts which weren't clearly stated (they were there, but the meaning was clear only if you already knew much about the uprising). This still needs some work and there are stub sections in the subsiduary articles, but I hope we are now close to featured article level.

Mozzerati 11:21, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

FAC objections

I am moving the old FAC discussion here and renewing the nomination. →Raul654 19:55, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)


The 60th anniversary is this Sunday (1 Aug); it would be a good article to feature given the immense historical significance of the event. I've rewritten it so that it reads better, so I guess this should count as a self-nomination... -- ChrisO 19:18, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Support. Especially as we are working round the clock to improve this improved version on User:Halibutt/Warsaw_Uprising. ChrisO, if you add new stuff before 1 Aug plz do it on the project page (otherwise it may get lost), we will move it to offical Warsaw Uprising article in 24h or so. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:30, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Object - needs expansion all around. The dev version looks better, but even that is not good enough yet. Re-submit after the dev version goes live. --mav 03:57, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • Agree with Mav. It does need expansion all around. If I can find the time, I'll try to expand it. 172 06:23, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
      • I do agree with your objections, we are expanding it. ATM most of the information research work is done, just a few more sections to do, but we could definetly use an English-speaker to check for language consistency and grammar mistakes. Hopefully we will make it for 1 August deadline. Keep your fingers crossed! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:50, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Significantly expanded, with lots of pictures and stuff. Halibutt 19:22, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Looks good enough. --81.219.66.98 20:01, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Looks fine. --24.175.90.218 20:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm voting 'pro' too. Just read this and ... wow. Everybody in Europe ought to read this.
  • support. After expansion, it's now a good article, and the last major anniversary when the survivors are still around. Also it has some photos by me :-) Mozzerati 23:20, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)
  • support. Much better than what it used to be and it's a very important topic, more people should read about it. roo72
  • Object. Good article, but I still have many remarks. 1) The infotable doesn't explain what the abbreviations (KIA etc.) mean. Also, the numbers are different from what is discussed later in the text. I would also like to see sources for the estimates, since these tend to vary wildly. Statements like "German MIA were never declared dead in order to lessen the total casualties rate." are quite bold and should be attributed, even if they are true. 2) There's still "editing notes" in the article, such as "I don't think we need that part here? It is repeated in above paragraph anyway." 3) I'm not quite sure we need the huge table of military formations in this article, especially since only the Polish formation are discussed in such details, while the German troops are listed briefly with "various support and backup units". This should be made into a separate list article. 4) Just yesterday I read an article about the Warsaw Uprising, and it mentions several things not discussed here. There is now a musem about the uprising, and the uprising wasn't remembered until after the fall of communism. Also, several Poles taking part in the uprising say that the uprising was doomed to fail from the beginning because of the differences in strength, and insufficient ammunition is also quoted as a major problem. The article only lists the lack of Soviet assistence as the only reason for failure. 5) I personally find the interchangable use of "Nazi" for "German" inaccurate. Poland was occupied by Germany, so I propose to use that term. 6) There's no mention of World War II in the lead section. 7) I don't think "General" (as in officer) needs to be abbreviated; if it is, it should be either Gen. or gen., but not both. 8) The writing is something confusing. E.g. I don't see what the sentence "Even after the war soldiers of Armia Krajowa who took part in the Warsaw Uprising were usually captured by the NKVD, interrogated and imprisoned, awaiting trials on various charges." has to do with the section ""Liberation" of the ruins". 9) Sectioning is non-standard. Double = should be used for main sections. 10) There are two separate sections dedicated to the Wola massacre; they should be combined. 11) What does the "W" in W hour stand for? Jeronimo 09:26, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I have fixed most of that and given the details on Talk:Warsaw_Uprising#Featured_article_objections - I hope you are satisfied. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:08, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Aggree with ProKonsul: Germany before and during WWII was NAZI. The most of German command had to be nazi (forced) or were devoted nazis. The same is known about the soldiers, troops, privates etc. So the interchangable use of "Nazi" and "German" is at most acceptable. --217.99.240.131 11:28, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • self - correcting: all german command had to be nazi, whether forced or not. To be honest: there were several that only 'played' this. But in Warsaw Uprising and after, there were no one like that in Warsaw. --217.99.240.131 11:32, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I replied to your reactions at the talk page. For now, my objection still stands. Jeronimo 13:57, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • So did I. If more ppl agree with the few points I have decided not to change so far, they will be changed, but atm I think most of them are rather irrelevant (3,5,11). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:36, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I withdraw all but one of my objections, the others have been resolved nicely. I still think the list should be moved to a separate article, and summarized briefly. I could move the list myself, but I don't feel qualified to summarize it accurately. Also, I would recommend a copyedit by a native English speaker (unlike me). I spotted several errors this weekend, and there may be many more I missed. Jeronimo 06:47, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Ok, I have moved it into a separate article. This has also shortened the total lenghts of the main article by several kb, not a bad thing as well. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:13, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Sorry, one more objection: the "surrender picture" (which is quite well-known) hasn't got any source information, and may in fact be copyrighted. Jeronimo 06:48, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • The surrender picture comes from a Nazi German war chronicle. It is published in almost all Polish books on the Uprising without any copyright or author information. I think we can assume that since the Nazi Party has no successors, the image could be used on a fair use basis. I don't think any neo-nazi party will ever sue us. Halibutt 12:39, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
      • As far as I know, copyright belongs to the photographer, and is still valid, regardless of regime changes in Germany. Jeronimo 13:14, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Object - I agree with Jeronimo and add that the TOC is overwhelming and the article is a bit of a long read. I therefore suggest that some of the longer sections get summarized and the longer text put into one or more daughter articles. This will allow for further expansion of the sub-topic on the daughter article and it leaves a summary of the most important aspects of that subtopic in the survey article. The lead section is also very inadequate for an article this size (at least three good-sized paragraphs needed for anything longer that 30KB). --mav 07:50, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Please note that the battlebox is there and it won't be shorter so the lenght of the TOC seems irrelevant. If you really don't like it you can always hide it, but the battlebox will be long anyway, so there's not much sense in it. Also, IMO the longer the TOC is, the better, especially in long articles. We could of course divide the article onto three sections only, but that way the navigation would be much harder. Halibutt 12:31, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
      • A long TOC is an indication that too many subtopics are covered in the same article. Thus it should be split up and summaries left. See Wikipedia:summary style. --mav 09:13, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • It's not the size of TOC, it's the overall size of the article that should be reduced. The article you mention says it all: some readers need just a quick summary (lead section), more people need a moderate amount of info (a set of multi-paragraph sections), and yet others need a lot of detail (links to full-sized separate articles). If so then even after copyediting parts of the article to their own articles the lenghth of TOC will not be shortened significantly. Personally, I find the long TOCs great since they allow the reader who usually reads only the header to jump exactly to where he or she wants to go. Of course we could merge all sections into two or three, but that would be a major mistake IMO. And I believe that this is a conflict between my view and your view, not between the current version of the article and the Featured article rules. Anyway, I will shorten the article a little bit. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 19:22, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
        • Condensing would eliminate the need for many of the subsections and thus reduce the size of the TOC. --mav 04:28, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • So what is the final verdict? We have 8 supports and 2 objections (two long by Mav, and pic copyright/section to be moved by Jeronimo, the latter have been answered/fixed already). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:40, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • The TOC, lead section and image data issues are paramount due to being specifically mentioned in Wikipedia:What is a featured article. --mav 06:42, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I think the objections are valid, and I'm inclined to leave this here until more effort has been made to resolve them (especially considering I *did* shorten the TOC and was reverted shortly thereafter). --Your humble featured article director 17:54, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
  • I have now done much more to fix the TOC; a complete restructuring into a series. I think people should now review it again as a fresh article and make comments (N.B. I may have introduced mistakes whilst summarising). Overall, I think it looks good since there was quite alot of good material. There could still be some expansion of the other pages in the series, but looking at other series which have their main article featured these are already quite complete. -Mozzerati