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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XXXIX (May 2009)

The May 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

History of Maramureş

If you're going to be working on that area, this is not bad. Also, they've recently started this, this (good for Romanian general election, 1937), this (the Romanian oil industry remains to be covered here), and so on. Also, this improved quite a bit, and while I wouldn't quite consider this a Good Article (the sources aren't that great, and the "history" section says not a word about the last 157 years), it's still better than what we have. - Biruitorul 15:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, come on. We can't use another user-contributed wiki as a source, as good as it appears to be. And using sources by proxy just won't do - please tell me you're not actually considering it. Dahn (talk) 16:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I suppose (to take the Maramureş example) our alternatives are either to wait (possibly years and years) until you or I or someone else gets a hold of Filipaşcu and is motivated to adapt the content here, or take the pre-existing article (by the respected User:Alex:D) and use it to improve History_of_Maramureş#November_1918_-_March_1919, which I'm sure you'll agree is in need of improvement. It's not something I have planned for today or tomorrow, or perhaps ever (and I realise that for FAs at least, users are expected to have actually examined the sources themselves), but in the grand scheme of things, it seems we could do worse. - Biruitorul 16:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there are countless alternatives to that single source, especially since, while Filipaşcu is probably not an awful source, a book published by a leading far right venue in 1940 is bound to be crashing at full speed on the limit of WP:RS. In fact, it seems that Enciclopedia României is slowly turning into a venue for what shouldn't normally make it on wikipedia, and thrives on such sourcing (it could do worse, though). While I'm supposed to have ample "personal" reasons not to touch that project with a ten-foot pole, it's primarily that I don't think it would actually help much: it would be, all in all, faux sourcing; it would in any case be provisional, as you seem to agree, so in the end it would be for nothing; it would be single-sided. Also note that the glimpse into the book and the way the info is cited in that article are rather chaotic. Yes, we could do worse, but why not do better? Dahn (talk) 16:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And concerning improvement of the History of Maramureş article: in its present state, I would grade it a 2. I think one would be hard pressed to find one section that doesn't need radical changes. Dahn (talk) 16:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right, using a 1940 source is probably a bad idea. And trust me, I've considered and rejected translating other articles of theirs - IC Brătianu, for instance, while not all bad, lacks footnotes, which by 2009 isn't really acceptable here. So while I don't entirely reject the possibility of borrowing bits of their stuff, I do agree the quality often leaves something to be desired. - Biruitorul 16:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, there are two distinct things:

• to read a source, whatever poor, in order to inform ourselves better of the subject
• to write carefully and cite correctly with a qualitative references

Doing one does not mean we are not going to do the other. I was unable to find Filipascu's book, so I am glad when I have the opportunity to read what someone else wrote after reading that book. Obviously, we have to factor in Alex:D subjectivity, but I am sure we can agree to treat Alex:D as a good faith editor who can make mistakes but won't make them on purpose in order to deceive somebody.

As for dismissing everything based on fake insinuations that the author might be inspired at some point in life by "far right" ideas is non-sense, and I am tired to listen to that song. If we find that somewhere in the book there was something false put or purpose - it would be totally different, and we would thrown the book away, regardless who the author is. But, as long as we can believe the author to act in good faith (I've heard no arguments against that), let's stop ideological insinuations, can we, please.

You both know very well that while WP community has done a relatively good job removing far right-inspired sources, it has not done even 10% so to the far-left inspired sources. The works of authors that are known to have been communists are accepted without hesitation. But they shouldn't be. Soviet historiography works are put on a par with works of mainstream historians. And so on, examples can continue. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't want to see more for-right inspired sources (what has been achieved so far I consider good), but I would like to see the same applied to the other extreme.

Back to the article, I would like to repeat 2 things I said months before:

• I compiled that article when I was new here, and tried to gather all possible info that I was able to find online (because of general luck of it). But afterwards, I gave up. I actually never read the article from start to end since then.
• 6 months later, i.e. one and a half years ago, I found a good and thorough source (Marian Tomi Maramuresul istoric in date). The amount of material in this book is immense, and could help create/improve several dosen articles (including biographies, articles of localities, of battles, of wars, etc) But somehow I got interested in other stuff, and did not (so far) find time to systematically re-write that article. I told about the book to both of you, and to Morosanul. So, we do have alternative sources to Filipascu (which doesn't mean we shouldn't find that one, too, eventually, and at least read it to see if there is something extra), the problem is that it is too much work. BTW, I have enough work off-wiki, too, in case it's not obvious. :) Dc76\ 17:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Dc, my rambunctious friend, yet again you are not answering to arguments I posted, but to something else altogether. To clarify my point about the far right and how it comes into play here: the book in question is published by a far right publisher, at a time when the far right led a totalitarian regime. As you will probably note after reading my post, I don't even automatically believe that would disqualify the author of the book (though I have to wonder); what I have indicated is that using that source will probably not stand to scrutiny - it is a very accessible and understandable objection one would be compelled to raise. This is the sort of thing they don't care about on Enciclopedia, which only adds to the problems I see with that project - but that is another topic altogether. I did not comment on Alex:D's convictions or how I would relate to them, though this has once been tangled into a past debate about what was and is happening on rowiki. Now, I'm not about to get dragged into a lengthy debate about other types of sourcing endorsed or tolerated, and I don't see how they relate to my objections; unless those objections address my work here, unless you assume I am responsible for wikipedia as a whole, or unless they mean to say that two wrongs will make a right, I don't see how they fit in with my comments.

Also, my comment on article quality was in direct answer to Biruitorul's assessment. For better or worse, I meant to say that the article is objectively not up to standards, and, even if I were to see this as a fault, I am in no capacity to attribute it (and, frankly, neither do I care as much). Dahn (talk) 20:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

1) The article is written quite poorly, and the fault is mine, I didn't find time to come back to it. Thanks to Biruitorul, who cleansed it, the article is sort of a "4", not a "2" as it was before him taking drastic actions there. I don't mind if you blame me, because I am blaming myself for that. Biruitorul's too positive assessment I would take at least half as way to say "hi" - I was on a rather long wikibreak, and we haven't talked in months. 2) We are all editors, and as a community we are responsible to do a good job. otherwise, we should leave. Hence a tiny fraction of responsibility fails upon each of us, especially on the one who have been around for a while and know to distinguish A from B. We have a common responsibility to "fight" off all extremist ideologies that try to use WP as a propaganda tool, including all your beloved far-right groups and my beloved far-left groups, as well as extremist islamist and terrorist anarchists, etc, etc. One bad can not justify another. But one good can inspire to do another. 3) I don't have Filipascu's book, and I found better reference. But I would read Filipascu's book if I would have the occasion, even if it were written by osama visarionovich hitler, just to make sure I don't miss some important info (I can sourse it with other ref latter if needed). yet, I beg you not to forget one detail: extremist printing houses would love to publish quality since that raises their reputation. This you can not automatically conclude anything about the book before you read it. I didn't see it, so until i would, I will not dismiss it. Dc76\ 20:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

1) Hey, let's not turn this into a self-criticism session. I got me the reputation of Trotskyist once, and I sure don't want project the Maoist now :). 2) Right on, and I'm sure my own record is good in that area. 3) Sure, read all you want - I can see the point of revisiting a succession of events to clarify what needs more sourcing. I have done that too in various ways, but not as a substitute for sourcing, and since we agree that is not the way to go... And, yes, I'm aware of the possibility that the book itself may be okay overall (as you will note from the posts above), but that is not the problem. Dahn (talk) 20:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Hi! I've read your discussion above, since I saw some incoming clicks on our site from this page. Your fears on Filipascu's history of Maramures are a bit too much. The book was reprinted in 1997 in Baia Mare and other reprints followed. I myself bought a copy in a bookstore in Sighet, which was reprinted in 2003. It says the book appeared with the help of Ministry of Culture - and that itself could be a fair guarantee. We used it because, as you may have noticed, the history of Maramures is not a mainstream subject, you can't find so many sources as you may wish. That's about it. Good luck!--Radufan (talk) 10:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  Thank you very much for your message. I did not know that the book was reprinted. It might be easier now to find a book printed in 1997 and reprinted in 2003 than one printed in 1942. I want to emphasize that when I wrote the first version of History of Maramures, it was 90% based on information I read on internet. Most were absolutely all right sources. The problem was not their reliability, but the fact that they only covered 1-2 aspects, not the entire period from prehistory till modern days.

  Second, I want to emphasize that it seems nobody but me (from those around here) acquired Tomi's book. I am not saying this book is super-super, but I wish all Romanian regions and counties would have something half like that. So, comparatively to other regions, Maramures's history is as mainstream a subject as it gets. :) The good part is Tomi doesn't do much sophisticated analysis. He goes year by year and just says what is known, with reference to hundreds of sources, often does direct citations from those sources. Which is just great for the purpose of compiling into encyclopedia articles, because 1) we don't have to search any archive, and 2) you can immediately see what is his comment and what is fact, so a priori there can be no question of subjectivity. (Anyway his comments are usually "As far as I've seen, a says this, b says this, but noone mentions about this, so i suppose this could be explained because of this".) As far is it is written and I understand, Tomi had full access to Filipascu's book.

  The only problem is that the book is over 200 pages, and while it's leisure to read it, it's not a leisure to systematically add info from it to WP. Because I am interested in other subjects first of all (Moldova) and because I have to think in what article to put each information. I definitively don't want to repeat something 3 times, and would write in two different articles only the most essential info. Fortunately, Morosanul came several months ago, and organized a bit the main articles related to Maramures (and he did that transparently, with our inputs taken into full consideration). Unfortunately, there are also secondary articles that need good (thoughtful) organization, such as articles of localities, biographies, articles about military events, etc. And if I am going to write something in one of those articles, there is no point in repeating that in the article History of Maramureş, it's just enough to give a link. I guess this makes clear the kind of things we are facing here, and why we are slow.

  My conclusion: both Filipascu's and Tomi's books could serve as a bases for the skeletons of articles, and now we know for sure that both can be fully trusted. I can work from one (in WP), you can work from another (in ER), and we can obviously compare the results, edit based on the other, etc. You are more than welcome to edit in WP as well, obviously. I won't edit in ER, because I don't have enough time, and I hate to promise something and not deliver (I already do that a lot.) Eventually I will get hold of Filipascu's book, too. Dc76\ 22:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Politics userboxes

This is a courtesy notice to let you know that a comment in which you are mentioned has been posted on Misplaced Pages:AN#"Recommendation" infobox at WP:Userboxes/Politics. While your participation is not required, you are welcome to contribute an opinion. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:49, June 26, 2009 (UTC)

Macedonia article naming

Since you have in the past taken part in related discussions, this comes as a notification that the Centralized discussion page set up to decide on a comprehensive naming convention about Macedonia-related naming practices is now inviting comments on a number of competing proposals from the community. Please register your opinions on the RfC subpages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Shadowmorph 21:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

comment

Personally I don't see any significant difference between part of and governed by, so I am with your latest variant. Alæxis_¿question? 22:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

All right. :) Dc76\ 22:35, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

CfD

I will withdraw the CfD if you agree to re-nominate the category that needs renaming after the article is moved (or at least let me know that the article was moved so I can nominate it). Deal? Good Ol’factory 02:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Deal. We can move now Category:Bender to Category:Bender, Moldova. Once the discussion for the article Bendery move is finished, if the article would be moved as I proposed, then it will be fine. If it would remain where it is now, I here undertake to move the two categories to contain the letter "y". Alternatively, we can do nothing now, and re-name the categories as needed when the article discussion is finished. Anyway, I promise to get back to you once the article move discussion is over. Dc76\ 02:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)