Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:04, 22 April 2008

This page, started on April 17, 2008, is for discussion of Hungarian/Slovakian disputes, broadly-defined, as well as some other peripheral disputes related to Central and Eastern European countries

Archives

/Archive 1 /Archive 2 (naming discussions) /Archive 3

Ground rules

This page is an experiment, as part of my (Elonka's) involvement with the ArbCom-designated Working group on cultural and edit wars. As I write this, there seems to be a dispute involving Hungarian and Slovakian articles. The dispute is de-centralized, and is taking place in edit summaries, userpages, talkpages, and administrator noticeboards. The dispute seems to involve multiple editors, and some anonymous accounts. Since it is extremely difficult to follow everything that's going on on every page, I have created this central page, and recommend adding a pointer to this page from all the locations of disputes.

I am an uninvolved administrator in this discussion, I have no preference for either side. However, I do insist that:

• Participants remain civil
• Edit wars cease
• Anyplace that an article is reverted, that an explanation either be posted on that article's talkpage, or a pointer be placed on that article's talkpage, which links interested editors to here.

It is my hope that with a centralized point of discussion, that we'll be able to reduce the confusion, and those editors who are genuinely interested in having civil discussions towards determining consensus, will be able to do so.

Please feel free to start any threads here that you want, and invite anyone that you wish.

--Elonka 06:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Administrator boards and other threads

Active threads

• April 19, 2008: Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/MarkBA
• April 22, 2008: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Hungarian-Slovakian experiment (started by Elonka)

Archived threads

• August 2007: ANI archive#User:Squash Racket (referred to WP:DR)
• September 4, 2007 ANI archive#User:Tankred (both editors cautioned)
• September 6, 2007 ANI archive#Copyrighted material (editors advised to calm down)
• September 7, 2007 ANI archive#Romanianization 'see also' section (content dispute)
• October 2007: 3RR archive#Tankred reported by Hobartimus (Tankred blocked for 24 hours)
• October 2007: Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/VinceB (5th) (filed by Tankred on Squash Racket)
• January 5, 2008: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Hedvig_Malina (keep)
• January 12, 2008: 3RR archive#User:Tankred reported by User:Squash Racket (complex report, closed as "stale" 3 days later)
• March 22, 2008: ANI archive#User:Nmate
• March 22, 2008: Wikiquette archive#User:Nmate
• April 2, 2008: ANI archive#Hungarian names
• April 2, 2008: ANI archive#User:Tankred
• April 4, 2008: ANI archive#Personal attacks and harassing by Nmate
• April 6, 2008: ANI archive#How to deal with constant attempts to get others blocked?
• April 11, 2008: ANI archive#Misleading edit summaries at large (aka nasty edit warring)
• April 11, 2008: Wikiquette discussion about administrator Ricky81682
• April 17, 2008: ANI archive#User:Tankred
• April 18, 2008: CheckUser case on MarkBA

Bratislava topics

The Central Europe history is very complicated. Bratislava was parts of Hungary 1000 years, but now it is Slovakia capital.(treaty of trianon) Slovakia's own history is very little.Slovaks wrote Bratislava's history on the[REDACTED] (Bratislava/history chapter, History of Bratislava, Bratislava Castle) and these articles are very one-sided. Because these topics the Slovak nationalist's guarded area, putting NPOV-templates out to them would cause a serious scandal. A good solution would be later if these articles would receive totally protected status, and neutral administrators (not Slavs) could rewrite this themes.Nmate (talk • contribs) —Preceding comment was added at 09:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe all this upheaval at wiki is not about Central Europe's complicated history, but rather about a user not familiar with how Misplaced Pages works. Despite all the warnings on his/her user talk page, User:Nmate keeps making childish jokes about living persons, saying nasty things about non-Hungarian nations, and attacking other editors. Here are some examples:

• He/she abused Misplaced Pages's article to claim that Slovakia's prime minister's "true confession" and "self-criticism looking back on the Fico cabinet's activities" is a 17th-century outlaw. Misplaced Pages is not a place for political commentaries. Please also note that he/she called an IP a "clone" of an established user and a previous unproblematic version of an article "serious vandalism" in his/her edit summary.
• He/she makes inappropriate jokes about other editors, calling another user "he Czech lion which defending his Slovak siblings", suggesting that two editors are followers of a neo-Nazi leader Marian Kotleba (this was completely uncalled for and especially disturbing for me as my grand father was in a concentration camp), and calling other people's work "dubious Pan-Slavic propaganda".
• He/she said: "There is a Hungarian joke that whole Slovakia's only history is possible to send in a short mobile phone's text messsage." Maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it has offended many people here.
• After being warned agianst hate speech, he/she continued in the same tone: "the important historical events should be there and so Slovak historical event is not exist before the 20th century".

Many people have tried to talk to him/her, but it did not work. All the deleted warnings (up to NPA4 if I remember well) may be found in the history of his/her user talk page. I feel a stronger action is needed to show him/her that Misplaced Pages has some rules that make our work more efficient and pleasant. Tankred (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As for the first point, he cited a source for the most part. If you don't agree with it, you can modify it. You just removed it, although Prime Minister Fico really talked about Jánosik as a role model which is definitely relevant. Your edit may be criticised just as well.

All other cases happened before a Wikiquette Alerts discussion (26 March) for which he's already been warned, presenting these as new cases is a bit misleading.

Let's not forget how he received some of those warnings. He's a relatively new user, so asking him to read WP:CIV would be OK I think.

Regarding offensive edit summaries someone else has also a thing or two to learn despite being an experienced user. Squash Racket (talk) 17:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

For "Bratislava" "(...)has been declared on October 28 in Prague, the leaders of Bratislava (where the majority of the population are Germans or Hungarians, see below) want to prevent Bratislava from becoming part of Czecho-Slovakia and declare the town a free town and rename it Wilsonovo mesto (Wilson City) after US-president Woodrow Wilson.", aaaaand: "(...) Legions on January 1 1919 (only the left river bank; the right river bank, not belonging to Bratislava yet, was occupied only on August 14th). It has been chosen as seat of Slovak political organs over Martin and Nitra]]; the government moved to the city on 4–5 February. On March 27, the town's official new name becomes "Bratislava" - instead of "Prešporok" (Slovak) / "Pressburg" (German) / "Pozsony" (Hungarian)." from History of Bratislava#20th_century - so wherever anyone restored "Bratislava" in pre-March 27 1919 context had falsified history, and highly compromised Misplaced Pages's credibility, and to say something rude and true to talk about: vandalized those particlular Misplaced Pages pages. --Rembaoud (talk) 18:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Names

(previous discussions can be seen in Archive 2)

Proposed naming convention

This is a proposed naming convention for places in Slovakia. It is meant to be a specification of guideline nr. 3 (about the use of a name in other articles)) of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names). Given the long shared history of Slovakia and Hungary, it is desirable to mention both the Slovak and the Hungarian name in several cases. This depends on the (historical) context in which it is used:

• Between 1000 and 1918: the first reference of one name in an article should also include a reference to other names, e.g. "Eperjes (Prešov)" or "Prešov (Eperjes)".
  • In biographies of clearly Slovak persons, the name should be used in the form "Prešov (Eperjes)" and later "Prešov" exclusively
  • In biographies of clearly Hungarian persons, the name should be used in the form "Eperjes (Prešov)" and later "Eperjes" exclusively
  • In other cases the order of the names, and which name is used in the rest of the article is arbitrary. If a dispute arises, the name most used in the given context in reliable sources (see WP:NCGN) should be used first, and the other name(s) should be listed in parentheses at the first occurrence
• Before 1000 and after 1918: use the Slovak name. In biographies of clearly Hungarian persons, or if the place has or had a significant Hungarian population, the Hungarian name should be added, either in the form "Eperjes (Prešov)" and later "Eperjes" exclusively, or in the form "Prešov (Eperjes)" and later "Prešov" exclusively
• For places that changed name (e.g. Štúrovo was called Parkan before 1948): follow the rules above, but use the contemporary Slovak or Hungarian name as the primary name, and also add the modern name as an alternative. Example: for a biography about a 19th century Slovak from Parkan/Párkány/Štúrovo, use "Parkan (Párkány, present Štúrovo)", and later "Parkan" exclusively
• For places that have another widely accepted (historic) name in English (e.g. Pressburg for Bratislava before 1919): use that name, and mention the modern name and relevant alternative names at the first occurrence.

Poll

If you agree with the present proposal, you can sign your name here. If the proposal is changed significantly, you'll be asked to reconfirm. When the proposal has enough support, I will start announcing it at the proper places (talk pages of WP:NCGN, WP:SLOVAKIA, WP:HU, Slovakia, Bratislava, WP:NC, anything else?).

Agree:

1. Markussep 17:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
2. Hobartimus (talk) 22:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
3. perfect compromise --Rembaoud (talk) 14:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Disagree (please add what you would like to see changed):

1. Tankred (talk) 02:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC) (I will be happy to change my vote after the proposal is changed to address the points I raised in the discussion).

Discussion

I made a draft naming convention, based on what we discussed under "Gdansk template". I propose that we edit the proposed naming convention until we're satisfied, and explain the changes we make here, under "discussion". If there are parts we can't reach agreement over, name them here, and we'll have to make options to vote about (see Talk:Gdansk/Vote for an example). Markussep 09:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we postpone the poll until we discuss the proposal here for a couple of days please? Tankred (talk) 18:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

So far, only Ruziklan, Hobartimus and myself discussed about the proposal, and we all like it. I meant this poll as a check whether everyone in this experiment feels the same. Discussion is still open of course, I suppose we can take all the time we need to get to a good solution, or get the options clear we should choose from. Markussep 18:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

One possible way is to vote on proposed modifications (changes and amendments) in different votes later, this allows both progress and flexibilty. Hobartimus (talk) 22:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend choosing a more clear example in the template. Speaking as an outsider, I find it very difficult to tell which is a "Slovak" name and which is a "Hungarian" name. And the two examples chosen, Eperjes and Prešov, seem to be about completely different settlements? Is there something more well-known which could be used, such as a city that is recognizable to even non-Europeans? Ideally it would be something that routinely appears in even English-language history books. --Elonka 00:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

There is also a village named Eperjes and the Hungarian name is hidden in the other article (Presov) about the city (removed from the lead) that's why you might think they are diferent settlements. We could simply use Slovak name - Hungarian name to make it more clear. Hobartimus (talk) 01:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know about the village Eperjes in southern Hungary. I'm not sure what's the primary usage of "Eperjes" in English: this village, or Prešov, I'd expected a redirect to Prešov. Prešov is the third-largest city of Slovakia, so people who are interested in Slovakia should know it. Anyway: we could also pick the second-largest: Košice/Kassa.

Hobartimus, I think your proposed votes about amendments are more or less the same as what I propose, only I would rather prepare the votes here (define the options for which to vote), and let the larger community decide/vote. Markussep 08:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the cat's pretty much out of the bag. Tankred went and announced it in several locations today. --Elonka 09:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

There are many editors dealing with the issue of geographic names for years. I have notified them because their input may be very valuable here. They may know successful solutions from other similar cases or they may be aware of the proposal's weak points that have perhaps posed problems in their geographic area. Moreover, this kind of discussions usually creates a precedent often applied outside the scope of the original discussion, so I have also invited some potentially interested parties. We principally always advertise this type of discussions at the talk page of WP:NCGN. Finally, Slovakia and Hungary are not situated on an isolated island. They share a lot of their history with Romanians, Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Germans, and few other nations. Members of these wikiprojects should not be excluded from our discussion because the resulting rules will have impact also on their work. I hope Squash Racket's and my invitations will not cause any problems. Some of the invited editors have already given us valuable feedback here. Tankred (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I sent a few messages to a few noticeboards of nations that might be interested after I had seen your invitations to some people, but I don't know how you had picked and chosen these people. My message was neutral, while this sentence

Since these new rules might be later regarded as a precedent by non-involved editors (remember the Danzig/Gdansk case?)

needs some clarification. I thought we were dealing with a pretty specific proposal here. Squash Racket (talk) 05:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:NCGN took years to complete and it was supported by a wide consensus. I doubt we can come up with better rules in just two days with little deliberation among only three users. Therefore I suggest we postpone the poll until we carefully discuss and improve this proposal. We should also wait until more Slovak users can participate. Now, substantial points. I am afraid this first draft leaves many issues opened and it will fail to prevent future edit wars due to these gaps. Here are some pressing issues that should be taken into account before we vote:

1. First, any rules should be applied to places in both Slovakia and Hungary. We do not want to produce an unequal treaty, right?
2. I like the idea to list "other" names at the first occurrence of the place in an article. But which names are relevant? This issue should be clarified by the rules before we vote about them. Here are few examples of questions that can and surely will arise when this proposal is applied: How about places that have never had any significant Hungarian population from 1000 to 1918? Are we going to include a Hungarian name in these cases too? If so, why? Many towns in both Slovakia and Hungary had a German-speaking elite. Should we include a German name whenever they are mentioned in a historical context? If an article about a person of German ethnicity mentions a place in Slovakia, should we include German and Slovak names or German, Slovak, and Hungarian names? What are we going to do about Latin names? Latin was the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary until the 19th century and official state documents were written in this language. How about Turkish names? Most of Hungary and some parts of Slovakia were part of the Ottoman Empire during the periods described in various Misplaced Pages's articles. To be efficient, the rules should be more detailed, so they could be applied to these (and perhaps other) problematic cases without triggering more edit wars.
3. How are we going to assess ethnicity of people? People like Matej Bel, Móric Beňovský, and Ányos Jedlik are regarded as Slovak by Slovak sources and Hungarian by Hungarian sources. Many historical figures could be described as Slovak Germans living in the Kingdom of Hungary. Many other historical figures were total foreigners. How are we going to refer to Kremnica (now in Slovakia) in Charles I of Hungary, Charles I himself being a native of Naples? In many other cases, ethnicity is not recorded at all because it was rarely salient before the end of the 18th century. Are these cases automatically classified as "other", with an arbitrary decision?
4. If an article is not about a person, but rather about an event or period, which names are we going to use? Ludovit Stur (Slovak) will go to Zvolen, while Lajos Kossuth (Hungarian) will go to Zolyom (the Hungarian name of Zvolen) in the very same article? Or we will use one of these names consistently thorough the article? If so, which one?
5. As I read this proposal, all unclear cases will require the evidence recommended by WP:NCGN. I totally agree with this requirement, but we should also define a default version that should be protected until someone provides all the evidence at an article's talk page. Otherwise a Hungarian editor can change Zvolen to Zolyom and ask Slovak editors to prove that Zvolen is a more frequent name, then Slovaks would revert asking for evidence than Zolyom is a more frequent name, etc. What is the default version? Is it the official name? Or the name used in an article as of April 20, 2008, 12PM CET?
6. In case there is no or mixed evidence (no Google Scholar or Google Books hits, no Cambridge histories, only say 54:57 Google hits), what are we going to do?
7. If there is an article about a Slovak politician of Hungarian ethnicity and this article mentions Zvolen in 2007, should we include the Hungarian name of Zvolen? If so, why? What is the value for a reader of the English Misplaced Pages? The Hungarian language does not have the status of the official language in Slovakia. So, whenever we mention a town with a significant Hungarian minority in 2007, why should we also add the Hungarian name? The Hungarian name appears only in Hungarian sources. In all other languages, the place would be referred to using its official Slovak name. And how much is "significant"? This whole sub-section of the proposal goes far beyond anything we can find in Misplaced Pages.
8. When people address these points, please include the original numbering, so we do not get lost in the discussion. Thank you. Tankred (talk) 02:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Tankred raised several good points, however I see no controversy in the basic principle of the idea. I am a member of the Polish minority in the Czech Republic, our situation is similar as Hungarians' in Slovakia, we have also many villages and towns with significant Polish community there. Still, in my articles about these places I use both versions of village's name only in the lead (plus German one, of course). In sections about history I use German/Polish name as default only when the town had significant German/Polish community and influences. So for Slovakia I dare to propose two additional points or alternations to abovementioned points by other users:

1. All historic names should be mentioned in the lead, ie. most often Slovak, Hungarian, German, Rusyn, Ukrainian or Yiddish. Occurrence of those names depends often regionally, ie. there are no Rusyn names for villages in Čadca District, however, if a proper historical name exists, it should be mentioned in the lead, also when it deals with a village that was let's say historically 100% Slovak, ie. XY (Template:Lang-hu, Template:Lang-de). This is quite non-controversial in my view, only one line is given to historical names.
2. For places which are still inhabited by significant Hungarian or other minorities, I would prefer the magic thing called common sense. When a village XY has 87% of population Hungarian how sensible is to use only Slovak name in the article body? So both names should be used. In the same platform of thinking it would be nonsense to use both versions of name in the article body for village in Čadca District, where there are no Hungarians at all and population is 99% Slovak.

So, that is my input. Please comment. I would like this to be clearly consensual and discussed before expressing my vote. - Darwinek (talk) 09:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment: I also think that simply common sense should be used when deciding about the usage of names as a case-by-case basis would go on forever without acceptable results. Squash Racket (talk) 11:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Darwinek, thank you very much for joining us.

D1: We have already been applying this part for a long time and it is pretty consensual.

D2: SO, how would you deal with an article about Komárno, a town that is 60% Hungarian? Its official name is Komárno, the Hungarian name is (Rév)Komárom. If we mention it in Economy of Slovakia, which name would you recommend? Tankred (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I will comment (some of) Tankreds and Darwineks issues below, numbered with "T" and "D" for Tankred and Darwinek resp.:

D1: There has been a bit of edit warring over that lately at the Žilina article. The naming convention WP:NCGN recommends to mention relevant alternative names in the lead, and if there are many (=three and more) alternative names or if there is something notable about the names, put them in a separate "names" or "etymology" section directly after the lead. Do you (plural) think that's good enough?

D2+T7: Shall we delete the "In biographies of clearly Hungarian persons, or" part in the "before 1000 and after 1918" rule? It does make sense to me to mention Hungarian names for places with say over 30% Hungarian population. For the 1000-1918 period, and especially 1850-1918 Hungarian names are always relevant IMO, also for Čadca (see my comment on T1).

T1: Definitely not all places in Hungary. I've seen that go bazerk in the Gdanzig discussion: one user started adding Polish names to articles of Mainz, Aachen etc. The main reason I think Hungarian names belong in articles about Slovak places, is that they have been known internationally under their Hungarian name for a long time. Check any old encyclopedia, e.g. EB1911 or the 1888 German Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, you won't even find the Slovak names of Prešov, Žilina etc.. Slovak names for places in Hungary are and were not widely known internationally. Of course where it's relevant (large Slovak minority, or large influence on Slovak history), the Slovak name can be added in the lead or a names section of the article (e.g. Esztergom), and at the first occurrence in other articles, both according to WP:NCGN.

T2. I don't think you can find a place in Slovakia that didn't have a Hungarian population, albeit small in some cases (Čadca/Csaca district 1.3% in 1910). But the main reason would be as I said under "1.": places in Slovakia have been known under their Hungarian names for a long time. German names should be added where they are relevant, that would be places with a large German (historical) minority like Kežmarok. Latin only if it's widely known under its Latin name, which will not be the case for most, if not all places. Turkish would be interesting for the Ottoman-occupied part of Slovakia, but only in that context.

T3. I wrote "clearly Slovak" and "clearly Hungarian", so if the persons in question do not satisfy those criteria, they are "others". Do you think the "others" part should be default Slovak first, and explain on the talk page/ provide references if Hungarian first is chosen?

T4. That would be silly, definitely use one name as the primary name in an article. I think this is an "others" case. We could expand the "persons" with organizations and events.

T5. See "T3.".

T6. Like points T3 and T5, this comes down to whether we want a default order for unclear cases. Might be something to vote about. Markussep 13:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

T1: I do not want to add Slovak names to any settlement in Hungary. But if a rule is that an article about a Hungarian person uses Hungarian names and an article about a Slovak person uses Slovak names, the same rule should be applied to the geographic names in both Slovakia and Hungary. Moreover, it is not so long ago, when a great number of minority names in the articles about towns in Hungary got deleted. If there has been a significant Slovak minority or the place was important for the Slovak history, these names should be retained in the lead of the main article about a place.

T2: So, it seems we have here two different criteria: a name in a minority language and a name widely used to refer to a place. What is the time horizon for the choice of an appropriate name? It would be anachronistic to use the modern Hungarian name of Bratislava (Pozsony) for 1003, when Bratislava was called Predslava and the name Pozsony did not even exist. It would be anachronistic to use the modern Hungarian name of Banska Bystrica for 1255, when Banska Bystrica was referred to by a Latin-Slovak name (Villa Nova Bystrice). If a place is mentioned in the historical context, are we going to include its modern names in minority languages or only the names recorded from that time? You say Latin (the official language fo the Kingdom of Hungary until the 19th century) is relevant only if a Latin name is widely used to refer to a place. Do you mean by modern sources or contemporary sources? As far as I know, modern English sources consistently use the modern official names of places in Slovakia even in the historical context. The only exception is Pressburg/Bratislava.

T3 and T5 and T6: All right. So, the proposal should be updated in a way that any sourced contestation of ethnicity at the talk page would put an article into the "others" category. I think it is important to have a default version. I do not think it would be good to pick up the Slovak language as default. I think a default version making a lot of sense would be to use the current official name (i.e. Slovak in Slovakia and Hungarian in Hungary) until the issue is discussed and evidence provided at the corresponding talk page.

T4: I agree this is the "others" case. And we should definitely expand this part to cover all the topics other than a person.

T7: English sources do not refer to places in Slovakia using Hungarian names. Since this is the English Misplaced Pages and we have WP:ENGLISH in force, I do not think it is appropriate to use Hungarian names after 1918. Of course, all relevant minority names should be listed in the lead of in the Names section of the main article about a place. But their use in the main body of other articles does not make much sense to me if these names are not used in English. As to the period before 1000, I think no unofficial name should be used prior its existence, as documented by its first use in the historical records. Although King Bela IV is regarded by Hungarians as part of the Hungarian nation (despite all the Slavic, German, and Byzantine ancestors), he did not use the Hungarian name of Banska Bystrica in 1255. He used a Latin-Slovak name. It would be anachronistic to use the Hungarian name, when Banska Bystrica is mentioned in the Bela IV article in reference to what happened in 1255. Therefore I would not use the fixed threshold of 1000, but rather the first documented use of a particular name in a minority language.

Tankred (talk) 16:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have two comments about the draft for now (I may add others):

1. We should use ] or ] with the parenthesized names, so that the general reader (for whose supposed benefit this entire operation is conducted) will understand what is going on.
2. I'm not sure the provision on clearly Hungarian/clearly Slovak persons makes sense. That's a provision of the Gdanzig agreement, but WP:NCGN did not pick up on it; it tends to encourage the creation of little German and Polish bubbles of reality, from which each excludes the other.
   • As a practical matter, did Pavel Jozef Šafárik work in Bratislava in 1819? He had not yet reconstucted the name.
   • Would it make a rational difference if he were Czech?
   • And if so, did Ľudovít Štúr travel to Bratislava in 1836?
   • Should we be using Pressburg in either case, or both? (The present text of Ľudovít Štúr, which discusses the suburb now incorporated into Bratislava, is rather elegant.)
3. (added) I would make this before 1918 and After 1918, instead of mentioning 1000 at all. The clause before 1918 does not say use Hungarian"', it says provide alternate names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In general I like and support this effort. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Do we need the language name? That's more clutter, and if people want to know why a place is called Prešov and Eperjes, they can click on the link. I'm not very much against it, but it could decrease the acceptance of alternative names. We could italicize the alternative names. Šafárik and Štúr went to Pressburg (present Bratislava). Markussep 14:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In fact, Septentrionalis' suggestion makes the proposed rules more acceptable, at least for me. Otherwise, occasional readers might be confused by a list of name given without any explanation. Tankred (talk) 15:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As always, thank you for your helpful input, Septentrionalis. I am as uneasy about creating pockets of the separate Hungarian/Slovak realities in the English Misplaced Pages as you are - especially if the delimitation of these realities is so ambiguous. I do not like much the provision about "clearly Hungarian" and "clearly Slovak" persons. On the other hand, I think we can all agree on Pressburg (present-day Bratislava). But that could be (and was) resolved under the official WP:NCGN rules and without any need for this new naming convention. Tankred (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

A thing to point out: Hungarians arrived into the Carpathian Basin in 896, not in 1000. That's just the date, when Hungary became officially christian with the coronation of the first christian king, Saint Stephen, and therefore been diplomaticly recognized by the other Christian European states of that time. --Rembaoud (talk) 14:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I picked 1000 based on a little discussion with Hobartimus (see Archive2) and the Encyclopedia Britannica, that writes "From the 11th century, Hungary ruled what is now Slovakia". Markussep 14:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

However, the assertion that we should use Slovak names (as opposed to, say, Old Church Slavonic) for Great Moravia is odd; for the time of Marcus Aurelius or Ptolemy, it becomes an invitation to conjecture. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

With perhaps the exception of Nitra and few Roman camps (such as Gerulata), I do not know any place in Slovakia with a particular name consistently used in the contemporary sources before the 12th century. And for a great majority of places unearthed by archaeologists, there is no name recorded at all. I think the modern official name should be used in these cases in order to reflect secondary sources. Tankred (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

For purely archaeological sites, I agree we should follow the literature. This will usually mean modern names, although I suspect they will sometimes be Czech. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for your comments.

• To Tankred: I don't know if I clearly expressed myself, I meant the Hungarian name should be used in the article body only in the article about the town itself, leaving "third-party" articles like Economy of Slovakia aside.
• To Markus: Yes, I think that solution for names in the lead is good and quite in use already throughout Misplaced Pages. I just fear various nationalists. I've been already called "revisionist" etc. in the past for applying German names to the lead of articles about towns in the Sudetes. Still, I think Czech and Slovak communities here are quite open-minded to allow and support various names. This solution will benefit all users, e.g. recently I've gained original 1910 Austrian census records for Silesia, without knowledge of German names of current Czech and Polish municipalities, I wouldn't be able to use them. - Darwinek (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Then we totally agree. I think minority names in the lead or in the Names section are uncontroversial for most editors and there is no objective reason to delete them. Tankred (talk) 16:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we don't need to create a new rule for names in the lead of an article, since WP:NCGN already covers that, and it seems to work. Now, for the use of names of places in Slovakia in other articles, I see some proposed modifications to the naming convention:

A. Add the language for the alternative names, e.g. "Eperjes (Template:Lang-sk)".

B. Change "Between 1000 and 1918" to "Before 1918", and "Before 1000 and after 1918" to "After 1918"

C. Not only biographies of clearly Slovak and Hungarian persons, but also clearly Slovak and Hungarian organisations and events (but not everyone is too happy about the clearly Slovak clearly Hungarian rules)

D. For "others before 1918": use the modern official name (=Slovak), unless it is established (and discussed and documented on the article's talk page) that a different name is widely used in the given context

E. For "after 1918": use Hungarian (or other minority languages) at least once for places with significant Hungarian (or other minority) population. Significant is more than 30-50% of the population by contemporary census. (the "biographies of clearly Hungarian persons" part is dropped)

I think modification D is too restrictive, D would imply that for instance place names in historical county articles should be only in Slovak until someone proves that other names are widely used. I wouldn't support throwing out the Hungarian names, unless there's evidence that the Hungarian names are not used in modern English literature about the era. Some additional remarks: for the "others before 1918" part I didn't mean contemporary sources, I meant modern reliable English language sources about the era in question. And I suppose Bela IV wrote in Latin (so did nearly everyone in Central Europe in the 13th century), so that explains his use of a Latin(ised) name. Markussep 19:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Those who want such major changes can still vote disagree so there is no proposal at all. I still think the best way forward is to accept the text and then vote for minor modifications later in separate votes. Of course these have to be serious to be voted on so I suggest a minimum of two supports before a modification is put to vote. Hobartimus (talk) 01:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Are there modifications that are uncontroversial in your (plural) opinion? And are there important issues I missed in my summary? I guess most will agree with "A" and "C" (provided they agree with the whole Slovak/Hungarian persons etc. concept). "B" will only affect a few articles I suppose. "E" makes sense to me, Hungarian names are less used in modern context (except for places with large Hungarian populations I think), regardless of who the text is about.

So I support A, C, and E, I'm neutral about B and I'm against D. Markussep 07:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

List of Slovaks

List of Slovaks (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This thread has been archived, and copied over to Talk:List of Slovaks#Inclusion criteria. Please continue discussions there, thanks. --Elonka 05:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree we need sources for that article. I also agree we need some time to add sources for so many entries. By the way, the lack of references is a problem of most if not all similar lists. The thread is archived as no one raised objections against Elonka's proposal. But User:Rembaoud has removed even sourced entries today without proposing changes at the talk page. I am sorry, but this is unacceptable to me. If Rembaoud keeps making undiscussed controversial changes despite his editing restrictions and remains unchecked by the administrator, I will have to take liberty to revert him. He is revert warring too. I do not see any reason why I should respect my editing restrictions while Rembaoud does not. Tankred (talk) 14:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You forgot the "vandalized the list" and "spread ethnic political propaganda on Slota page" phrases out. Hope this was jut a one time inadvertence :) --Rembaoud (talk) 15:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Slovak National Party

• Slovak National Party (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have protected this page for 24 hours. And again, I see that it has been the subject of ongoing edit wars, but without any attempt to discuss things at talk. Can someone please explain what the dispute is on this one? Thanks, Elonka 22:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just quickly. I had a look at it and it seems one side is constantly adding the image and the other removing it. Image in question is quite controversial in multiple senses.

Firstly, its copyright was questioned.

Secondly, the image appeared recently in the press and it was apparently taken from internet forum of Slovak National Party. It is said to promote national hate against Hungarians by showing the area of current Hungary divided between Slovakia and Austria.

Generally, I think the inclusion of the map on the Slovak National Party does not serve encyclopedic purpose as unfortunate mostly anti-Hungarian agenda of Slovak National Party is well documented by many other means.--Ruziklan (talk) 23:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

User Rembaoud has posted on talk page the explanation for adding the image combining Slovak and English language. The explanation (besides evaluating qualities Slovak National Party and it internet forum maintenance process, as well as citing some further stuff) confirms my words above regarding the content of picture in question. It also proposes mentioning this case in the Slovak National Party article as controversy. In my view, knowing the extent of other controversies of Slovak National Party in the past and the impact of this current controversy in the press, one properly sourced encyclopedic sentence would be just fine. The would also avoid copyright issues of the image. --Ruziklan (talk) 12:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It can be claimed as fair use or can be simply redrawn(as illustration of the original) or even described in text as the concept is simple the Danube is used as border. Copyright issues (which do exist) can be resolved in a number of different ways here. The sources brought on the talk page show the significance of the controversy and some newspapers even chose to include the map itself. It's understandable that if you want to report on something comment on it then as a service to the reader the picture itself should be provided if possible. Hobartimus (talk) 15:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Significance of controversy is just like that of any scandal of the Slovak National Party - and there were quite a few in the past as you surely know. It stays in press for a few days and is again submersed by new scandals, in other words it has mayflies' life expectancy. The character of Slovak National Party seems to be reflected enough, giving disproportionate amount of space to current issues does not seem to be preferable approach. One sentence should be enough. --Ruziklan (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any proposals for such a sentence? Hobartimus (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I would consider new section Controversies, where sourced controveries may be placed, some from the past may be even more notable than this one and therefore worth adding. Sentence for this one might sound: In April 2008 a map of Hungary divided between Slovakia and Austria was discovered on the forum on the webpage of the party, then promptly removed and the party has denied responsibility, referring to forum free access policy. --Ruziklan (talk) 00:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

How does this sound, "For several months a map of Europe with EU and NATO member Hungary completely erased was available on the SNS party website. After the map, depicting Hungary divided between Slovakia and Austria, gained wide media attention the party promptly removed it while stating that it was in section freely editable by readers (forum)." Hobartimus (talk) 23:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds excessively. If someone is interested in Slovak National Party, most probably he is well aware of the fact that Hungary is member of EU and NATO, thereby providing disproportionate place to only one controversy of many, as per above. Further, Hungary was not erased, that is technically impossible, just divided. The only new part sounding reasonable is "For several months ...". Better not pushing wording too far. :-) --Ruziklan (talk) 23:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Erased as in erased from the map, let's give it another try, incorporate several months then into your version, also mentioning forum once instead of twice and let's see how will that look. Hobartimus (talk) 00:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about it and was unable to make sentence mentioning the forum only once as the key points are: the map was on forum for months and after media attention it was removed with forum access mentioned as excuse. What about: "For several months a map of Hungary divided between Slovakia and Austria was available on the forum of the party website, then in April 2008 after receving media attention it was promptly removed and the party has denied responsibility, referring to forum free access policy. (+ref)" --Ruziklan (talk) 08:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I still do not understand what information value a picture posted by someone on a discussion forum would add to an article about a political party. Are we going to list all the controversial youtube videos in the article about this service? But if there is a consensus to retain that useless picture, I will support Ruziklan's version with the word "forum" replaced by "discussion forum". Tankred (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ok, do you want to put it into the article then? Or let others comment on it first? Hobartimus (talk) 14:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

small issue at Slovakia

Addition of a short passage about the Benes Decrees was inserted and removed, I'm opening this thread to discuss if something to this effect should be included or not. The addition, which was sourced looked like this (small modification by me)

On 27th September 2007 the Beneš decrees were reconfirmed by the Slovak parliament which legitimized the Hungarians and Germans calumination and deportation from Czechoslovakia after World War II.

, so should we include something similar? (reference in a clickable format . Hobartimus (talk) 19:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Hobartimus' suggestion does not seem to be good idea. The main reason is that Slovak parliament makes many acts monthly and there is no reason to emphasize this minor act on the overview page of Slovakia. As far as my knowledge of the subject goes, it was just a declaration having no legal power whatsoever. There are other reasons, but this single reason should be enough, otherwise we could demand remark about any single law passed by parliament, not speaking about constitutional laws, as these all are more important. --Ruziklan (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify it's not my suggestion I just brought it up here for discussion after I saw the edits to Slovakia and also to preserve to cited reference in case it's being removed from the article. One plus I see however for inclusion is that this way the Decrees themsleves are mentioned this way in the article which completely omitted them previously. Hobartimus (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

As the suggestion is highly controversial, whether you stand by it or not, I propose to remove the material from the page... uhm, I have just found it was already removed by anonymous editor. Please, do not add it again. --Ruziklan (talk) 22:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I never added it once so I can not add it again, please watch the indents and what you reply to. It's fine by me that it's removed we are already discussing this, but the IP referencing this discussion as if he were participating looks odd. Hobartimus (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it looks suspicious.

Terminological explanation: I assume your good faith and I really appreciate the way you discuss issues. I did not say you have added the material in question. It was added by someone else, but if you have added it after removal, writing "added again" makes sense. I am sorry if you feel offended. --Ruziklan (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahem, pardon me? I saw you're debating 'bout some ip and all I want to say is: for such overview such controversial recentism doesn't belong there, especially when it's just a declaration with no power like many other, just on controversial topic, not a law. Or do we want to list all acts made since 1918? 91.127.19.182 (talk) 23:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, seemingly you 91.127.19.182 and me Ruziklan, we do share the view about the substance of issue (at least partially) and the importance of the issue for the page. However, what is probably not encouraged and may raise suspicion, it is the situation when anonymous IP starts editing out of nowhere AND starts his contribution by simple revert (of otherwise controversial edit) without contributing to appropriate talk page - edit summary is no enough as we have been taught by Elonka. --Ruziklan (talk) 00:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Benes decrees constitutes the Slovak state' legal system foundation so it is very important.I would like to request a semi protection to the Slovakia article.If the Tranava article comprises the Strong Magyarization statement then it is just if the Slovakia article comprises this information also. Nmate (talk • contribs)

Beneš decrees cannot constitute the foundation of Slovak legal system as firstly Slovak consitution is the foundation of Slovak legal system and secondly, virtue of Beneš decrees has ceased by accepting constitutional law No. 23/1991 (Charter of Fundamental Rights and Liberties) at the latest, if not earlier (, ). Please, stop making such strong statements, they do not help. --Ruziklan (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

"virtue of Beneš decrees has ceased" can you explain what this means in simple terms for those of us who are not familiar? Hobartimus (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Very roughly said: you cannot apply Beneš decrees anymore. --Ruziklan (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know that act by the Slovak parliament was a non-binding declaration, not a law. It perhaps belongs to the article on Benes Decrees, but not to the main article about Slovakia. Also, why is Nmate and revert warring there instead of proposing and discussing such controversial changes here? Such incidents undermine our effort here. Tankred (talk) 22:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I see that a suspicious IP removed it referencing this discussion without contributing here. I honestly don't care if it stays in the article or not for the duration of discussion but I don't think IP-s should be allowed to participate in this dispute resolution or should be regarded as part of the Misplaced Pages community for this purpose. Anyhow if all of this is true that you cannot apply them any more and all the above, what was the point of the reconfirmation actually? Can anyone check which party proposed it who voted for it or other circumstances? I don't know if it should be this specific act to mention it but I don't think the the decrees should be omitted from the article completely it should be mentioned somewhere in my opinion. Hobartimus (talk) 22:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I have found this removal too... the point of declaration? Honestly, I do not understand it, just as I fail to understand many other actions of Slovak politicians. Maybe it was just muscle-showing?

Regarding Beneš decrees, they are mentioned in the article History of Slovakia in one sentence and I also do not believe they deserve special mention on main page Slovakia. --Ruziklan (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Is the material itself OK in your opinion? Sentence structure, formulation, exact phrasing etc? Hobartimus (talk) 23:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I think there are multiple subtle issues involved. The most important points are:

• Decrees has been issued in the past, shortly after World War II - their application (but often misapplication or lack of proper application) has lead to persecution based of nationality because of collective guilt usage (today understood as wrong, but not understood as such shortly after WWII) - after 1991 constitutional change has made decrees unapplicable, even if they were not repealed explicitly - but any discussions about restitutions of property seized or compensation for persecution after WWII are leading nowehere and are doomed to end in vain ... and here comes this declarative act of Slovak parliament in 2007.
• To be sure, deportations from Czechoslovakia were not made due to decrees, but were rather made as result of the Potsdam Conference as noted on Slovakia page. Decrees were intra-state pieces of law, not international.--Ruziklan (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The Potsdam Conference is not relevant in the case of Hungarians, what I wanted to ask was, do you agree with the formulation of the sentence or do you only object to it being placed in the Slovakia article? If you have another proposal which is better worded or something we could at least have consensus that the sentence is fine and discuss other issues from there. Hobartimus (talk) 00:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, Potsdam Conference really seems to be wrongly named here. That's just proof I am no historian :-) and I have no reliable sources by hand, so I cannot assess the quality of your proposal compared to historic evidence. My objection against placing it in Slovakia article was based on my knowledge of the current parliament act legal power (close to zero) and importance of this issue within scope of article. --Ruziklan (talk) 00:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The article says that a series of expulsions were initiated by the Potsdam conference, which is true. That reference places the whole controversy in a larger picture. Expulsion of Slovak Germans (sanctioned by the conference itself) and Hungarians were part of a large series of forced population transfers in the post-war Europe. Without that reference, it would look like a private revengeful activity of a single country. Tankred (talk) 14:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I posted this almost three weeks ago at the talk page:

The 1945 Potsdam conference approved the Czechoslovak government request for the deportation of the Sudeten German population to Germany but did not approve their plan for the deportation of Hungarians to Hungary. Reference: Section "The Population Exchange between Czechoslovakia and Hungary". Squash Racket (talk) 04:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

No answer. So this sentence seems to be partly wrong:

More than 76,000 Hungarians and 32,000 Germans were forced to leave Slovakia, in a series of population transfers initiated by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference.

Squash Racket (talk) 04:27, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Degrading such an act is very misleading. It should be mentioned everywhere it was included, and that long, as it was mentioned. --Rembaoud (talk) 10:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, insisting on the inclusion of something we are not sure about would be degradation of encyclopedic nature of Misplaced Pages. Further, if we know what happened, proportional inclusion of facts on history pages is recommended and maybe even on the main page is an option. --Ruziklan (talk) 18:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned above: User:91.127.19.182 is just another attempt to play out this page, and revert. I suggest an investigation of this IP also or the blocking of it/protecting the page.

The best would be a voluntary admit that he/she was that IP. That would be the clearest way and the only to prevent a later WP:RCU or WP:RSS, if more are collected/occurs. As well as the only way to avoid any persecution for playing out the "new rules". --Rembaoud (talk) 10:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I have cautioned the account. If you think it's MarkBA, you could add a note to the CheckUser. If you think it's someone else, I'd add it to the SSP. --Elonka 10:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not really see the difference between RCU and SSP. Is SSP for - as Thatcher said - "fishing"? I list it on SSP as "new". --Rembaoud (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a subtle difference, and there have actually been some discussions about merging the two. Basically:

• WP:SSP (Suspected Sockpuppetry) is for community discussion about suspected sockpuppets, and sometimes consensus can be achieved and administrator action taken directly. At SSP, editors look at the publicly-available information about accounts and their editing history. Someone who files an SSP might do it for different reasons. For example, they may have filed a report to say, "This is what I've got so far, is this enough?" Or they may file a report to say, "I think there's suspicious behavior here, has anyone else found anything?" and then other editors can also add their own evidence and observations.
• WP:RFCU (Request for CheckUser) is a notification to a small group of administrators who have "CheckUser" access, and a request for them to look at IP logs. Sometimes the logs can give clear evidence that one IP address is behind multiple names, and if there is disruption, the CheckUsers will confirm the sockpuppetry. The CheckUsers are also experienced in doing other strange and wonderful things such as checking WHOIS databases and searching for proxies, to determine if there is a link between different IP addresses. They won't give out any private information that they find in these searches, but will simply give short answers such as "Confirmed", "Unrelated" "Inconclusive", etc. Though often they'll just say "Rejected" because they don't think that there's a strong enough case for them even to go digging. They receive many requests, and so have to prioritize which ones that they'll accept.

Another way of looking at it is to say that SSP can be where the community can gather information for a possible CheckUser, and then an RFCU can be filed to confirm the community's suspicions. But again, in really obvious cases, RFCU isn't even required, the SSP evidence may be obvious without requiring CheckUser confirmation.

Does that help? --Elonka 21:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I wrote into the Slovakia article again. I think with this content it can be acceptable from the 20th century.Nmate

I am very sorry, Nmate, but I do not share your opinion that these specific issues - especially in the formulation used in two-edit diff - deserve being in the main Slovakia article. While I am not going into details about WWII (e.g. "Slovak holocaust" as you have edited, I let it to others), 2007 action of Slovak article is under discussion here (and editing article during discussion does not help reaching consensus) and finally Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros issue is described very unprecisely (Hungary's territorical integrity was not offended at all as border has not changed, you do not mention related legal case, and you name Gabčíkovo as Bős what is clearly in contradiction with other discussed and almost agreed convention). Therefore I am reverting it, taking into account following edit by IP 88.209.204.27 and I ask Elonka - how to deal with such kind of editing? --Ruziklan (talk) 17:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that edit by IP 88.209.204.27 touched only grammar in your new text, so it was simple revert of 3 last edits. --Ruziklan (talk) 17:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Without talking about the new edits let's deal with the original sentence. Maybe it would be appropriate for different article(s) in a completely uncontroversial way? I still have no idea if the text itself is disputed or not. Hobartimus (talk) 17:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

In my view, both post-war period actions and last year's declaration deserve mention somewhere. However as I am unable to come with anything constructive in post-war period case so far as such old history is not my strong point, I have asked a few friends whether they can refer me to some good history book. --Ruziklan (talk) 18:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Ruziklan, I am confused by this revert. I haven't reviewed the sources, but it appears to be well-sourced information. The two main differences appear to be that before your revert it said:

After World War II, Czechoslovakia was reconstituted and Jozef Tiso was hanged in 1947 for collaboration with Nazism. Anti-nazi Hungarian nation leader, János Eszterházy was sentenced to death likewise. Although his punishment was changed to life imprisonment later. More than 3000,000 German were forced to leave Czechoslovakia without their property, in a series of population transfers initiated by Edvard Beneš Czechoslovakian president at the Potsdam Conference.

On 27th February in 1946 the Czechoslovak-Hungarian Inhabitants Exchange Agreement was concluded which authorized Czechoslovakia to deportate from their own territory as many Hungarians as Slovaks volunteered to move to Czechoslovakia from Hungary. Further 43000 Hungarians were taken to penal servitude to Sudetenland. Moreover Hungary undertook to receive 75114 person who was sentenced to war-criminal under false pretences by Czechoslovakian people tribunals.Later in Štrbské Lake Agreement (Hungarian:Csorba tói egyezmény) Czechoslovakia obtained the deported Hungarians ' private property as war reparation on 25th July in 1946. This expulsion is still a source of tension between Slovakia and Hungary.

And after your revert it said:

After World War II, Czechoslovakia was reconstituted and Jozef Tiso was hanged in 1947 for collaboration with Nazism. More than 76,000 Hungarians and 32,000 Germans were forced to leave Slovakia, in a series of population transfers initiated by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference. This expulsion is still a source of tension between Slovakia and Hungary.

You also deleted these sections:

Hungary one-sided cancelled Bős-Nagymaros Water-Craft project with Czechoslovakia therefore Czechoslovakia diverted the Danube border-river at Dunacsún in 40 km length to their own area on 25th October in 1992. So the C variant water-craft was constructed but Czechoslovakia offended seriously with this action Hungary's territorical integrity.

On 27th September 2007 the Beneš decrees were reconfirmed by the Slovak parliament which legitimized the Hungarians and Germans calumination and deportation from Czechoslovakia after World War II.

I'm not saying that the previous version was or wasn't correct, but could you please expand on your concerns? Were the sources unreliable or being misinterpreted, or was there an issue of neutrality? Please explain why you feel that the information was problematic enough to be removed immediately? --Elonka 02:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, sure.

The first part is about proportionality. Please, note how long the material added is - and it covers just one action in the history of Slovakia. Sure, it affected lives of Hungarians and some Slovaks, but as such seems to be covered enough in the article by one paragraph. Note e.g. that there is no information in article Slovakia on currency reform in 50ies that affected wealth of all people living in Slovakia. Simply, the material is too long for overview and in Slovakia. It may be a part of main historic article History of Slovakia.

Second part was firstly inproportional again, but also factually wrong (territorial integrity of Hungary was not offended, the border Hungary-Slovakia has not changed at all), misleading (there was legal case before international court and Czechoslovakia, see e.g. development in case) and felt it provocative, if I may say it. The editor has named Slovak settlements now using normal Slovak names by Hungarian names, therefore acting against naming convention discussed above - Dunacsún for Čunovo and Bős for Gabčíkovo - note that even their articles are leaded by Slovak names.

Finally the last part about 2007 Slovak Parliament declaration is just disputed above and disputed material was added in the middle of dispute it was added.

Please, note, that I have made only 3 edits in the Hungarian-Slovak disputed part since the start of this discussion, I am trying to discuss everything in as constructive manner as possible and I hope my above revert will not be treated as disruptive. I have all reasons to believe that Nmate is well aware of everything discussed here and thus I was quite concerned by his edit. That is why I have asked you: how to deal with such kind of editing? --Ruziklan (talk) 06:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Misuse of the "experiment"

I've seen some "reverts per Elonka/Hungarian-Slovakian experiment" not so long ago. For example:, , . This "experiment" is starting tu function as a hammer to remove even well cited additions, "because there was no debate about its right of incursion" (aka per this page) on that particluar aticle's talk page. Is this allowed? Is really a debate is a must? --Rembaoud (talk) 00:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You quote a few diffs above but I think name editors and IP editors should not be mixed in this case. If a named editor who is party to the dispute resolution, Ruziklan for example thinks that something is controversial then it should be discussed. It should be explained how it is controversial of course but I don't think it matters if it stays in the article or not it's for the duration of the debate. IP editors should not be allowed the same however especially after recent events but that's just my opinion. Hobartimus (talk) 01:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Hobartimus, I would not say that better.

I will not be able to follow this discussion in detail for much longer, you know, real life duties, but I would like to see the rules set. I would not oppose adding material to shapeless articles in the process of creation, but quite well written articles with balanced amount of information from various areas deserve discussion of adding material. Especially now, when there is running important discussion here about basic issues that were haunting the relationships of editors working on Slovakia and Hungary related articles for a long time. --Ruziklan (talk) 08:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Dealing with disruptive editors

Hiya, as part of my ongoing research into this on Misplaced Pages, I was looking at Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing, and I didn't like it much, especially its section on "how to deal with them". So I just rewrote it, effectively tripling it in size. Could you all take a look at it, let me know what you think? This is the set of steps not so much for ethnic content disputes, but for dealing with an editor who isn't an out and out vandal, but is inserting unacceptable information, and reverting anyone who tries to change it: Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors. I paid particular attention to adding steps for cases where admins are requested, but aren't responding in a timely manner.

Based on your own experiences, is this now adequate? Do you think it's helpful? Did you learn anything new? Or if it's going to "break", where do you think the weak points still are? Thanks, Elonka 05:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

A nice and helpful expansion. But I am afraid two weak points of the procedure are ANI and RfC. We have asked for RfC several times (even repeatedly for the same article) and there was no or only very little and totally random feedback. ANI has been used frequently during Hungarian-Slovak disputes, but generally to no avail. Both reports and defenses have mostly consisted of quote mining and ad hominem attacks and counterattacks. That can obscure even a really serious incident to the point that no administrators are unwilling to take any action in what appears to be a rather messy case. Sometimes, a thread is archived even without any reaction at all. Moreover, there is a tendency to support a new disruptive (or just unsocialized) user if a report against him/her is filed by someone who has enemies here. Conflicts in the past have often spill-overs across seemingly unrelated pages. As far as I can tell, all these problems are more general and not specific to the Hungarian-Slovak edit warring. Finally, it would perhaps help if WP:Verifiability and WP:Cite were emphasized in the welcome template and in Help:Contents/Getting started. Many new users are not familiar with the rules and they do not know they should use reliable published sources. It would also help to reduce the number of policy pages because no new user wants to read dozens of confusing policies, guidelines, and essays. After they actually read the policy pages, some editors think they can use any website as a source. So they go to Google and try to find the keywords supporting their point. I think the policies should favor more explicitly peer-reviewed academic journals, books, and well-known official websites. Tankred (talk) 06:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I've been particularly interested in cases where ANI reports are not getting responses. I've been trying to compile a list of all the previous ANI threads up at the top of this page, have I got them all? Or did I miss any? --Elonka 07:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted somewhere, that for some particular users, none of the citations would be good enough, exept theirs. Or being so lame, like that forum (comment) was on the List of Slovaks, I deleted. While it is easy to recognize a forum, it is more hard to get along in the literatue, and actually find out wich sources, books are really biased and wich are just not liked by some user(s). Thats the hardest job, however google search for book+critics are usually giving a helping hand. An on the other hand, when talking about Central-Europe, you should be aware also about the political situation, for example that an anti-hungarian coalition formed in Slovakia after the recent elections, where the Smer social democrats (!) and the far and even the most far right (!) parties joined toghether. You should be aware of Robert Fico and Ján Slota and their agendas, like that ones on Janko's page, and that there's a growing Anti-Hungarian sentiment in Slovakia, wich encourages ultra-extremists to attack or even kill innocents. And you should be aware of other events as well, wich are getting constantly firmly or quietly deleted from here, under a "discrete pandering wink", aka "the not restoring such deleted infos" . Also --Rembaoud (talk) 12:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The best sources, are those which have been recommended by other sources.  :) --Elonka 12:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, political climate has unfortunately partly moved to nationalistic in Slovakia recently, but at the same time substantial part of society voices against it. Thus the society becomes more polarized than before. But what point you try to make by explaining political situation in Slovakia? How is it relevant here? --Ruziklan (talk) 12:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The same society elected them. --Rembaoud (talk) 14:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

And your point is? (Note that not everyone voted for them...) --Ruziklan (talk) 14:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not see that "substantial part", what you claim that exists. And I forgot to point out the media's "regulation" and constant strafing by the government. And their wish and attempts, including the recenty accepted media law, to turn them in a pretty dictatoric way into "more patriotic" (=less or no critization of the government, and initally propagating whatever stupidity, like "proto-Slovaks" or making Juraj Janosik a hero, they invent). If you do not see, why were these all mentoined or "pointed out", than you have understanded very few of this "experiment page"'s purpose and goals. --Rembaoud (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Quite the opposite, I think I understand the purpose and goal of this page very clearly. That is why I am constantly asking what have your explanations to do with e.g. section we are now - "Dealing with disruptive editors" and the purpose of the experiment overall. In my view proven disruptive editors are currently dealt with accordingly and this has nothing to do with their political views, rather with their way of editing and their contributions to the good of Misplaced Pages. Moreover there are multiple fruitful discussions running on the page with positive results. --Ruziklan (talk) 14:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

References

This is an administrative section only, so that quoted references will display correctly, especially to those using wiki-gadgets such as popups.

1. Szétosztották hazánk területét Ján Slota pártjának honlapján, Magyar Hírlap, April 16, 2008. (reach: 16-4-08)
2. Szétosztották hazánk területét Ján Slota pártjának honlapján, Magyar Hírlap, April 16, 2008. (reach: 16-4-08)
3. ^ "The Beneš-Decrees Are Untouchable" (PDF). mkp. 2007. Retrieved October. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "politics" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
4. ^ Rock, David (2002). Coming home to Germany? : the integration of ethnic Germans from central and eastern Europe in the Federal Republic. New York; Oxford: Berghahn. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. Management of the Hungarian Issue in Slovak Politics
7. Nemecká menšina na Slovensku po roku 1918 (in Slovak)

Ján

Search google for "311 400" Bentley Ján. Money, Bentley za 2,6 milióna+Chorvátsku luxusnej vile (Chorvátsku=Croat), extra. "brutale Hungarianization"+, despite being in "offline media". You gonna understand the key words, or these, I wrote here, and if you have some croat knowledge, probably more. Also see Ján Slota now. --Rembaoud (talk) 05:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, however I am not concerned that I'll edit anymore, except this and some other talkpages, since these well known things can and (I'm sure) will be always attacked by someone, who plays on that fact, that this is only known in the region or i Slovakia/Hungary only - and you're not in it, so not aware of these things --> resulting in a warning, block, etc. against me. The firt of such is on my talkpage, placed by you. I think this will be the (my) future. Newer and "newer" users will come from nowhere, like Ruziklan, and I'll always be accused of being a "chauvinist" thisorthat, and a "sockpuppet" of Hobartimus or Tankred or whoever ever edited the artilce they edited. When I saw Ruziklan I had that silly idea, that this is another sockpuppet of somebody. Than I realized, that I'm becoming paranoid, and starting to see all new or never before seen users as being the same person's "sockpuppets", as MarkBA does with Hungarian users, expressed by himself on his talkpage, deducted from the simple fact, that they ("we") are all Hungarians. Then there was (are) Tankred's and MarBA's farewell notices. If you look at them carefully, you'll see how "paranoid" they are. Both accusing all Hungarian users as "spreading propaganda", "extremist" "chauvinist" and so on. While looking at the length and colors of those "notices", and the contribution lists they have, you suddenly realize, that these users are true "fanatics", and as seen in MarkBA's "sock case", they would "fight" with whatever possible tools available to spread their beliefs and "personal NPOVs" on Misplaced Pages. And I'm pretty sure, they will fight "till death" to manage them stay in the articles, daily reporting every users as vandal, POV-pusher, etc., whom are changing them with mainstream views, like they do with Nmate, clearly playing on the law of large numbers. And they can not be punished for doing that.

This leads to nowhere, I do not want to participate in such "ethnic wars", where people are always a sockpuppet of someone, because they once both referred to themselves as "I". This is the true paranoia. And unforunately? fortunately? I see this at these two-three (Tankred, MarkBA, Svetovid) users. Sorry, this is my experience with the English wikipedia, and my personal beliefs about this "situation" what we're in. Sorry for being so off :) --Rembaoud (talk) 07:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't blame you for being discouraged. The situation that you describe is one of the reasons that we have Misplaced Pages is not a battleground. What you might want to do, is to withdraw not from Misplaced Pages, but just from this topic area for awhile. Go work on something non-controversial. Just click on "Random article" in the lefthand toolbox a few times, and usually within a minute or so you'll find something that needs fixing.  :) It can be very refreshing to make a positive change to an article and not have to worry about edit wars. Even if you're just bolding a title or adding a section header, small edits can be very therapeutic. I find that I enjoy spending time at Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup. I'll pick something easy, make some fixes, and it's very calming.  :) --Elonka 07:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Good thought :) lest see how long will my edits last a the List of Slovaks. Very confusing the inclusion criteria on it, since it seemingly considers everybody Slovak, who was born there or where now Slovakia lies... --Rembaoud (talk) 11:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but remember, make your arguments at the talkpage too, not just in edit summaries.  :) --Elonka 11:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I see you found a new "friend" :) Well, I think I found a bit older one:. --Rembaoud (talk) 22:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it the right way to work?

I am almost sure Elonka would review Nmate's edits after lifting his block, but I doubt his chosen way of editing articles Nové Zámky, Levice and Komárno is constructive, namely these diffs: , , . The edit summaries speak for themselves: all three sound like this: "strong Magyarization in Tr(a)nava? All right!"

That leads nowhere as context in Trnava and these 3 cases is completely different. In Trnava article the Magyarization in 19th century is used as a reason for founding Spolok sv. Vojtecha, whereas in 3 changed articles the Slovakization is used out of blue for nothing except proving Nmate's case. I am not going to revert anything for the moment, especially because I do not know numbers, maybe he is even right and precise, but this is becoming really tiring... --Ruziklan (talk) 21:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, and two his edits at Principality of Nitra constitute clear vandalism - principality of Nitra is well documented in history, I wonder why he is editing in this way: . There are no sources provided on the page, but that does not mean they do not exist, just no one cared to source this as nobody has challenged it. For me it is too much, some action has to be taken. --Ruziklan (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Principality of Nitra seems to be created by user:Tankred and second editor is user:Juro indefinitely banned so that should give us a general idea about possible problems with this article. Generally speaking it's usually not a good idea to present fringe theories as fact or put them in categories describing real history. There are lot of these types of articles around, incredibly low traffic, often created and maintained by extremists in need of deletion or serious cleanup and rewrite. Hobartimus (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

While the content of article may be questionable, I am not expert on history, Principality of Nitra is no fairy tale, it is a history, full stop. --Ruziklan (talk) 22:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at the history of the article a little better and the present version is almost exclusively the work of user:Juro with minor changes from other users. Actually Tankred's first version wasn't that bad but it was completely rewritten by Juro () using the edit summary "correct factual errors, added substance", this is the version that's mostly remained unchanged and functions as the present version of the article. Hobartimus (talk) 22:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Actually, I am fine with anything improving the quality of article even if that would mean returning to some of previous versions, I do not care, can be. The problem of sources persists in any case and anyone interested in keeping the article in specific shape including specific information should try to find the sources veryfing the information.

But the way Nmate has chosen is not the right in my view. That was the point of my report here. --Ruziklan (talk) 22:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I see why are you concerned, for example the population data seems unsourced, however the year dates are famous census years so it's just very easy to look up the relevant censuses for example Érsekújvár in 1910 had exactly 91.43455755% of Hungarian population rounded up to 91.43% in his edit so that's seems ok I didn't check the rest however. Hobartimus (talk) 23:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In fact, I was writing my previous reply with article Principality of Nitra in mind as we two had been discussing that one before my reply. --Ruziklan (talk) 23:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Nové Zámky, Levice‎, Komárno‎

Nmate's edits to these articles (Nové Zámky, Levice‎, Komárno, edit summary: "strong Magyarization in Tranava? All right!") seem to be acts of "revenge" for the reference to strong Magyarization in 19th century Trnava (see Talk:Trnava). I think that's rather childish, and against the spirit of our experiment, but let's focus on the content. He wrote (this is from the Komárno article, the other two were silimar):

Number of Hungarian people who live in the city has decreased dramatically over the past 63 years from 98% in 1941 to about 60% today. So there is the strong-Slovakization time.

Apart from the not so fluent English, there might be truth in it, but it lacks sources (where does the 1941 number come from, a census?), and the conclusion ("strong-Slovakization time") is not directly supported by the data. A lot has happened since 1941: WW2, Beneš decrees, communism, (economic?) migration etc. etc. And, was the situation in 1941 normal? Was that including the twin town Komárom on the southern bank of the Danube? 1941 is during WW2, after the First Vienna Award, when Komárno was part of Hungary. These 1910 census data show that the population of Komárom (excl. south bank) was 89.2% Hungarian then, and 3.4% Slovak. What happened between 1910 and 1941? The demographic developments of Komárno and other places in Slovakia are certainly interesting, but they must be properly sourced, and without jumping to conclusions. Markussep 11:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Markussep! Surprising that you are so informed because many Dutchmans do not know that Hungary is exists.I copied these demographic data from the Hungarian wiki. After the Košice attack, Hungary sent a war message to the Soviet Union(Košice attack was on 26th June, in 1941).The situation was normal before here. North komárom' population was Hungarian totally in that time. Very much Jew lived in the North-Slovak city also ( about 89 000).The Jews 'mother language was Hungarian also.Nmate (talk • contribs)

Tankred

I ask for a block of Tankred based on his recent actions of undiscussed mass canvassing against the spirit of the dispute resolution. The whole basis of dispute resolution is that controversial actions should be discussed and not taken unilaterally. I find his mass canvassing extremely controversial as it includes multiple hand picked users by Tankred out of a user pool of tens of thousands of editors, The message written by Tankred is also questionable warning of a non-existing "precedent" when Misplaced Pages already is not working based off-of precedent and this dispute resolution was very specific to Slovakian-Hungarian issues as can already be seen by the name of page itself. I think Tankred already got far too many second chances to just simply get away with this. This dispute resolution has slim to zero chance to succeed if flooded with uninvolved canvassed-in users worried about how an imaginary precedent might effect their articles and start mass arguments based on that. In case the involved party's can't be limited to those named in the main page of the experimental page, I suggest closing it as failed now since I don't think anyone has the desire to take part in months long unmoderated discussion involving an unlimited number of canvassed-in users to resolve a minor issue. Hobartimus (talk) 17:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This is truly ridiculous. You want to get me blocked because I stimulated free discussion and sought feedback from respected administrators, who have more experience with naming issues than any of us here? Canvassing has a very specific meaning in Misplaced Pages, so do not use this word so lightly. There is nothing in my message that you can call canvassing. And please do not pretend that the rules that are emerging from our discussion will concern only Hungarian and Slovak editors. We all know they will be used as a precedent. This kind of discussion is usually closely watched by editors from other ethnically mixed areas and the result is often applied in other similar cases. Even you have evoked the unrelated Gdansk/Danzig case several times during the Hungarian-Slovak edit warring as a precedent. Should I go ahead and find your own words? Moreover, Hungarians is not the only historically relevant minority in Slovakia. Germans, Poles, and Czechs also should have some say in this. Did you really think that you could decide to adopt a major change in such a sensitive topic just in two days and among only three users? I may be wrong, but I do not believe this is how decisions in Misplaced Pages are made. Misplaced Pages is a community, not your private fiefdom, in which a small junta can make important decisions behind curtains and then force it upon other people. (Please note that by the word junta I do not refer to any specific users, but to a general principle of decision-making.) I do not understand your fear. Ten experienced and smart people can come up with better rules than if they were only three, right? Tankred (talk) 09:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the mere fact I am ok with something does not count for much in naming convention area. That is why I have not voted yet in expectation of further changes. The ensuing discussion of proposal after starting the poll have shown there are more subtle points to it that should be clarified. I am quite unhappy that Tankred let himself being blocked as in this area he was bringing good points and now he will not be able to participate for two days. --Ruziklan (talk) 11:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Intresting. I admit, that I haven't read all the Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry page, since it was and is too long, so I'm maybe wrong, because of something below this:. I think Tankred is mobilizing meatpuppets ("who edits on behalf of or as proxy for another editor", aka voters) for his "cause". None of the noticed users are Hungarian, however I saw many in various page histories.(Not IPs.) --Rembaoud (talk) 09:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The content of the message can also be disputed, since it tries to frighten these editors that this "might" be used as a "precedence", and therefore indirectly suggesting them to vote against the proposal. Carefully composed though. This was a nasty move in my opinion. --Rembaoud (talk) 09:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you really suggesting that the following users are somehow my meatpuppets or at least inherently anti-Hungarian? User:Pmanderson, User:Lysy, User:Darwinek, User:Olessi, User:Piotrus, Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (geographic names), Portal:Poland/Poland-related Misplaced Pages notice board, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Czech Republic, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Romania. I must be dreaming... Tankred (talk) 09:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:CANVASS, some invitations to a small number of users who might reasonably be interested in the discussion, is allowed. I am familiar with most of the users that Tankred invited, and to my knowledge they don't have a history of agreeing with him in disputes (if someone has proof otherwise, please provide it). So I don't see those particular invitations, or their wording, as problematic. What would be a problem is if there were (for example) a Hungarian/Slovakian dispute, and a Slovakian editor went and personally invited several other Slovakian editors that he knew would agree with him. But that doesn't seem to the case in Tankred's actions. --Elonka 10:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the same: "a Slovakian editor went and personally invited several other Slovakian editors that he knew would agree with him.". I do not understand how can be deducted from this that I called anybody "anti-hungarian". Totally illogical. In this particular case, per WP:SOCK, they can be described as "meatpuppets". They come, vote, and go, however it seems that they are way more intelligent than participating in such a dirty game. --Rembaoud (talk) 13:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Not using "you", "your"

I'll try to implement it thanks for putting in the time to deal with all this, I see that you follow almost all edits made by the involved. I'm just a bit pessimistic/frustrated by the prospect of all the outside users coming in and making a mess of arguments trying to debate from a general viewpoint or treating the naming proposal as if it were to be applied to all articles making dealing with the specific issues near-impossible. A workable compromise seemed pretty close before, with Ruziklan giving his blessing but that was just probably me misunderstanding the situation. Hobartimus (talk) 04:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying. If I'm not posting somewhere, it's not because I'm ignoring it, it's just because there's so much going on that there's more than I can grok all at once. So I'm trying to prioritize a bit, and if that means some stuff gets "let go" for a bit, well, it'll either come up again later or it won't.  :) And on the current debates, take the long view. This project has only been running for a few days! Gdansk/Danzig took years to figure out. I'm optimistic that you'll be able to hammer out a consensus in much less time than that, especially if a few of the more disruptive editors are indef blocked at that point (as a couple of them seem determined to be <sigh>). One recommendation I do have though, is to focus on the sources. If there are some towns that are just never referred to by a Hungarian (or Slovakian) name in any of the sources, it probably wouldn't make sense to have a guideline saying that the Misplaced Pages articles should refer to them by that name first. So it might be worth trying to rewrite the guideline with some sort of wording like, "Priority should be given per WP:V to refer to locations as they are most commonly-referred to in reliable sources. In the case where reliable sources are divided, then the following guidelines should be followed..." Hope that helps, --Elonka 05:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

My ok is not ok of everyone, in some areas I am more liberal than in others. Even as someone who does not care much about specific form of detailed naming rules I think that some of points brought to discussion are relevant and better have them precised now than disputed later. I suppose I will be ok with anything coming out from that discussion, however. :-) --Ruziklan (talk) 11:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Failure

I am sorry Elonka, but it seems you will have to block me after all because I have to use reverts in a couple of cases:-( The only consequence of me respecting the editing restrictions is that Nmate and Rembaoud (both under the same restrictions) will remove all the references to Slovaks in Misplaced Pages. I cannot tolerate it. They are abusing the fact that Tulkohalten has retired, discouraged by Nmate's animosity and unfounded accusations of sockpuppetry, MarkBA is blocked, and Svetovid and I are under your editing restrictions. I understand you cannot revert them in order to keep your neutrality. But if no one reverts them, they will be basically rewarded for making undiscussed controversial edits because their versions of articles will remain. I do not give a crap about whether they are blocked or not. But I am deeply concerned with how the articles on my watchlist look like. Well, I have tried to signal to you several times that this situation is unacceptable to me. Now I am going to revert their controversial edits. If they are not repeated, I will refrain from more reverts. If they are repeated, it means that the whole experiment failed to prevent edit warring and we are where we had been before the start of the dispute resolution process. Tankred (talk) 09:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Stay civil please. Is this OK? Tankred copied a part of your comment out of context into another discussion as if you added it. Squash Racket (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately Tankred failed to prevent himself from edit warring, not the "experiment" failed. However this lights another problem: If X starts to revert everything to "his/her version", per this page those edits can not be reverted. I mean X can decide that in exchange for 2 days of block, "his/her verion" can become the one on top and therefore seen and read by the public.

Therefore, to prevent such things, whoever will break the Digwuren rule, his/her reverts should be reverted. I think this would be correct and just, therefore I suggest you to undo Tankreds "rv"-s, please, and everybody else's who fails to keep themselves to these specific Digwuren rules. --Rembaoud (talk) 10:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

A better option would be one or more of the following:

• Re-add the information in a non-revert way, such as by adding actual sources proving that your changes are verifiable
• Make a case on each talkpage for why you feel that the revert should be made. If there is a talkpage consensus to make the changes, then someone will make them.
• Request comments from other editors, such as via the Experiment page

--Elonka 10:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

How? Technically it would be a reversion. --Rembaoud (talk) 10:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Next to each item that you wish to change, include a source, showing that that is how it is referred to in sources. So if you want to change something to (for example) "Slavic", include a link to a book or newspaper that uses that "Slavic" term in reference to that topic. That's not a revert, that's an article improvement. --Elonka 10:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I wrote on the talkpage of the Principality of Nitra, but Tankred did not responded, but deleted my edits with a bit misleading comment. Is this acceptable? --Rembaoud (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Tankred has been blocked for 48 hours. --Elonka 10:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I see. If I revert everything I edited, I'll be blocked for 48 hours, but my version will be on top then? Consider your answer carefully, and don't forget the MarkBA case when composing it. --Rembaoud (talk) 10:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Is that a threat? :) See WP:GAME and WP:LAME, and be aware that I could simply go and protect all of the articles for a month so no one could make changes to them. I don't care if they say "Slavic" or "Slovak". To repeat: Your best bet is to find sources. Try http://books.google.com or http://scholar.google.com --Elonka 10:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Elonka, I really like your smile after the first sentence. It reminds me of old saying "Nothing new under Sun". Administration of Misplaced Pages in your chosen area and on your level of involvement must be very time consuming and sometimes difficult to keep cool, but rewarding in terms of Misplaced Pages advancement. Great job. --Ruziklan (talk) 11:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

See my attempt at Balaton Principality. Squash Racket (talk) 11:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Good job, Squash Racket.  :) Academic sources (especially in English and online) are ideal. --Elonka 11:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to skip playing down this game. Whatever. I'll look up for sources since P of Nitra is unreferenced at all, so in fact the whole article can be considered as a fabrication at all... but thats just gameing with the technical side :) I hope this: is good enough to "give me green light" of reverting Tankred's edit on that particular page. --Rembaoud (talk) 11:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a grat example how history falsification works:. The Slovaks here are already an "old, civilized nation" in 600 AD (!!!) :) --Rembaoud (talk) 11:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Slovak nation is NOW old and civilized, fortunately. The text cited does not say they were so in 600 AD, it says explicitly only about settling in homeland in the 6th century. --Ruziklan (talk) 12:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

While Slovak Spectator does not mention (in english) Great Moravia as Slovak, but Slavonic, wich is correct: . Jus a bit of research and all the evidence can be linked here to make them the basis of why do "proto-Slovaks" are going to be (getting) deleted. --Rembaoud (talk) 12:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's an article: , unfortunately in Hungarian, based on the Pravda (=truth) nespaper, decribing, that the "clever history" what the current goverment invented and started to spead is deleting the world Slavs (Szlávok) and replacing them with proto-Slovaks (ősszlovákok or ószlovákok). --Rembaoud (talk) 12:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the point? Just follow the good example of Squash Racket and rewrite (not revert) article using reliable sources and that is it. --Ruziklan (talk) 12:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

if you do not see, that is not my problem. --Rembaoud (talk) 12:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Felvidék.ha, bumm.sk, all describing the other falsification of our current government: The Great Moravia (Morva Birodalom) was the state of the "proto-Slovaks". etc, tons of evidence in SLovak and Hungarian as well, including Dusan Kovac, Robert Letz, etc etc, all the researchers of that times, while the "proto-Slovak" historians are all researching something different, usually something very different. --Rembaoud (talk) 12:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Something else that would really help, would be to have articles on some of these Hungarian and Slovak sources, such as Slovak Spectator. If someone would like to make stubs for the most important redlinks at List of newspapers in Hungary and List of newspapers in Slovakia, that would be wonderful. Thanks, Elonka 12:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good description of how things work, from a slovak source in english:. Especially the "Ferocious opponents" part. Perfectly decribes how Matica Slovenská, and through that the Slovak history writing and teaching works, as well as everything in Slovakia if governmental. --Rembaoud (talk) 12:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, do not make such generalizations: "everything in Slovakia if governmental". While I share your doubts regarding some, maybe many, actions of certain people, organizations and entities (e.g. Matica Slovenská), this is already going too far. We are on the same side, we want to have Misplaced Pages better. But it will not become better by bianco attacking "everything".

Elonka, I will try to write stub at least on Slovak Spectator as seemingly Rembaoud seems to welcome it as a source and while not academic publication, it is one of best English language sources regarding information on recent developments in Slovakia. --Ruziklan (talk) 13:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If I'll have the time, I'll search them. However these sources are enough to delete "proto-Slovaks" at least from "Greater Moravia" article. --Rembaoud (talk) 13:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Report card

I have started a thread at the Administrators' noticeboard: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Hungarian-Slovakian experiment, where I am explaining my experiment here, and asking for input from other admins. It is my concern that the experiment may be getting too "radical" for the wiki-culture, and I don't want to be overstepping my authority.

If anyone here as part of the experiment would like to offer feedback on how I'm doing, and whether or not you would like to see this experiment continue, or whether you think that it should be shut down, you are welcome to post in that thread. I do recommend that you identify yourself as a non-admin participant who is offering an opinion.

This is your opportunity to give me (and this experiment) an initial "grade". Has the experiment been helpful? Has it made things worse? Should it continue? All feedback is encouraged. Thanks, Elonka 12:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)