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Revision as of 10:41, 30 January 2006

Katyń massacre

A controversial, but well referenced article about one of the most tragic moments in the Polish-Soviet relations. Recently peer reviewed. Your comments appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment, I'm not sure what's going on with the notes, but numbered notes in text should have a corresponding numbered note in the notes list.--nixie 04:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Because some sources (like Fisher) are referenced many times (since this is a controversial subject, I decided to reference every possible questionable fact), the ref/note system is not that good when we have over 50 footnotes. What happens is that clicking on the footnote (number) in text will take you to the correct footnote, but clicking on footnote 'note' link (the up arrrow) will take you to the first instance of 'ref' (number) in the text. This can be fixed if one divides those references which are used many times into several different (i.e. use 'fisher1', 'fisher2', etc. inud of just 'fisher'. This would probably double the lenght of already-large footnote section though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Why not use {{ref_label}}/{{note_label}} or m:Cite/Cite.php for multiple notes from the same source, the numbering using both these systems is more intutative for the reader. I also agree with Raul, the reference section of the article is currently a mess.--nixie 00:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Because I was not aware of those new functions till today :) Eh, and just a few months ago I was so proud to have mastered the {{ref}}/{{note}} :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - It is a controversial topic, but the article, through the efforts of many editors, is written with commendable NPOV and should qualify as an example of Misplaced Pages's best work. Balcer 05:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support, definitely one of the best articles on difficult subjects out there. It's a pity I added close to nothing to it... Halibutt 05:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Object. Not even close. Total slanted in favor of the Soviet guilt POV—the very first sentence is horribly POV. Everyking 06:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, the Soviets did admit they were guilty, so that slant is entirely correct. The corresponding article in Encylopedia Britannica begins: Katyn Massacre - mass execution of Polish military officers by the Soviet Union during World War II. Are you saying EB is not even close to NPOV? Balcer 06:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I think Balcer has a point. Raul654 07:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I maintain that it is disputed by enough people, particularly in Russia, that further NPOVing needs to be done. Everyking 09:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Sure there are some people who dispute it. Just like there are Holocaust Deniers who dispute that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Still, we do not extend the idea of NPOV to include their views in the leads of articles like Auschwitz. Balcer 14:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
          • I think the comparison is preposterous, and actually a little amusing when you consider that the viewpoint you don't want to include attributes blame to the Nazis—which side is closer to Holocaust denial, really, if you're going to sling mud around like that? I acknowledge the practical necessity of giving the Soviet guilt POV primacy, but that doesn't mean something can't be done to mitigate it. Everyking 06:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
            • I made the comparison simply to show clearly that just because there is a small group of people who believe in an alternative version of an event, that is not a good enough reason to include that version in the lead of an article. This is especially true for articles dealing with genocides, massacres, and other painful events, where more often than not you will find some small (or not so small) group that will want to deny the facts in the face of overwhelming evidence. This phenomenon has actually been recognised as the 8th stage of Genocide (see ). How one deals with such views is an interesting question for Misplaced Pages. It appears the practice has been to keep such POV out of the article lead, but discuss it further down in the article. This is precisely what has been done here. Balcer 14:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
        • We have had Russian editors contribute to the article. They had pointed out various things that needed improvement. Eventually all {{fact}} and NPOV have been removed. If you have any specific objection, especially regarding some unreferenced fact (or you have contradicting references), please provide them. The only problem with the first sentence was a mass execution of Polish citizens by the Soviet Union during World War II, as far as I can see it, is that it terms a massacre an execution, and sais nothing about illegality or brutality of the massacre - thus I'd rather say it has a pro-Soviet bias, not the other way around.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Well written, thorough and informative. And it is NPOV.radek 07:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - beautiful article on an ugly subject. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 16:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - The referencing style in this article is, well, very ugly and difficult to read. I think you should merge the notes and references section, and (since you re-use the same sources a lot) you might want ot use the mediawiki citation style (which generates very nice numbering). Raul654 17:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Could you point me with a link towards this mediawiki citation style? I am not happy with the current look of footnotes/references, so I'd gladly see a viable alternative.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Go here Raul654 23:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment—yes, worthy topic for FA status; needs a run through by an editor. Just a small point: can you make the spacing, or lack of spacing, consistent for the inline reference numbers? Tony 01:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support. But all uses of Katyń should be standardized in this article (there are numerous Katyn's floating around in it). --Fastfission 18:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Lots of red links. I would suggest removing them until the relavent articles are written, as they look rather ugly. --BadSeed 18:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Red links are how we see the articles that need to be written. Removing them is an awful suggestion. Raul654 18:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
• Provisional Support As a historical article, the article cannot be featured until it has a historiography section. The historiography section should probably have a link to a main page, something along the lines of Russian disputes regarding the Katyn massacre. Fifelfoo 00:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose. As the standard of FAs has been steadly plummeting, I won't be surprised if this monument to the Polish POV interpretation of history gets promoted too. In the past, we've seen Polish editors promote such articles to the FA in order to fend off any NPOVing changes. When we discussed Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618) last time, many supported the move to Polish invasion of Russia, but the Polish editors had the issue suppressed. So let's now take a look at the latest candidate.

  Even the title is grossly POV, as my concerns that the article should be moved to Katyn Incident remain unheard. When the officers are killed during the war and our Polish friends style it a "murder" about dozen times around the article, they prepare a playing ground for future revert wars. Currently, the article reflects Polish nationalist mythology only. Russian reaction is misinterpreted. The article's hyped-up reference base doesn't include Russian websites. Now to some more specific concerns.

  1. The article is a lasting monument to the ignorance of those who wrote it. What is Putivli - is it Putivl? What is Vologod - is it Vologda? Other names are so heavily distorted that it's impossible to make any sense of them.
  2. No mention is made of the fact that the episode, quite similar to countless such executions perpetrated by Stalin's regime, was wildly hyped up by Goebbels and Co and has been advertised by every Russophobic force in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere in order to sour the relations with Russia.
  3. While the Soviet government was run by two ethnic Georgians (Stalin, Beria) and quite a few Jews, while a number of Ukrainians/Belarusians were involved in the execution, while 12,000 victims are actually buried in Ukraine, the article stubbornly opperates with the term "Russians" instead of "Soviets" (e.g., "Churchill assured the Russians..."), thus further highlighting the anti-Russian bias.
  4. No mention is made of the fact that the very same officers who fell victim to Stalin's terror had planned an invasion of the SU, similar to the one which was effected by the Poles in 1919. In the Polish black-and-white vision of history there is no place for such signal monents of Poland's history as Polish-German Partition of Czechoslovakia and German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. Every murky fact is being covered up, while the Poles are represented as lambs and victims of those bloody Russians.
  5. Judgmental tone and NPOV phrasing is everywhere: e.g., The demands - often bordering on political blackmail - by Stalin and his diplomats. IMHO the publicity surrounding this obscure episode in modern Polish politics is a pure political blackmail. Unfortunately, no mention of Katyn being instrumental in propagating anti-Russian hysterics in Poland is made.
  6. The investigations that indicted the German state rather than the Soviet state for the killings are sometimes used to impeach the Nuremberg Trials in their entirety, often in support of Holocaust denial... I can't make anything of this drivel. Please elaborate. --Ghirla | talk 10:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support as per radek abakharev 07:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)