Misplaced Pages

Talk:Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 08:40, 29 May 2018 editJack Upland (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users31,870 edits Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were Jewish United States citizens..." in lede paragraph is WP:UNDUE← Previous edit Revision as of 22:03, 2 June 2018 edit undoNotcharliechaplin (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users825 edits NPOV regarding the Venona project conclusions regarding their guilt and overall tone of article.: new sectionNext edit →
Line 111: Line 111:


:Well, Jewish can be an ethnic description. No, neither of them were religiously observant: they were Communists. I agree this doesn't need to be in the lede.--] (]) 08:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC) :Well, Jewish can be an ethnic description. No, neither of them were religiously observant: they were Communists. I agree this doesn't need to be in the lede.--] (]) 08:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

== NPOV regarding the Venona project conclusions regarding their guilt and overall tone of article. ==

The article seems to state a "contentious" regarding the interpretation of the VENONA documents that I am not convinced exists. Yes, it may be true that a majority of historians feel the Venona project documents do in deed support the guilt of the Rosenberg's, the fact is that their has been some legitimate doubt raised about whether the documents have been properly translated or not by respectable sources. As such, I would rewrite the VENONA documents section to better reflect this. There is dispute by relevant individuals as to whether the VENONA documents are properly translated and as such, whether they do in deed support the long held belief that certain individuals, such as the Rosenberg's and Alger Hiss where indeed guilty of spying for the Soviets. Critics believe that while the documents do indeed show spying was going on, it's not clear that they real-life individuals accused of said spying are indeed the code-names mentioned in the document. The documents do not mention real names so it requires speculation to put the real names to the code-named people in the document. This article should reflect this reality. There is also the issue of whether the immorality of framing the Rosenberg's, even if they where guilty to some or all degree, makes their execution a grave injustice, as well as whether they was such they deserve the death penalty anyways. If any notable persons has argued their they believe the Rosenberg's role in the espionage did not constitute a death penalty level offense that that should be added to the article. --] (]) 22:03, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Revision as of 22:03, 2 June 2018

Skip to table of contents
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 2 months 
The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments and look in the archives before commenting.
Former good articleJulius and Ethel Rosenberg was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 22, 2006Good article nomineeListed
July 18, 2009Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article
This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconBiography
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconUnited States Low‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
LowThis article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconCrime and Criminal Biography Top‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related
TopThis article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconJewish history
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Jewish history, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Jewish history on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Jewish historyWikipedia:WikiProject Jewish historyTemplate:WikiProject Jewish historyJewish history-related
???This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on June 19, 2004, June 19, 2005, June 19, 2006, June 19, 2007, June 19, 2008, June 19, 2009, June 19, 2010, and June 19, 2013.
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 2 months 

Template:Vital article

Age at death / limitations of sidebar

The right-hand information block suggested that, having died the same day, they died at the same age in spite of having different birth years. Reviewing the code, it appears this was an auto-calculated field which does not allow the flexibility of reporting two death ages at a unique time for non-unique birthdates. To clarify for other readers, I changed the code from

| date_of_death  = June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) (both)

to

| date_of_death  = June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) (Julius), and aged 37 (Ethel)

which I believe removes the ambiguity. There is still some minor formatting inconsistency as the sidebar places the initial age in parenthesis, but this was the best I could do with the automated process. At least now they are not reported dead at the same age.

NPV maintained?

I'm questioning the NPV of this article. The article seems quite slanted towards putting forward a largely discredited theory of the Rosenburg's innocence. Anyone familiar with this episode is aware that it was a celebrity cause of the far left for 20 years that the Rosenbergs were innocent. Eventually the evidence became overwhelming with the release of the Venona intercepts and so it was shelved.

It seems this article continues the tradition, now limited to trying to prove the innocence of Ethyl Rosenburg, alone. In fact as current written it might better by titled "The Innocence of Ethyl Rosenberg".

I note that many of the sources are from the Communist news paper "Sparticus" which can hardly be considered a reliable source in an article about Communist plots and spying.

Having a section on "controversy" and including some trimmed down information on this might be appropriate, but repurposing the article as ongoing propaganda is not.

I believe the article falls far short of maintaining a neutral point of view.

24.22.76.12 (talk) 16:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Spartacus Educational is not a Communist newspaper, though it does have a strange name. You are possibly confusing it with the Spartacus League or the Spartacist League (US).--Jack Upland (talk) 22:40, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Generally, this article complies with WP:NPOV. The section "Later Developments" has the minor issue that it has a single paragraph devoted to recently declassified Soviet spy agency telegrams identifying Ethel Rosenberg by name and establishing she performed acts to support her husband's espionage, and four paragraphs talking about Ethel Rosenberg's innocence.
This is not a huge POV issue for a reader who understands how to weigh emotional appeals (including the troubling statement that star witnesses in the Rosenberg's trial much later came forth to recant their statements about Ethel Rosenberg during her trial). However, less sophisticated readers may just count lines of text in our article and be persuaded of Ethel Rosenberg's innocence. At that point, our article loses encyclopedic value because walls of text about efforts to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg create WP:UNDUE issues.
Does anyone else think we ought to either
  • summarize the recent statements promoting Ethel Rosenberg's innocence in a paragraph or two (creating a separate main article in which the information as it appears in this article is presented in its present level of detail, along with her descendants' efforts to have her officially exonerated), or
  • expand the description of the VENONA decrypt evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg so that is carries the same weight in the "Later Developments" section as the rest of the section?
If I see other editors support either of these options, I'll do a Request for Consensus on the one that gets the most support. loupgarous (talk) 04:35, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:03, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

"Julius and Ethel" (1983) is based on the Rosenberg case as seen through the Nobel prizewinner Bob Dylan's eyes" - WP:UNDUE?"

Under the heading Artistic representations, the sentence

"Julius and Ethel (1983) is based on the Rosenberg case as seen through the Nobel prizewinner Bob Dylan's eyes".

seems to place undue emphasis on Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature, which nowhere cites the song "Julius and Ethel". The words "Nobel prizewinner" ought to be deleted from the sentence as WP:UNDUE.

In addition, the statement is unsourced, which makes it stand out from the rest of the section, in which sources are given for each preceding statement of fact. It might be better for the sentence to be deleted entirely until a reliable source can be found stating what is said. loupgarous (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. The whole line was poorly written. I've re-phrased it and added a citation. – Mformatt 20:31, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were Jewish United States citizens..." in lede paragraph is WP:UNDUE

The lede paragraph of his article was modified on 20:49, 28 May 2018 to say

"Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were Jewish United States citizens... ".

.

The religious background of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (both were from Jewish families) is already dealt with in the section "Early lives and education". If there is a notable connection between the religious and cultural milieu and the acts for which this couple became notable, it's not documented by a reliable source. Likewise, if either Julius or Ethel Rosenberg were observant Jews, that is also not documented by a reliable source.

Neither of the two ways it's generally understood that the Rosenbergs could be called "Jewish" is relevant to the acts for which the Rosenbergs became notable. Stating the fact in the article's lede paragraph is WP:UNDUE. I reverted the change accordingly. loupgarous (talk) 02:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, Jewish can be an ethnic description. No, neither of them were religiously observant: they were Communists. I agree this doesn't need to be in the lede.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

NPOV regarding the Venona project conclusions regarding their guilt and overall tone of article.

The article seems to state a "contentious" regarding the interpretation of the VENONA documents that I am not convinced exists. Yes, it may be true that a majority of historians feel the Venona project documents do in deed support the guilt of the Rosenberg's, the fact is that their has been some legitimate doubt raised about whether the documents have been properly translated or not by respectable sources. As such, I would rewrite the VENONA documents section to better reflect this. There is dispute by relevant individuals as to whether the VENONA documents are properly translated and as such, whether they do in deed support the long held belief that certain individuals, such as the Rosenberg's and Alger Hiss where indeed guilty of spying for the Soviets. Critics believe that while the documents do indeed show spying was going on, it's not clear that they real-life individuals accused of said spying are indeed the code-names mentioned in the document. The documents do not mention real names so it requires speculation to put the real names to the code-named people in the document. This article should reflect this reality. There is also the issue of whether the immorality of framing the Rosenberg's, even if they where guilty to some or all degree, makes their execution a grave injustice, as well as whether they was such they deserve the death penalty anyways. If any notable persons has argued their they believe the Rosenberg's role in the espionage did not constitute a death penalty level offense that that should be added to the article. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 22:03, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Categories: