Wikipedia intentionally distorting Holocaust history?

[bluecanary]

Baker is a veteran reporter who has written for top publications like The New Yorker and The Washington Post. He has tussled with the Church of Scientology. In 2005, he won the Deadline Club award for his exclusive reporting on George W. Bush's military record. Baker was among the first to cast doubt on Colin Powell's now-infamous presentation on Iraq at the United Nations – at the time a very unpopular stance – and among the first to make Americans aware of the impending genocide in Rwanda. But presently, he is concerned about Wikipedia's biographies.

Looks like Baker is an interesting cat, who doesn’t mind going to the mats in pursuit of a story. More importantly he has good instincts (BLP concerns). I don’t know how long he’s been sniffing at the edge of Wikipedia’s robes, but I suspect it’s been a long time and he just hasn’t gotten around to it. Until now.

From what I gather, the essay by Grabowski (if he has daughters, I hope they use mom’s maiden name) is claiming a brigade of editors who may be Polish Nationalists are whitewashing Polish involvement with the Holocaust, Nazis, etc. They may also be pushing antisemitic tropes. Brigades, Nationalists, Jew hate. Check, check, check. A Wikipedia trifecta. The sides are dug in, what’s ArbCom gonna do? Ban those still standing? Is there a Holocaust set of sanctions similar to the U.S. politics set that can be applied?

[Ognistysztorm]

Baker is a veteran reporter who has written for top publications like The New Yorker and The Washington Post. He has tussled with the Church of Scientology. In 2005, he won the Deadline Club award for his exclusive reporting on George W. Bush's military record. Baker was among the first to cast doubt on Colin Powell's now-infamous presentation on Iraq at the United Nations – at the time a very unpopular stance – and among the first to make Americans aware of the impending genocide in Rwanda. But presently, he is concerned about Wikipedia's biographies.

Looks like Baker is an interesting cat, who doesn’t mind going to the mats in pursuit of a story. More importantly he has good instincts (BLP concerns). I don’t know how long he’s been sniffing at the edge of Wikipedia’s robes, but I suspect it’s been a long time and he just hasn’t gotten around to it. Until now.

From what I gather, the essay by Grabowski (if he has daughters, I hope they use mom’s maiden name) is claiming a brigade of editors who may be Polish Nationalists are whitewashing Polish involvement with the Holocaust, Nazis, etc. They may also be pushing antisemitic tropes. Brigades, Nationalists, Jew hate. Check, check, check. A Wikipedia trifecta. The sides are dug in, what’s ArbCom gonna do? Ban those still standing? Is there a Holocaust set of sanctions similar to the U.S. politics set that can be applied?

Just asking, does anybody else noticed the unusual increase in spates of big-level Wikipedia criticism/controversies in the past few months? First there was Anonymous, then Elon Musk, and then the Saudi editors, followed by the warping of Native American topics, and finally this and Baker.

[Bezdomni]

I notice Marcin 303 has been hiding lots of blue WP:EGGs in various town entries, e.g. diff #1014695200.

That editor is not mentioned in the G & K paper, right? Why didn't they appear on Icewhiz's radar?

Interesting question, Piotrus. They did cross paths. If you check Eostrix's contribs you'll see they edited the same pages twice. Perhaps he just wanted to keep a low profile while trying to infiltrate the admin corps?

You can tell a lot about someone by what they leave out.

I noticed in VM's substack for example that he mentions that the links in the Grabowski doc are broken, but rather than mentioning that you can simply copy and paste them without any change whatsoever, he says that people in the know can find the links. Curious strategy (like the lack of diffs in general). You just have to take it on faith that VM is telling you the whole story.

[Midsize Jake]

I noticed in VM's substack for example that he mentions that the links in the Grabowski doc are broken, but rather than mentioning that you can simply copy and paste them without any change whatsoever, he says that people in the know can find the links.

It looks like they've fixed the links now, actually, sometime within the last 48 hours or so...?

Still, he's right, or at least he was right. You've got to be in the know to find those links, but AFAIK that's only because "know" is the Polish word for "sausage factory."

[Trench]

Does Jan Grabowski have a Wiki account ?

[Hemiauchenia]

Does Jan Grabowski have a Wiki account ?

No. But I remember at one point Piotrius remarking how he had asked Grabowski for a list of what he thought was wrong with a particular Wikipedia article, and Grabowski refused, though I don't have the diff for this.

[Bezdomni]

Just out of curiosity, how do you know that Grabowski doesn't have an account?

Coming back to the question of what people leave out speaking volumes about their biases, I notice that in The Forgotten Holocaust (T-H-L) Piotrus had cited 16 positive words (permalink) from a WaPo review by an eminent historian and 5 negative words. Anybody who reads the review can see that this is inversely proportional to the 3 critical paragraphs:

• "Lukas seriously underplays",
• "Lukas completely ignores",
• "Lukas seems unwilling to accept",

one primarily encouraging paragraph, and one paragraph which starts with an encouraging sentence (cited in extenso) and which finishes with sharp (mostly uncited) criticism ("his work is marred by an additional agenda").

[charliemouse]

I'm late to this discussion so my apologies if this has been thrashed out before. I don't understand how Arbcom can wade into a content dispute, which this basically is. It is specifically tasked with not doing so. True, all editor behavior issues involve content, but in this case content is the issue. The complaint is that the content is biased in a major way on major subject over a series of articles.

I read the paper and I thought it was good. But I'm still puzzled by this whole thing.

[orangepi]

I'm late to this discussion so my apologies if this has been thrashed out before. I don't understand how Arbcom can wade into a content dispute, which this basically is. It is specifically tasked with not doing so. True, all editor behavior issues involve content, but in this case content is the issue. The complaint is that the content is biased in a major way on major subject over a series of articles.

I read the paper and I thought it was good. But I'm still puzzled by this whole thing.

So "ARBCOM doesn't do content disputes" isn't really true. What ARBCOM doesn't do is decide content disputes by a vote of the committee.

Once upon a time, "ARBCOM doesn't do content disputes" was true because content disputes went to MEDCOM or something. Now there is just ARBCOM. Once a dispute becomes intractable, they have to deal with it.

And, while the process is proceeding excruciatingly slow so far, they haven't messed anything up yet.

[Hemiauchenia]

Just out of curiosity, how do you know that Grabowski doesn't have an account?

As far as I can recall, he doesn't have a Wikipedia account publicly linked to his real identity, unless you are insinuating that he has an anonymous account.

[Bezdomni]

Just out of curiosity, how do you know that Grabowski doesn't have an account?

As far as I can recall, he doesn't have a Wikipedia account publicly linked to his real identity, unless you are insinuating that he has an anonymous account.

I was just wondering if he'd said that somewhere, because you seemed quite sure. I am not insinuating anything: I have no idea whether he has a pseudonymous account or not. Admittedly, it does seem unlikely.

[Trench]

TrangaBellam (T-C-L) is reported by Marcelus (T-C-L) in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

The committee has taken note of this situation --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 13:00, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
An IP calls You Commie Jew lover, go away! We know who you, we're going to get you. Step away right now while you still can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1142605309

[Konveyor Belt]

It has now been over a week since the case request was paused pending creation of the case pages. This is the longest time that it's taken to open a case after it has been accepted that I can remember.

[Bezdomni]

There's quite a few laudable TNT operations going on at the moment, which I imagine would be effectively chilled if a case were opened before the investigations were complete.

Moreover, I imagine too that the Inquisitor Arbs are looking into the 1000+ IPN refs Marcin 303 has contributed in such a short time span (weekends only).

Maybe the IPN should be a party, rather than just commenting on Twitter?

[Midsize Jake]

It has now been over a week since the case request was paused pending creation of the case pages. This is the longest time that it's taken to open a case after it has been accepted that I can remember.

Maybe they've changed their minds?

I don't know if anyone else has been tracking this, but it very much looks like the non-Israeli media isn't going anywhere near this story, and (IMO) for good reason. If the Arbcom folks were smart, they'd take advantage of this and backtrack as much as they possibly can — because when and if they do move forward with the case, the chances of it getting picked up by the tech media or even some of the major outlets increases substantially.

*Edit* - I looked at the IPN tweets a little more closely and saw that they were responding to this article in Der Spiegel, which is obviously not based in Israel, so I guess that's one inch closer to a general breakout. I couldn't get Google Translate to do the whole page for some reason, but it's pretty much the same as the Israeli-media stuff, only even more focused on Grabowski & Klein, with no apparent mention of Wikipedians at all except in the abstract. If the English-language media stories (assuming anyone runs any) look like this... that's going to leave a mark.

[Konveyor Belt]

It has now been over a week since the case request was paused pending creation of the case pages. This is the longest time that it's taken to open a case after it has been accepted that I can remember.

Maybe they've changed their minds?

I don't know if anyone else has been tracking this, but it very much looks like the non-Israeli media isn't going anywhere near this story, and (IMO) for good reason. If the Arbcom folks were smart, they'd take advantage of this and backtrack as much as they possibly can — because when and if they do move forward with the case, the chances of it getting picked up by the tech media or even some of the major outlets increases substantially.

I think you're overestimating the media pull of ArbCom. News outlets have reported on ArbCom decisions on a topic when "[topic] on Wikipedia" is already a story. ArbCom decisions do not themselves make a non-story a story, they are more reported on as further developments in an established story.

[Midsize Jake]

I think you're overestimating the media pull of ArbCom. News outlets have reported on ArbCom decisions on a topic when "[topic] on Wikipedia" is already a story. ArbCom decisions do not themselves make a non-story a story, they are more reported on as further developments in an established story.

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm saying the Arbcom folks might have a short-window chance to downplay this and avoid wider media coverage, which (IMO) is what sane people would want under the circumstances. But the longer it goes on, the more likely it'll get picked up by the New York Times et al, who will basically just repeat the "Wikipedia is intentionally distorting the Holocaust!" headline ad infinitum.

Of course, I have no idea if anyone on the Arbcom is sane, though I strongly suspect most of them aren't. Either way, maybe they want that kind of attention...? If so, I just hope for their sake they've taken extra steps to ensure their continued anonymity.

[Konveyor Belt]

I think you're overestimating the media pull of ArbCom. News outlets have reported on ArbCom decisions on a topic when "[topic] on Wikipedia" is already a story. ArbCom decisions do not themselves make a non-story a story, they are more reported on as further developments in an established story.

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm saying the Arbcom folks might have a short-window chance to downplay this and avoid wider media coverage, which (IMO) is what sane people would want under the circumstances. But the longer it goes on, the more likely it'll get picked up by the New York Times et al, who will basically just repeat the "Wikipedia is intentionally distorting the Holocaust!" headline ad infinitum.

Of course, I have no idea if anyone on the Arbcom is sane, though I strongly suspect most of them aren't. Either way, maybe they want that kind of attention...? If so, I just hope for their sake they've taken extra steps to ensure their continued anonymity.

What I was trying to say is that when ArbCom renders a decision, it is unlikely to get picked up by the New York Times (or others). The journal article is already published, and the media has had quite some time to consider whether it's worth covering. If the article wasn't enough to get it picked up, an internal Wikipedia board certainly won't be. ArbCom is still very much inside baseball to people not intimately familiar with Wikipedia.

Separately, ArbCom not rendering a decision within some unspecified time frame is unlikely to get suddenly picked up by the New York Times. There is nothing that ArbCom needs to "get out in front of" here, since the journal article is already out.

The only possible future development that might make get the story covered (and force ArbCom to quicken their pace) is if Grabowski and Klein decide to go on a publicity tour for the paper. This again seems unlikely, given that the paper has been out for some time.

[Midsize Jake]

What I was trying to say is that when ArbCom renders a decision, it is unlikely to get picked up by the New York Times (or others). The journal article is already published, and the media has had quite some time to consider whether it's worth covering. If the article wasn't enough to get it picked up, an internal Wikipedia board certainly won't be. ArbCom is still very much inside baseball to people not intimately familiar with Wikipedia.

Ah, OK...

I don't mean to grill you on this or anything, but you don't think the fact that this is about the Holocaust is going to make this an exception to that rule?

I also agree about the "inside baseball" thing, but that's probably why the Israeli media keeps referring to it as "Wikipedia's 'Supreme Court.'" Not only does that convert the concept into something more people are familiar with, it also gets eyeballs on their coverage whenever people run searches on that term, at a time when everyone in the US (and now Israel, too) is justifiably concerned about certain institutions bearing that name.

As for the amount of time, it's been less than a month... Personally, I don't think that's an especially long time for something like this, but I could always be wrong about that.

[jf1970]

that's probably why the Israeli media keeps referring to it as "Wikipedia's 'Supreme Court.'"

Jewish Telegraphic Agency is not Israeli media. It was founded in Holland and has been headquartered in NYC since before Israel existed.

[Ognistysztorm]

Spiegel coverage:

https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/gesch ... 2b2e8f6c1e

Also, inspired by a comment elsewhere, the singular and prominent salient about this case is that established players in Wikipedia are so used inside bubbles and echo chambers and have no clue that they are too over their heads.

Pro-Jewish advocacies and lobby view things like this very seriously due to the strong motivation to keep Holocaust from happening ever again. Thus if Wikipedia and WMF's response is unsatisfactory for them, they'll go after these themselves, including functionaries and arbitrators. The advocacies, particularly those related to Holocaust remembrance, have enjoyed full support and symphathy from all Western media, governments, corporations, and just about everything in mainstream regular popular culture and social media.

There are a number of editors some of which I know that are so-called "exopedians" or "wikipacifists" who aren't really assimilated by the permeating toxic culture yet. It's wise for them to pack a bug out bag and run to competitor platforms as fast as they can, before the arrival of the comeuppance which the gloves come off, Wikipedia become Internet enemy #1 overnight, and Kumioko finally stop whining about his bad experiences upon seeing his wildest wish come true and getting vindicated.

[Midsize Jake]

...and Kumioko finally stop whining about his bad experiences...

Y'know, I was pretty much with you for most of that, but then you just had to end it with a total absurdity.

[Ognistysztorm]

...and Kumioko finally stop whining about his bad experiences...

Y'know, I was pretty much with you for most of that, but then you just had to end it with a total absurdity.

I'd call that an euphemism for Wikipedia's total downfall. After all I'm old enough to remember that there was once a huge video site called Metacafe, which is a comparable rival to YouTube in its peak. In the end Dailymotion and Vimeo rose up and caused Metacafe to fade into obscurity before getting shuttered in 2021, with its domain now a mere redirect.

[Konveyor Belt]

Ah, OK...

I don't mean to grill you on this or anything, but you don't think the fact that this is about the Holocaust is going to make this an exception to that rule?

I also agree about the "inside baseball" thing, but that's probably why the Israeli media keeps referring to it as "Wikipedia's 'Supreme Court.'" Not only does that convert the concept into something more people are familiar with, it also gets eyeballs on their coverage whenever people run searches on that term, at a time when everyone in the US (and now Israel, too) is justifiably concerned about certain institutions bearing that name.

As for the amount of time, it's been less than a month... Personally, I don't think that's an especially long time for something like this, but I could always be wrong about that.

As far as the timeframe I had in mind the 24 hour news cycle, where a month is quite long. However, I was thinking earlier it could be ripe for a longform deep dive in a New Yorker style publication, but those usually take place after the dust has settled, as they rarely do follow ups. I'd think the author would wait for ArbCom if they were planning an article.

It being the Holocaust is definitely important. Nobody from outside the topic area gives two hoots about the other ArbCom case going on right now (we don't even have a thread on it). But everybody knows the Holocaust and knows it was bad, so the headline "Wikipedia distorting Holocaust history?" would certainly get some eyes. The increase in antisemitism has become a recognized issue. There's also the Supreme Court tie-ins you mentioned.

I think then that the main obstacle holding up media from reporting on this has to be the journal article itself. For now, its the only place that these allegations come from. If the media read it and it didn't pass the smell test, they can't have a story (yet).

[Volunteer Marek]

Ah, OK...

I don't mean to grill you on this or anything, but you don't think the fact that this is about the Holocaust is going to make this an exception to that rule?

I also agree about the "inside baseball" thing, but that's probably why the Israeli media keeps referring to it as "Wikipedia's 'Supreme Court.'" Not only does that convert the concept into something more people are familiar with, it also gets eyeballs on their coverage whenever people run searches on that term, at a time when everyone in the US (and now Israel, too) is justifiably concerned about certain institutions bearing that name.

As for the amount of time, it's been less than a month... Personally, I don't think that's an especially long time for something like this, but I could always be wrong about that.

As far as the timeframe I had in mind the 24 hour news cycle, where a month is quite long. However, I was thinking earlier it could be ripe for a longform deep dive in a New Yorker style publication, but those usually take place after the dust has settled, as they rarely do follow ups. I'd think the author would wait for ArbCom if they were planning an article.

It being the Holocaust is definitely important. Nobody from outside the topic area gives two hoots about the other ArbCom case going on right now (we don't even have a thread on it). But everybody knows the Holocaust and knows it was bad, so the headline "Wikipedia distorting Holocaust history?" would certainly get some eyes. The increase in antisemitism has become a recognized issue. There's also the Supreme Court tie-ins you mentioned.

I think then that the main obstacle holding up media from reporting on this has to be the journal article itself. For now, its the only place that these allegations come from. If the media read it and it didn't pass the smell test, they can't have a story (yet).

Thing is, any "deep dive" is going to be as much a "Professional historians collaborate with a sociopathic troll banned from Wikipedia" story as the "evil Polish editors control Wikipedia" one. Someone might start pulling on that thread called "Icewhiz" and then the whole sweater might come apart. In trying to publicize their article, I don't think the authors really thought this through. It's one thing to get sympathetic coverage on twitter, where it's all an echo chamber anyway. It might be another if anyone outside of that echo chamber gets curious and starts asking questions in search of a bigger story.

[Konveyor Belt]

An update from Barkeep:

The Arbitration Committee has been hard at work behind the scenes coming to an agreement about the structure of the case. We shared several of these details today with the clerks list. This has sparked some more discussion and has led to more refinement. After a new agreement is reached, the committee and clerks will likely need a few days to setup the case. So while I had said elsewhere that I was hoping for early next week, I'm going to say that I still hope for early next week, but sometime next week seems like a more reasonable estimate at this point.

[Ognistysztorm]

DW Polish service:

https://www.dw.com/pl/der-spiegel-o-fa% ... a-64881499

[Midsize Jake]

that's probably why the Israeli media keeps referring to it as "Wikipedia's 'Supreme Court.'"

Jewish Telegraphic Agency is not Israeli media. It was founded in Holland and has been headquartered in NYC since before Israel existed.

Sorry, I meant to respond to this yesterday, but I got sidetracked... Admittedly I didn't realize the JTA was founded in Holland and based in NYC, so I hope nobody was offended (not that I can imagine why anyone would be).

But while I don't mean to be argumentative here, what seems to have happened is that an initial article was published by Haaretz on Feb. 14, and two weeks later on Feb. 28-ish, the JTA's similar article appeared — written by their reporter Asaf Elia-Shalev who is apparently based in California. Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post just republished the JTA article via syndication, they didn't assign their own reporters to look into this.

So the JTA's article is the only one of the three so far with the "Supreme Court" headline, and that's the one getting republished, with that headline intact. The Spiegel piece only appears in the German edition, not the International (i.e., English) one, and the DW.com article seems to be more a report on the Spiegel article itself than on the situation at hand, and is also not available in English (yet). Meanwhile, the stories about the Israeli ruling coalition's proposal to basically gut the Israeli Supreme Court started to appear in Western media outlets around Feb. 23. The "Wikipedia's Supreme Court" headline could of course be a coincidence, or maybe it's an attempt by Elia-Shalev to draw more attention to his article by "piggybacking" on a bigger story. But it's suspicious-looking either way, if you ask me.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the coverage so far doesn't appear to be "breaking out" in a way that's likely to threaten Wikipedia's oh-so-stellar reputation in English-speaking countries — at least not yet. I think what we might have here is a "who blinks first" situation, whereby none of the major English-language media outlets want to be the first to report on this. But in the unlikely event one of them does, then the rest will probably follow suit, at which point this could become a Big Deal.

So what should Wikipedia(ns) do in this situation, if anything? I guess the proactive approach would be to drop hints to any journalist contacts they might have that this is a "tempest in a teapot," essentially an edit war that became a personal wiki-hate-fest that then spilled out into the real world. Maybe throw in a little bit of "y'know, there aren't really that many people who read these articles and accept them at face value," and "don't worry, we're hard at work busily cleaning up whatever inaccuracies have been reported as we speak" — whether or not they actually are. But maybe that approach would be a mistake, in that it would draw unwanted attention to what's going on, and they'd be better off slow-rolling the whole business and not saying a word.

I honestly have no idea what the answer is.

[Bezdomni]

I honestly have no idea what the answer is.

Probably less catbell.

[Midsize Jake]

Probably less catbell.

There are situations, though, where you might want to have your cat wear a bell — mostly for safety reasons and to make it easier to find the cat should he/she run off into someone else's backyard or into the woods or something. I assume the Arbcom members understand this, and act accordingly when taking their cats outside. But while this is certainly a controversial topic, most veterinarians will nevertheless tell you that you should keep your cats indoors at all times, and maybe just let them have some fresh air through screened windows and what-not if that seems to improve their general morale. That's because once they're outside, they might eat something that could give them intestinal parasites, or an even worse ailment like Cryptically Oblique Allusion Syndrome (COAS), which has been known to affect both mature cats and kittens as young as 3 months old.

[Bezdomni]

Hehe. Poor Jake is always puzzled. In 2015, when GCB created their account, they wrote on their homepage: GizzyCatBella welcomes you at his talk page!

Based on the gender of "his" one might think it more likely that their pseudo alluded to the freshly-created Bellingcat (T-H-L) than to the much older and more biblical story of Jezebel (T-H-L). However, in Polish, as in most I-E languages, the possessive agrees in (grammatical) gender with the object possessed rather than with the (biological) gender of the possessor.

The only problem with this explanation for GCB's incredible! sex-change is that "strona" (page) is feminine. In any case, GCB's English-language skills improved notably in the two years they took off right after joining.

One thing is sure, since their return in 2018, GCB has shown great passion as a hunter of anything icewhizzian and is diligent about spraying any socks and their writings. Here's a recent example, from the RSN archives (§). Very territorial, GCB can be observed belling (with diff necklaces) those who "wade into" Piotrian or Marekian space showing too many signs of intelligence.

I wish GCB a happier fate than their namesake (if indeed it is Jezebel). It looks like this time they'll just be getting another warning that next time they pee on the bathmat they might get a tap on the tail.

ps: mouse tip: if you need to escape quickly to en.wp hover over the word "diff" above.

[Volunteer Marek]

Recently Gitz6666 made a mistake in his edits, where he described the Blue Police (which was staffed by Poles) as "Jewish collaborators". It was a straight up error and I corrected him and it's all good. But it does serve as a good way to explain how insanely toxic this area was/is-becoming-again. Imagine if Gitz6666 was one of the evil "Polish nationalist" editors! I wrote up an illustration on their talk and maybe folks here will also find it interesting:link

[Bezdomni]

Looks like the dust has settled after Marek's misleading accusations at AE. Articles continue to be a problem for Mr. Marek. Here he confused an indefinite article with a definite article and got out his bullhorn and high horse to protest his innocence: "but I was never even at the page!!" An admin swooned and was swayed by Marek's sobbing. Two people pointed out the cunningly accidental misreading of "at a page" and the admin struck out his change of position.

Is being dishonest at Arbitration Enforcement a behavioral issue, even if you're Marek ?

Oh, what's that you say? It was plausibly-deniably an innocent mistake?

Well then, Marek would have apologized to "the court" for making it, no?

Of course he couldn't a-POL-o-gize for misleading the court ! He was much too busy writing his 6.5K icewhizzian morality play on someone else's talk page about someone else's mistake somewhere else (and screening it above for your pleasure).

[Midsize Jake]

Well then, Marek would have apologized to "the court" for making it, no?

Naah — if you're constantly being accused of stuff you don't deserve to be accused of, the apology requirement basically goes out the window. Do you ever apologize for being vague, nebulous, and trying to distract people with puns, homonyms and unusual formatting? If so, I don't remember it.

[Volunteer Marek]

Looks like the dust has settled after Marek's misleading accusations at AE. Articles continue to be a problem for Mr. Marek. Here he confused an indefinite article with a definite article and got out his bullhorn and high horse to protest his innocence: "but I was never even at the page!!" An admin swooned and was swayed by Marek's sobbing. Two people pointed out the cunningly accidental misreading of "at a page" and the admin struck out his change of position.

Is being dishonest at Arbitration Enforcement a behavioral issue, even if you're Marek ?

Oh, what's that you say? It was plausibly-deniably an innocent mistake?

Well then, Marek would have apologized to "the court" for making it, no?

Of course he couldn't a-POL-o-gize for misleading the court ! He was much too busy writing his 6.5K icewhizzian morality play on someone else's talk page about someone else's mistake somewhere else (and screening it above for your pleasure).

Can you please fuck off?

[Bezdomni]

Sure, I'll just read through the fight you're in now at the Signpost newsroom. I notice Haeb calling you out for distorting what he told you there too. Seems almost like a pattern... get caught fibbing, start swearing...

It's too bad really. Were you a little less of a prick, people would be more likely to defend you against unfair claims. I'm pleased to see that Andreas is doing so.

[Midsize Jake]

Sure, I'll just read through the fight you're in now at the Signpost newsroom. I notice Haeb calling you out for distorting what he told you there too. Seems almost like a pattern... get caught fibbing, start swearing...

It's too bad really. Were you a little less of a prick, people would be more likely to defend you against unfair claims. I'm pleased to see that Andreas is doing so.

Look, Mr. Bezdomni, you know I have nothing against you personally, but I can just about guarantee that these posts of yours in this thread are not having the effect you think they're having. In fact, they're probably having the opposite effect you think they're having. This is serious shit, okay? Being wry, clever, oblique and/or silly has its place, and everyone knows I appreciate silly, but this really isn't that place. Even I'm having a hard time trying to play along with it, honestly.

Meanwhile, your opponents have been busy writing up detailed, point-by-point refutations of Grabowski/Klein, all supported by diffs and contextual references and working links to archived discussions going all the way back to the dark days of 2006. You might think, "oh, nobody's going to read those walls of text," but I've read them, and the people who are going to decide on all this stuff will read them too, if they haven't already. And frankly, most of it is pretty convincing.

And what have you got? He used "a" instead of "the," so off with his head? Some numbskull calling himself HaeB (T-C-L), who's obviously trying to railroad VM into a civility ban, inexplicably saying "Icewhiz has nothing to do with this"? Could there possibly be a bigger "WTF!" statement than that?

I didn't think I'd be saying this so early on, but at this point I think you're on the losing side of this whole dispute. Grabowski and Klein are smart people — getting directly involved in Wikipedia-based discussions of their paper is the absolute last thing they want to do. It's a mud-pit, they obviously don't want to bring themselves down to that level, they'd be completely out of their depth, the Wikipedians know it, and pretty soon those Wikipedians are going to get tired of having to do their mud-pit wrestling for them. The fact that it's about the Holocaust helps them, because (among other things) it prevents people like you and me from turning it into a joke-fest, but I think it's a serious miscalculation to assume that The Holocaust! is some sort of golden ticket or magical talisman that means nobody can disagree with anything you say, no matter how poorly-researched it is.

So once again, I'm having to watch a situation play out where I should be on the side of the seemingly well-meaning people who are trashing Wikipedia, but I can't because their approach is "trollish" at best and their research is low-grade shite. This keeps happening, and it sucks. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see soon enough, but they're going to need a significant change of strategy, and soon, if they really want to get this done.

[Bezdomni]

a 2017 IPN book by Maria Wardzysńska (Wysiedlenia ludności polskiej z okupowanych ziem polskich włączonych do III Rzeszy w latach 1939-1945) is present in 362 entries at en.wp (0 entries at pl.wp as of this writing):

3 editions published in 2017 in Polish and held by 17 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

another, by the same author, Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion. is present in 565 entries at en.wp (92 entries at pl.wp as of this writing).

5 editions published in 2009 in Polish and held by 33 WorldCat member libraries worldwide.

What do you know about Maria Wardzysńska, Jake?
Maria Wardzyńska: 2 books in 50 libraries, cited at least 927 times in en.wp article space

And about Marcin 303 (T-C-L)'s curious timecard?

For sake of comparison:

Jan Grabowski

2 books in 1010 libraries, cited at least 30 times in en.wp article space

Dalej jest noc : losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski; 10 editions published in 2018 in Polish and held by 57 WorldCat member libraries worldwide, cited in 9 entries in en.wp article space, 8 entries in pl.wp article space

Hunt for the Jews : betrayal and murder in German-occupied Poland by Jan Grabowski, 16 editions published between 2011 and 2013 in English and Polish and held by 953 WorldCat member libraries worldwide, cited in 21 entries in en.wp article space, 3 entries in pl.wp (Polish edition)

Maybe, too, GCB will comment on her sex-change and markedly improved language skills from 2016 to 2018. Surely, there's a simple explanation that doesn't involve sharing...

[Midsize Jake]

Maria Wardzyńska: 2 books in 50 libraries, cited at least 927 times in en.wp article space

We've already been over this. You don't mention the fact that 90% of those cites are essentially the same thing, just adding individual death counts in the articles on nearly every small town in Poland. Sure, some people won't bother to look, but for the people who do, all you're doing is putting doubt in their heads about everything else you're saying.

[Bezdomni]

Maria Wardzyńska: 2 books in 50 libraries, cited at least 927 times in en.wp article space

We've already been over this. You don't mention the fact that 90% of those cites are essentially the same thing, just adding individual death counts in the articles on nearly every small town in Poland. Sure, some people won't bother to look, but for the people who do, all you're doing is putting doubt in their heads about everything else you're saying.

People who do look will see that it's a question of reframing, eliminating full paragraphs about Jewish losses so that they instead begin with Polish losses and end with heroic Poles who tried to rescue Jews. It varies though, see for example Szczekociny (T-H-L). I haven't landed on a page yet where Marcin 303 adds IPN data on the number of szmalcownik (T-H-L) in a town, but I suppose that's not their mission.

You said I was talking about a" and "the"... that's not quite right is it? It seems to me that question about articles was about trying to get someone sanctioned.

[Volunteer Marek]

Can we create a separate thread for Bezdomni and let him post there to his heart content? It's pretty clear they are trying to drown out any discussion of the actual issue with just endless inanities.

[Ognistysztorm]

Berliner Zeitung
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-so ... -li.321456

[Ryuichi]

Can we create a separate thread for Bezdomni and let him post there to his heart content? It's pretty clear they are trying to drown out any discussion of the actual issue with just endless inanities.

Speaking personally, I quite like the ramblings of the Sora Shills. I do take them with the requisite pincée de sel. But they're not alone in that regard; possibly only just taking the bronze for "needs salt" in this very thread.

[Konveyor Belt]

Can we create a separate thread for Bezdomni and let him post there to his heart content? It's pretty clear they are trying to drown out any discussion of the actual issue with just endless inanities.

Speaking personally, I quite like the ramblings of the Sora Shills. I do take them with the requisite pincée de sel. But they're not alone in that regard; possibly only just take the bronze for "needs salt" in this very thread.

It's like being at a sporting event when someone starts a fight in the stands. It's going to take away your focus from the game, but damn if it isn't fun to watch.

[Midsize Jake]

You said I was talking about a" and "the"... that's not quite right is it? It seems to me that question about articles was about trying to get someone sanctioned.

You expect me to spend three hours or more poring through endless diffs and talk-page bickering to figure out what you're actually talking about?

[Volunteer Marek]

We can play a little game of "who wrote that". Which side is Grabowski and Klein and which one is someone writing on Wikipedia? If this kind of thing happened in reverse (external source to Wikipedia) we would call it a copyvio and plagiarism if it was unattributed.

And yes, I know both pieces included precise quotations from the subject. Still, they quote the *exact* same parts of the sentences from the subject whereas the underlying source had plenty of other material to quote from.

So either G&K just cribbed from Wikipedia without acknowledging original author or... somebody wrote this for them (and given the obscurity of some of the refs elsewhere and how deep they're buried in the article and talk page and drama board histories ... yeah, does anyone sincerely believe that Grabowski and Klein were able to find that one 15 year old diff about my name all on their own? The one which I myself didn't even remember existed?)

A little hint: No, it wasn't Icewhiz

[Ognistysztorm]

Anonymous somehow weighed in and put another punch:

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4828910

The collective also railed against Wikipedia for allegedly underrepresenting women in its articles, having a "spending cancer," engaging in deletionism, and committing POV skewing. It also accused Wikipedia of failing to adequately support two Wikipedia Arabic editors, Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who have been imprisoned by the Saudi government for "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals."

The third page merely includes the Anonymous logo, a screen capture of the balloon's control panel, and a meme showing an irate Greta Thunberg with the words "How dare Wikipedia" printed above and "Distorts to insult holocaust victims and survivors" below.

They're f*cked.

[Smultronstället]

Anonymous somehow weighed in and put another punch:

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4828910

The collective also railed against Wikipedia for allegedly underrepresenting women in its articles, having a "spending cancer," engaging in deletionism, and committing POV skewing. It also accused Wikipedia of failing to adequately support two Wikipedia Arabic editors, Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who have been imprisoned by the Saudi government for "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals."

The third page merely includes the Anonymous logo, a screen capture of the balloon's control panel, and a meme showing an irate Greta Thunberg with the words "How dare Wikipedia" printed above and "Distorts to insult holocaust victims and survivors" below.

They're f*cked.

They singled out Bbb23 as being a jerk on Wikipedia and highlighted other online pedia options as well.

[Trench]

3 people logged in polish area

Following this AE thread:

Marcelus (T-C-L) (talk · contribs) subject to a 0RR restriction across the Eastern Europe topic area for edit warring,
TrangaBellam (T-C-L) (talk · contribs) is warned for edit warring and combative discussion style, and
GizzyCatBella (T-C-L) (talk · contribs) is warned for making off-topic or discussion-derailing comments on talk pages.
—HJ Mitchell (T-C-L) | Penny for your thoughts? 19:14, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

[Giraffe Stapler]

The Signpost decided this would be a good idea to let some people write a review of the Grabowski/Klein article. The comments page is already semi-protected because of antisemitic comments from IP editors.