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History of Solidarity

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It has been some time since I nominated a FAC, but I hope it was worth it :) History of Solidarity, perhaps the most famous trade union in the world, and one of the most widely recognized Poland-related subjects. Pictures, citations... I hope you enjoy it. Comments, as always, appreciated! -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Imporper refs.To begin with, please either remove or rereference statements referred to books published by Xlibris. This is the house for self-published authors. Serious academics do not use it as they are published by the Unviersity press and reputable publishers. While it might be OK to refer to such book when stating a fact one witnessed (memoirs are OK), judgements from such books (like Solidarity is responsible for the Europe-wide fall of communism), are unacceptable. --Irpen 22:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • One book by XLibris is used as inline citation three times, in all cases it is accompanied by another source (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Routledge). While you may dispute reliability of Xlibris, please note that Solidarity's importance in the fall of communism is also supported by this citation, and I am sure you will agree Routledge is a reliable publisher ("The first blodless transition from Communism to democracy [...] set the signal for other countries").-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Even "set the signal" is a highly POV statement that belongs to a single author. But even that is not the same as "sparked off". Anyway, I already corrected that. But pls remove the refs to XLibris book entirely as it is used exclusively to support not facts but opinions. --Irpen 23:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see no reason to remove XLibris book, it's a useful secondary refs, nowehere used as an only ref. And since you seem not convinced about causation in Solidarity contributing to the Autumn of Nations, here is another citation, from Princeton University Press book: "[Solidarity's] influence throughout the region was incalculable. [...] We will then see how the [...] Polish opposition inspired the rest of the region through 1989". See this page from that book for a specific example of how Solidarity influenced events in Hungary. I hope that two citations are enough for you, if not, then please provide references that state Solidarity's had little or no influence on the Revolutions of 1989 and fall of communism. PS. In case 2:0 is not convincing, here is 4:0 - [1], [2]. You'll forgive me if I will not cite the text here at that time (those two refs specifically mention Solidarity's contribution to the 'fall of communism')-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reagan and Pope pictures. What are they doing here and how do they illustrate the article? --Irpen 23:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps you should read the article and see where the text mentions Reagan and Pope. Then you will see the relevance of those photos. If still in doubt, letm me throw this helpful ref; it should clarify the reasons for why those pics are there.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I read the article. I see those pics out of place. --Irpen 00:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Could you be more specific? On my screen they are more or less below the para describing the importance of those personas.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • This image of Reagan talking to Pope or this one when talking to Gorby are just clutter. The only time Reagan is mentoned in the text is in the sentence: "Ronald Reagan imposed economic sanctions on Poland". How is this illustrated by those images? --Irpen 01:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Sanctions were important, and the text also mentions aid to Solidarity. Further the caption of the picture is a good place to note the alliance of Reagan and the Pope. As for the Gorby picture, it's and old relic, from before I found more relevant pictures; if you think it's really an unneeded clutter, be bold and remove it, although Gorby was important to Solidarity too - perahps you'd like to expand the para mentioning him with a sentence or two on how his policies allowed Solidarity to fluorish?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  02:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • If you want to speak about alliance of Reagan and Pope do so in relevant articles. And in any case, even if you think it belongs to this article (IMO it does not) "good place to note" it is the article's text which should be illustrated by the pic. The pic was disconnected from the article it was supposed to illustrate. Same with Gorby pic. The pic was disconnected and had a nonsense caption too. The meeting, by itself, does not signify the imnprovement of relations. Brezhnev met Ford, Carter and Reagan. See eg. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. --Irpen 02:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • Considering that Solidarity was one of the main rasons and targets of Reagan and Pope alliance, I'd believe it deserves a mention here. You are correct that the information should be in text, not the picture - I will fix it. As for the Gorby meeting, I don't know much about it, so I am assuming you are right and it was unnecessary.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • "one of the main rasons and targets of Reagan and Pope alliance" was Poland and not Solidarity. This whole stuff belongs to articles about politics, countries and their histories, not the article about a labor Union where you attempt to retell the history of Poland from 70s till today. Seems like POV forking to me. --Irpen 22:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm stopping here but there are some other examples as well in the text... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 17:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In which part of the article do we claim that Solidarity was responsible for the fall of USSR? As discussed above, we have academic refs that it was responsible for fall of communism in Poland and contributed to the Autumn of Nations in the entire region. What is it that you find questionable, exactly - and what refs do you have to back up your case?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support wholeheartedly. Another great article. Sure, it could do with some better pictures or twice the number of refs (every sentenced referenced by at least three sources could be nice), but I believe it's as close as it gets. And don't forget the lead - all is there and that's how FA leads should look like. //Halibutt 23:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support - some of issues Irpen and Grafik mentioned are worth to attend but overall it looks good Alex Bakharev
  • Support. Very good article. POV issues can always arise but this one really deserves it. - Darwinek 12:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object per Irpen and Grafik fr. We have too many biased FAs (such as Soviet-Polish War) with {{NPOV}} tag applied to them most of the time. No need to spawn more propaganda on Main Page. --Ghirla -трёп- 08:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3/4 support. Had to vote on this one. The contents are very nice, concise, an excellent read. The article could use a few more references though, it'd also be useful to polish up the English here and there. --Ouro 10:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Just one minor point. I would use a different image at the start of the article, as the license for a Time cover image is somewhat restrictive, plus the message it conveys pushes a certain point of view. Balcer 19:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Was there a single instance when a Polish editor did not support Piotrus when voting on FAC? I believe Wikipedia needs to resolve the problem of voting along the national lines, if it wants to keep FAs respected by the wider community of editors. --Ghirla -трёп- 07:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • And was there a single instance when Ghirla supported any Poland-related FA? //Halibutt 11:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Halibutt, getting the politically charged article to a FA level is difficult and almost impossible task. This is because of the very nature of politics. What can Ghirla (or others) do if attempts to FA are always made with the politically charged articles? Why not try FAing some article in the innocent topic where lack of Politics would bring POV issues to zero? Instead one after one you and Piotrus attempt to FA highly controversial articles. The idea of having articles on the complex issue at the FA level is commendeble by itself. But in the current stage of Wikipedia when no scholarly oversight is attempted achieving it is next to impossible. Perhaps such articles may be refined at Citizendium. --Irpen 18:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Feel free to join that wiki fork if you think it is not a total waste of time; I (and Halibutt, I am sure), who have featured many articles about controversial subjects, are sure to stay on Wiki were we feel our work is most needed and we will certainly work on others FAs, without much thought to whether they are controversial or not.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  06:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I agree with comments that the article looks cluttered, there are too many pictures and sveral of them have very undescriptive captions. The article has cite needed tags. It could also use a copyedit (by a native english speaker), there are monsters like this "Even through some among the Solidarity tried to distance themselves from the right-wing government and assume a more left-wing stance, Solidarity was still identified with the government and suffered from the increasing disillusionment of the population, as transition from communist to a capitalist system failed to generate instant wealth and raise living standards in Poland to those in the West, and the shock therapy (Balcerowicz's Plan) generated much opposition.", and there are lots of instances where the phrasing isn't correct and there are basic grammar errors like "worse state then 8 years earlier". The text is also overly familiar in places, and uses foreshadowing like "In reality, the talks would radically alter the shape of the Polish government and society" which I don't think is appropriate for a chronological re-telling of history in an encyclopedia.--Peta 11:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose, I waited a little after expressing my initial concerns and watched how the article goes. Now I conclude that the article has fundamental problems that simply cannot be addressed in its current shape even if a whole lot of good-faith NPOVing is attempted. The main problem of the article is that the it is destined to be an unnecessary POV fork. Whatever material in it belongs actually to the history of the Polish labor union can very well be covered in Solidarity article which is not overly long and does not warrant spinning off the History of Organization from the Organization article itself. As such, whatever in the article is directly related to Solidarity, needs to be moved to the Solidarity article. The article, however, is wider. It attempts to retell the History of Poland and Politics in Poland from 1970s till today. There is absolutely no need for such POV fork. History and Politics articles already exist. Telling the history of Poland through the prizm of the History of Solidarity is destined to be a POV magnet and it is. This article will be getting the cliche catch-phrases by certain POV pushers such as "when Poland "regained independence" from the USSR in 1989 (!) and will never be NPOV. In fact, it is impossible to have an NPOV article which by its concept designed to be a POV fork of other topics. The article is OK to stay if it is so dear to its authors but it cannot do that under the prestigeous "FA" label. --Irpen 18:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Somehow I am not suprised that after I addressed your above objections you decided to oppose on another ground. The article has over 50 inline references, with almost every single fact accompanied by an inline ctatio from western academic publication verifiable online (via Google Print) - but of course without citing a single reference to support your POV you declare the article 'destined to be an unnecessary POV fork'. Your argument that we don't need 'history or an organization' type article is bizzarre: Wiki is not paper and we have both the room for detailed history, and a reason to split a detailed history section from main subject, which should contain sections on structure, influence, membership and such issues. Finally, considering both the influence of this organization and it's political aspect, I see nothing objectionable that it is closely connected to History of Poland (1945-1989); history of Solidarity and history of Poland are obviously connected; just as, for example, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is connected to the history of Russia. Perhaps you should demand that those articles - and many other - are merged, and that nothing less specific then 'history of country' deserves to be FACed? I can see how using your logic one can demand deFAing of Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, as it obviously portrays history of Russia in 1993 through the prism of the Russian constitutional crisis of that year. PS. Many reliable academic authors note that Poland regained independence in 1989: [3] (Central European University), [4],(Routldege) [5] (Cambridge), [6] (Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy), [7] Speech of Polish president (ok, that's not academic, but is interesting). Again, feel free to provide refs to the contrary. Oh, and care to explain your reasoning of using an edit to Karol Świerczewski to object to nomination of History of Solidarity article?? PS2. I wonder if labelling respected editors as 'POV pushers' is not offensive...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • This kind of response is regrettable, but I will try to answer what's answerable in it. My main objection is article's being a fork. You claim I do so "without citing a single reference to support your POV". Who references to support who POV? This is more than about factual accuracy. This is about Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. You say that my argument for the lack of necessity for the history of organization article if the organization article is already there is "bizarre". What's bizarre? What the organization article is left to be about? I do not "demand" anything merged. But if "History of CPSU" is to be merged anywhere it is CPSU and not History of Russia. Most importantly, though, is that "History of CPSU" is not being attempted to get a FA status that would bring 24 hours of the mainpage exposure. So that problem is less pressing at the moment. Your analogy with the constitutional crisis article is so far fetched that I won't even elaborate what the difference is. As for the phrases like "Poland regained independence in 1989", sure some opinionated writers may claim so. I can find references stating that killing animals is Genocide. This won't give me a right to mention this matter-of-factly as an established fact in other articles. Articles to discuss contentious points when both POVs may be presented would be Animal rights and Ethics of eating meat. Similarly, start a Polish statehood article to discuss the POV that Poland lacked any until 1989. --Irpen 01:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Regarding the independence issue, first of all, this is not a concern related to this article. We are discussing History of Solidarity, not some other article, and nowhere does this article mentions that 'Poland regained independence in 1989'. That said, IF the article were to state this, you cannot claim it is POV by 'opinionated authors' (who nonetheless are published by Cambridge University Press) unless you can present an alternative POV backed by sources other then your personal opinions. If you look at the top of this page, you may be suprised to find out that "If you oppose a nomination, write *Object or *Oppose followed by the reason(s). Each objection must provide a specific rationale that can be addressed. If nothing can be done in principle to address the objection, the FA Director may ignore it. ". The same policy applies to your claim that the article is POVed: present sources to back up your claim or your objections may not be counted. You say that 'this is more than about factual accuracy'. Incorrect. Wikipedia policies are verifiability, and neutrality; you fail to make a case that anything else then your personal view would suggest the articles fail to conform to those policies. Last but not least, I already explained to you above that there is no need to merge the 'History...' article with the main organization article. Certainly, some material from it can be used to expand the main article, but 'history of Solidarity' is as encyclopedic as any other history of... article out there. Once the aspect (historical or other) of an article becomes sufficiently long, it is split and expanded in its subarticle; I see no reason why this would not be applicable here.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  02:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Piotrus, my main claim is more fundamental that the article is POVed or inaccurate. The article is a POV fork by design. You see, History of City article is different from the City article because the latter also covers geography, demographics, public transportation, administrative status, city government, etc. Organization is different from the city. I repeat, what is left for the Solidarity article to cover is the history article is spun off? Second, what is left for the History of Poland article of the same period covered by solidarity. The article basically repeats it. It is up to Raul to decide whether to, as you put it, "ignore my comments". Your opinion that he should is very helpful. --Irpen 05:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Indeed, I think it is. Although I am repeating this for the third time, article about history of an organization is not the same thing as an article about an organization (which should cover issues like structure, membership, influences, activities, traditions, etc.) and is not the same thing as history of other entities, larger or smaller, that also happened in this period. If, as you wrote above, your main claim to objection is that you think this article has no right to exist and should be merged into main Solidarity and/or history of Poland articles, than *I* do not think it is a valid objection, especially as dozens of other contributors and reviewers have not arrived at the same conclusion, and we have hundreds of 'history of an organization' articles on Wiki. Although I doubt I can convince you, so indeed, it will be up to Raul to decide whether to count your objection or not.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  06:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Right now, Solidarity is an obscure organization and it owes all its prominence to its history, the role it played in the events of 70s and 80s. Some even think that it played a major role in the Soviet collapse. While ridiculous, it is perhaps a notable opinion of the Polish nationalist thought. Let it be mentioned as such, no objections. Now, in view of the incomparability of the Solidarity's historic role to its current obscurity you want the organization article to be devoted to the harldy notable aspects and keep all the really prominent info in the daughter article. Also, the title allows to fork an entire history of Poland for this period into this article which you have done already. This is an unencyclopedic approach and we cannot have it's exemplification on the main page for 24 hours. --Irpen 20:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose for now. Footnotes go after punctuation, not before, and not in the middle of a sentence. Rlevse 19:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Wiki and standard English rules say at the end of punctuation, not at the end of punctuation when we feel like it. Rlevse 01:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on the question whether the "History of an object" should make part of "this object" article. As indicated by Piotrus, usually this not the case. I would like to stress that in the particular case of History of Solidarity some wikipedia editors were absolutely right to separate it from the Solidarity. The point is, as the article and the references therein explain in details, that historically the Solidarity was quite a different thing from what it is now. Nowadays, the classical definition of a trade union may be successfully applied. Historically, however, it was rather a social mouvement involving about 25% of the population and an unprecendented phenomenon in this part of Europe. We have good reasons to describe it separately. Actually, the present structure of articles helps to understand that important difference (and the Solidarity article can get some more development).--Beaumont (@) 15:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well done. Essentiallly, it wins when compared to many other texts on the subject, encyclopedic ones included. References for any crucial statement. Some language issues can be easily addressed, I would like to see some copyediting in action; a little effort is entirely justified by the quality of the information the article contains (well, I'm making some minor improvements). I think we could wish the article gets into a next encyclopedia contest. --Beaumont (@) 19:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The let's call it historical Solidarity, and the trade union as it is today are quite two different things. I agree that the article needs editing to be understandable in English, but as I saw Logologist already working on it, I'm confident it'll be fine.--SylwiaS | talk 17:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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