User talk:Irpen

• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues
• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 02
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• User talk:Irpen/archived closed issues 05

• If you left a message at my talk, I will most likely respond here rather than at your own talk to preserve the context of the discussion, so please stop by later. However, please consider in many cases to use the article's talk for the issues related to specific articles. Similarly, if I left the message at your talk earlier, I ask you to respond there for the same reason. Don't worry, I will see it!
• I never censor my talk page from most anything, including the criticism of myself left by others. However, I may remove clearly trollish entries, personal attacks on myself (unless I find them amusing) and on others (even less tolerance to those). The rest will be occasionally archived.
• Please stop by at the Wikipedia's Ukraine portal and Russia portal.
• Thank you! --Irpen

PBW talks

I've read all the relevant talk pages before I posted my comments, I wonder what made you think that I didn't. Perhaps I haven't noticed some of the arguments and repeated them, but it was certainly not done in bad faith. Also note that I'm not reverting some of your controversial edits and instead I'm using the talk page. I appreciate your will of discussion and I hope to hear some arguments or a list of things that are actually disputed. Halibutt 00:35, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

For now, I dispute the Kruchkov story, but since it is totally on its head I have doubts about the sources in general, as I pointed at the article's talk.

Also, I would like to see copyvio problems addressed. The article, from which the text was borrowed was not listed in references. I have no way of knowing what else is from where. If you used any other online sources, list them of course, at least at talk, since I cannot just buy and read all the print books listed there. Online refs definetely have to be listed in online WP. Also, only books used in writing should be in references. The rest is "further reading".

In the dispute re outcome of Kiev Offensive we already heard each other. I would like to see what others will say, very much including the Polish editors, maybe not all but most for sure (don't want to call names). Same about Wolodarka.

Finally, for clarity, let's not split the discussion between several pages (yours, mine, articles). You can respond to me at your own talk. I will know :). I only responded here now, because these things are already said at the article's talk. It is important for all conserned editors to see relevant discussions. regards, --Irpen 01:07, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I believe I already adressed all of your concerns on the respective talk pages. I hope to hear from you soon. I also explained where the heck the part on Kruchkov came from. It was about the only online reference I used and now it is mentioned in the talk. As to the copyvio - please take note that it was in the original version by Piotrus, so I believe you should ask him about it, and not me. As to the other voices in the discussion - unfortunately I doubt it will attract more readers as this matter is not that popular nowadays. Or am I wrong?

Anyway, I prefer to respond on people's talk pages as it is easier for them to notice that there is some discussion going on. Otherwise, I'd have to open about 1000 User talk pages every time someone posts a comment there... Halibutt 01:37, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, Irpen, don't get me wrong, I really appreciate your calm responses and your influence on cross-checking the articles. However, you still need to provide any sources at the Battle of Wołodarka talk page - and I seriously doubt you could find any to support your claim. Whichever way you turn the cat... Halibutt 06:30, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Kiev Offensive 1

I understand your frustration. Anyway, maybe a short break and returning to the articles afresh in a couple of days is a good idea. In the meantime, what do you think of my suggestion of writing more articles about the battles/events of the 1920 campaign that would add more balanced view ? As I tried to explain, the articles written by Polish editors are based mostly on Polish historiography, therefore their selection may be intrinsically biased. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 20:04, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I appreciate your attempts to find agreable solutions. You, Piotrus, EugeneK and myself did manage to move the articles forward a little bit before Halibutt got stuck with myself and EugeneK (I don't blame him for his vision of this but I think he did jump the gun too fast and defends his positions to stubbornly, but that's just how strongly one feels that he's right, so no bad blood is drawn).

Writing about other battles, as you proposed, is a good idea. However, this is better to be done by editors with better preparation than myself. I just tried to start from what I saw in the articles that initially alarmed me as making little sense. Only after that I started to dig into the topic. If I get into writing new articles, I would have to do so much research, that I would not be able to do anything else in WP.

As for getting back to this after a break, we'll see. We will need to have some starting points to agree on. Outcome of the battles are crucial and there are no new arguments there to possibly bring up. I asked for an alternative scenario at Wolodarka which would be a draw and how different would that be from what actually happened. I did not get an answer. Halibutt asked, how is this not a victory and also doesn't see responses as an answer. In Kiev, the outcome is so obvious and so well argued at talk, that it is just impossible to believe people can agree on anything if my change of the outcome was called "unexpected, unsupported and unsourced change ... [with evidence I] so far failed to [provide]". Anyway, I got frustrated with arguing itself but not personally with people. I will keep an eye on the articles and might even write at talk pages but I decided against trying to edit them for now. Thanks again! --Irpen 20:46, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I'd love to see Polish, Russian, Ukrainian etc. editors collaborate more than fight. Maybe I'm over-optimistic, but I believe this can gradually be achieved. The first step is respecting each other even if we cannot agree, and I think this is a success already. Edits like this one are very harmful and inflammatory, however. Thanks for putting it down, we don't need a flame war on top of this all.

As to an alternative scenario for a draw at Wolodarka, I'm not sure if there exists any in cases of a charge or siege, when one side is clearly defending its positions only. My view on this is quite mixed, as you've seen. I have to admit that even the Kiev outcome is not 100% clear to me, although I'm rather inclined towards "Soviet victory", but I also understand Halibutt's points. Poles were not defeated there, but withdrew, no Polish army was destroyed. Unlike Soviets, who were later defeated in Battle of Warsaw (1920). See the difference ? Thanks for your patient and cool approach and I appreciate your withdrawing instead of loosing the temper :-) --Wojsyl ^(talk) 21:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

No, no! I did loose my temper and therefore withdrew. As for your specific example, I view it like this. If one is trying to attack, fails and the seige fails because of that (besieging army withdraws), this is the victory of a defender (Battle of Moscow). If the attack did not suceed and things return to where they were, this is inconclusive. Another attack at a later time may or may not be a victory. --Irpen 21:48, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This seems like original research, however. It would be good to have a support of independent (not original) research calling it a draw. This could be difficult, though. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 05:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think it is an overstretch to call this "original research". This is just a simple and obvious logical string. I am sure that you will not find any book or source that would say literally that 1.980458456336502^{1.980458456336502} = 3.8701893442374057953370823328016, but if I need a result of this calculation in some WP article, I am sure I am allowed to use it. The article describes the battle, tells that everyone returned to an initial position and than calls an outcome a "Polish victory". I think your recent change in Wolodarka is a step in the right direction. Thanks again for your help in the search of the resolution. I didn't really plan to do anything there, but what really ticked me off is a complete disregard of my objection via a single-handed removal of my POV tag. Cheers, --Irpen 06:53, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Bah! Indeed, reading your chat here was helpful (see my recent comment on Talk:Battle of Wołodarka). Hope that ends the dispute. Cheers. Halibutt 13:50, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Or does it? Halibutt 07:35, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

I will respond to your comments at article's talk. I really had no time today for much. I will get to this on the weekend. If/When you feel I am not responding within a reasonable time, you may remove the mention of the dispute of course. I may resurrect it when I respond but I think a couple of days isn't too much to ask. Also, I owe you responses in different discusions which I also plan to get to soon. Regards, --Irpen 07:42, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

I have edited the article a bit further and then removed the POV tag. Let me know if there are any specific issues that you still consider POV and that remained in the article. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 14:19, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Irpen, is there any chance you respond to your own dispute any time soon? Halibutt 08:10, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I will respond at article's talk. --Irpen 14:03, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Allow me 1

I, Ghirlandajo, hereby award you this Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky for your great work on topics pertaining to Ukraine and especially for your exceeding patience and resilience in discussing controversial issues on talk pages. Keep it up!

Wow! Thanks :) , I am honored! Actually, I am trying to contribute to Russia-related article too. But, due to a much larger number of great editors there, my contribution to RU remains rather insignificant.

I was already thinking of awarding myself an Орден "Дружбы народов"' (Why can't I award myself if Brezhnev could?) but with this more prestigeous award, my vanity is more than satisfied for a while for now :). Cheers, --Irpen 22:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Remember, Brezhnev awarded himself the Order of Victory, but it was taken from him after his death. Many of his honours were revoked, such as the Polish Order of Military Merit. Zach (Sound Off) 04:53, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, you did not revoke Mikkalai's barnstar you awarded to him when he single-handily substituted it by the Hero of the Soviet Union that he chose for himself and still displays it on his page? So, don't try to scare me, I will award myself with something when I feel like doing this. If this gets revoked after my death, well, I will see what I would do then. --Irpen 05:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Mikkalai rejected the Barnstar, and he replaced it with the HSU. I threw my hands up and moved on. Zach (Sound Off) 05:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, self-awarding legitimacy, or lack of it, should not be affected by the fact whether or not it is accompanied by a rejection of a different award, should it? Anyway, I am extremely modest, at least as much as you are, as you could see. I only displayed a ribbon at my user page. Please note, that I was awarded an Order of B. Kh. 1st class skipping the lower two classes. As you can read from an article, 1st class is "awarded to front or army commanders for successful direction of combat operations that led to the liberation of a region or town inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy." I hope our enemies would not recover from such heavy casualties and no one will ever challenge from now on that our cabal rules the Wikipedia. Ура! --Irpen 05:26, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

While I agree about the cabal, I was not tyring to pick a fight. I was trying to inject some knowledge. Plus, I see that your taking my route on the ribbon bars. :) Zach (Sound Off) 05:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Wołodarka

Ok, Irpen, let us end this whole dispute. If you please, just explain on my talk page how is it that the Russians achieved nothing and were defeated yet the Poles did not win. Halibutt 11:34, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I will explain it at the article's talk itself for the one last time. --Irpen 22:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I took your above words as a promise. Do you plan to keep it some day? Halibutt 15:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt, I did respond at that time. Please check dates. To what you wrote later, there is nothing new to add and I view that I said more than enough. Since there are no new questions, there were no new answers for some time. The note about the dispute should stay unless other editors, not just you, views them unwarranted. Not everyohe has to agree, but there has to be an overwhelming majority. So far, to you were rejecting proposals from three (!) editors and insist on your version. I spent to much effort on this to abandon it now. Unless I see that several editors view my position unjustifued, I see no reason to withdraw my objections. --Irpen 19:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Since you do not respond at my talk page and it is quite difficult to monitor talk pages of all the people I leave messages to, I replied in the article's talk page. I hope you'll respond there and not here. Halibutt 22:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, now that you have the article blocked, could yopu possibly PROVIDE SOURCES to the version you so fiercefully promote? Also, answering my question (only one, really simple question) would be a step in good direction... Halibutt 01:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

it is easy to figure percentage of speakers

• http://www.uceps.org/ua/opros/15/?show_q_id=46&idTema=0&m_razdel=101
• http://www.uceps.org/ua/opros/15/?show_q_id=47&idTema=0&m_razdel=101

Ilya K 18:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I know about the census. But there is a caviat. Please take a look at Ukrainian language#Independence and modern era (last paragraph) as well as talk:Ukrainian language#Percentage of speakers. --Irpen 18:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

You have not understood, follow links. But unfortunately here - http://www.prozorist.org.ua/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=161 different numbers (although more Ukranianistic:):( . But I beleived in surves afer presidental elections Ilya K

I am sorry, internet problems :(. I got it now. The links are indeed useful. I should use them for ua-language article because I only had Kiev numbers at hand when I was writing this section. However, please note that this numbers prove that the statement at ua-L that "Ukrainopohones became a minority in their nation" removed by AndriyK was factually correct. We should return it there then, shouldn't we? Thanks for the useful link and for your participation. I am glad to work together on more article. --Irpen 19:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Welcome here - uk:Мовна ситуація в Україні. Ilya K 19:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! These numbers seem sensible. I can't do much more right now. Please keep an eye on Ukrainization because it got totally disrupted. Also, I left some comments to your recent edits at talk. Actually, you may see that I was against this article to be started at this point because it mostly duplicates the section from the history of ua-L. But once it was started I was just trying to see it not going into excesses and moderating it. I hope it can be made encyclpedic. The wholesale delitions by one user will just make it slower and will not accomplish anything. Regards, --Irpen 19:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

http://www.dif.org.ua/publics/doc.php?action=11/us5

Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо людей таких національностей?

e1. Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо… Українців?

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
1. Так 6.8 7.2 9.2 6.6 9.6 8.5 8.4 12.6 7.1 7.3 6.4 7.2
2. Ні 88.1 92.5 90.4 93.1 89.6 90.4 91.0 87.1 92.6 92.3 93.2 92.7
Не відповіди 5.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.9 1.1 0.6 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2

e2. Чи доводилось Вам за останні 12 місяців стикатися з випадками дискримінації (утиску прав та інтересів) щодо… Росіян?

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
1. Так 8.6 9.5 9.3 7.4 8.8 8.5 5.7 10.4 5.8 5.9 4.4 6.1
2. Ні 85.7 90.0 90.1 92.2 90.2 90.6 93.6 89.1 93.6 93.4 95.2 93.8
Не відповіди 5.7 0.5 0.6 0.4 1.0 0.9 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.3 0.2

So nobody's complaining. Ilya K 19:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

more http://www.livejournal.com/community/ukr_nationalism/324195.html Ilya K 20:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC) Thanks for the useful links. I will be happy to use them. Could you repair Ukrainization (I have server problems right now and can mostly edit talks only). It is a total mess not just content-wise but broken pieces too. Also, you may want to revise the intro in view of my comments at its talk. If you can't do it, I will do that myself later. However, the broken pieces and pieces of paragraphs have to be fixed asap. --Irpen 20:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Page moves

Point me to page moves that need to be listed at WP:RM. —Michael Z. 2005-10-27 19:47 Z

See your talk. I think an arbitration is in order with preliminary injunction to prohibit moves by this user issued upon case acceptance. He should be allowed to propose moves at talk, of course, but not move single-handily, even if the page is available. These pages should be moved in one block. My god! That's so exhausting! I so much wanted to do something with St. Volodymyr's cathedral, because it is a very worthy topic. And with so much more! Cheers, --Irpen 19:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Piłsudski's nationalism?

I'd be interested to discuss your view of Piłsudski as being nationalistic. I think the perception in Poland is quite the contrary, he was the main opponent of nationalism. I'm curious what made you think he was a nationalist ? Maybe it was the Soviet propaganda, that attempted to picture him as a facist ? --Wojsyl ^(talk) 08:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well let's see destruction of multiple non-catholic buildings (including the famous Alexandr Nevskiy cathedral in Warsaw). Invasion of a sovereign nation - USSR. Having some random ideals about creating a barrier from Russia red or white, to be fair that's a bit on the nationalistic side. Kuban kazak 19:59, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

All right. Where do you see nationalism in this ? --Wojsyl ^(talk) 21:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Wojsyl, FYI, the Soviet propaganda preferred not to cover Pilsudski at all because he was associated with not so successful military campaign of the Soviet Russia. If you are interested in modern view of mainstream historiography in Ukraine, you may read the following article in Ukrainian or in Russian (whichever you can read more easily).

• "Figures of the 20th century. Józef Piłsudski: the Chief who Created a State for Himself," Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Feb. 3-9, 2001, available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.

I did not expect at all that the statement that he was a nationalist would startle Poles. OTOH, I beleive, that my statement to the contrary was equally unexpected for you to see. That's the consequence of systemic biases we may have been exposed too. That's the good thing about international projects, such as WP, that it brings people with such different views together. --Irpen 22:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's good and educative. I would expect that Russian POV would see Piłsudski as an enemy, and Ukrainian POV could perceive him as a traitor, but why a nationalist ? :-) Just for explanation: the Polish perception is that he was the major opponent of the nationalistic ideas of Roman Dmowski. Calling an opponent of nationalism a nationalist does not seem to make much sense. The fact that someone was fighting against the Soviet Union has nothing to do with him being a nationalist or not. Or is it that all the enemies of Russia were labeled as nationalists by definition ? ;-) --Wojsyl ^(talk) 22:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well first of all we must remember that the Russian common POV on nationalism is often heavily skewed away from its true definition, (for instance in some of his Postwar policies Stalin might well fit the, traditional unskewed definition of Nationalism) Ho Chi Minh, even though he was communist was at the same time a hardline Vietnamese nationalist. Most new nations begin with a heavy slant on nationalism. Poland in the post WW1 scenario was certainly not an exception to this rule, and if you look at the policies conducted by the new Polish state then, examples of nationalism are...everywhere, multiple destruction of Orthodox Churches, multiple Polinisation of what you call the Kresy territories...Usually the policies that were carried out at that time are later accredited to the leaders, I did not say that it was Pilsudskiy that ordered the destruction of churches, it may well have been that he did everything in his power to prevent their destruction, but history seems to have its own way with these events. Kuban kazak 23:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I have no doubt that Poland in the interbellum was a highly nationalistic country. In fact the level of Polish nationalism rose with time and was much higher in the 1930-s, after Piłsudski's death than before. Nevertheless, he was the leader of the socialist party, that opposed the right wing nationalists. I don't think he ever claimed that Polish nation was superior to any other nations or that Poland should be limited to a single nation only. Piłsuski's friend and Polish president Gabriel Narutowicz was murdered by nationalists, who hated them. I don't know who ordered the Alexandr Nevsky cathedral, but you'd have to take the whole story into account and consider when and why it was built. It was clearly a symbol of a foreign occupant. Ask yourself: why should it be preserved in the newly independent Poland ? I don't see its destruction has much to do with nationalism. To summarise, on Polish political scene, Piłsudski was seen as a major enemy of nationalism and his ideas of multi-national state were fiercely criticized by National-Democratic Party. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 01:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The question is would there ever be such a multinational state even if Pilsudski would have gotten it his way and managed to be its leader. I don't know how genuine his words were but even if believing that he was sincere saying that, I doubt his policies would follow up. His army's behaviour in Galicia and Volhynia after the suppression of WUR leave me in doubt about him being able to accept equality of Ukraine and Poland and, perhaps, others in the Polish-centered mega-state. His army's mauradeering in the central Ukraine during the PSW may not prove much, because it may have been common at the time, but he could have taken measures here too. The most important thing, though, is that unlike some Polish people I've seen believe, the equality of nobility and religions in PLC is a myth or at least it is a myth from what I read. It may be unprecedentedly "equal" compared to other multiethnic states, but other states never claimed to be "federations", or "Democracies of nobles". Other states never proclaimed religious freedom too and Warsaw compact was unprecedented. The truth perhaps is that the proponents of such federations throughout history always assumed a Polish domination there, even if subconsciously. I see no reason that Pilsudski was any different in this respect. --Irpen 01:52, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

You may be right, but since we're speculating here, why not go a bit further. If the federation succeeded, probably we would not have WW2 and probably not Soviet Union. Even if dominated by Poland in the federation, I expect Ukraine would be better off than under totalitarian regimes. Piłsudski's idea was to counterbalance the power of German and Russian empires, but obviously he failed. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 08:52, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

As to Kazak's arguments (mind if I join you?), they are bizarre indeed. For instance, the destruction of the Saxon Square Orthodox church was not a matter of Piłsudski's nationalism or socialism as he had nothing to do with that. That building (the highest in Warsaw at that time!), along with the monument to Poles killed for loyalty to their monarch and several other signs of Russian rule, was seen as a symbol of Russian oppression. It was visible from almost all parts of the city and was built by the city (large contributions imposed on it by the occupants) for the Russian garrison. And after it was gone, it was decided to dismantle the church. While the decision might seem controversial to some, it was made by the authorities of Warsaw, not by Piłsudski (note that, unlike USSR, Poland was a democracy and not every single thing was decided by the Chief of State, especially after he withdrew to his reffuge in Józefów after the Polish-Bolshevik War). Also note that there were also other Orthodox churches built for the Russian garrisons of Warsaw that were dismantled after they became deserted (most Russians withdrew from Warsaw along with the Russian army in 1915), while several others were left in place (there are three of them still standing, despite the fact that there are barely any Orthodox people in Warsaw nowadays).

As to what Irpen wrote above, Piłsudski's idea was not a multinational state but rather a federation. Also, note that the border treaty with Ukraine was respected by Piłsudski even after Dmowski's negotiators at the Riga talks threw the Ukrainian cause out of the window. And that the border on the Zbruch river was kept, despite the fact that the Russians offered Poland much more territory there. Also, we can only speculate what would've happened with Petlura's Ukraine after the war as in fact it lasted only for several weeks before the allied armies were pushed back. During the war of 1920 the Ukrainian Army was indeed subdued militarily, but this is rather natural. Especially that it was severely understrenght (all six Ukrainian divisions were en cadre and numbered more or less the same as an average Polish infantry division of the time) and fully equipped by Poland. However, it was not dominated by Poland politically in any way. Note that there was no Polish administration there, not even in the front area (which was quite uncommon back then and is even now; usually allied armies have their military administration near the front). So, all in all, if there was no Polish political hegemony there during the war, why should we assume there would be some after the war? And how are such assumptions any more reasonable than assumptions to the contrary?

BTW, how about moving this discussion to Talk:Józef Piłsudski? Halibutt 03:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand that the stated form of the state was a federation but I am sure that what was had in mind was a Polish dominated federation as I explained above. As for Ukrainian events, I am talking not about joint operation with Petliura's which I find strange to call "allies" but so be it if this is used in Polish books (collaborators seem more exact to me). What I meant, are events that happened before Petliura was subdued and had to sell out the the aspirations of Ukrainians in what is now Western Ukraine for Pilsudski's help in installing himself in Kiev. From the article linked above (sorry for the Russian):

В сентябре 1919 года войска украинской Директории попали на Подолье в так называемый «треугольник смерти». Они были зажаты между красными русскими Ленина и Троцкого на северо-востоке, белыми русскими Деникина на юго-востоке и поляками на западе. Смерть смотрела в глаза. И не только людям — всему только что рожденному государству. Поэтому, верховный атаман Симон Петлюра просто вынужден был или согласиться на предложенный Пилсудским союз, или фактически капитулировать перед большевиками, как сделали тогда или через год-два Владимир Винниченко и Михаил Грушевский. Решение это — очень болезненное. Польская шляхта была историческим врагом украинского народа. Кровоточила свежая рана ЗУНР — именно в это время пилсудчики распинали украинскую Восточную Галичину. Но все же Петлюра согласился на мир и союз, признав украинско-польской границей будущую границу советско-польскую. Следует отметить, что при этом Пилсудский получал меньше земель, нежели ему предложил Ленин, и в придачу еще и войну с огромной Россией. Надднепрянцы же фактически бросали на произвол судьбы в беде своих братьев-галичан. Но Петлюра решил использовать последний шанс сохранить державу — в союзе с поляками. Попробовал. Было не суждено.

P.S. I have no objection to moving the discussion to Pilsudski's talk. --Irpen 04:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I took the liberty to migrate our last two comments to Talk:Międzymorze and reply there. Halibutt 16:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Irpen

Irpen you should get another Bohdan order for helping new users like myself. Thank you for your comment and look forward to working on these projects--Riurik 23:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Allow me too 2

		An Award
		I, User:Alex Bakharev award this Barnstar to Irpen for his heroic work protecting Wikipedia from the Bad Faith Edits and Vandalism

I am SO glad you are back! While at it, is there a ribbon for this star? If not, could you make one for me? Thanks! --Irpen 01:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, take Image:WikiDefender rib.png. Thanks again. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 02:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Brutality of Poles 1918

I've not forgotten to look for the brutality of Polish against Ukrainians in 1918. I've looked up several potential sources, but so far found nothing notable. It may be because all these sources were of Polish origin. One of them menioned that the early fights were desperate and resulted in later hatred. However I was not able to find anything more specific, particularly anything that would imply that Poles were more brutal than Ukrainians. Have you had any success on this in the meantime ? --Wojsyl ^(talk) 22:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't checked yet but I remember. Could you take a look at talk:Bukovina, its history and several related paged? --Irpen 22:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have Bukovina on my watchlist, but at the moment: (a) I don't think I'm competent enough to voice my opinion, (b) you know I'm sceptic towards EB and prefer more scholarly appropriate sources. I'll watch for further development and hopefully learn more in the meantime. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 23:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have a book on Romanian history in 19th and 20th centuries (Małgorzata Willaume, "Rumunia", Warszawa 2004, ISBN 8388542745) and searched for the information on Romanian intentions towards Bukovina in 19th century, but did not found anything firm on this (contrary to Transylvania). Maybe it's obvious but it can be difficult to find hard facts on this, other than personal opinions of individual authors. --Wojsyl ^(talk) 17:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Apology

Irpen is awarded this barnstar for his particularly fine contributions to Wikipedia.

!מזל טוב

from Izehar

Hello Irpen, I've been thinking that since the "bad tempered anon bickering" incident, there has been a gap between us. I would like to apologise for having been on the wrong side of WP:CIV and hope you accept this barnstar for patching up. Izehar 23:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I, from my side, fully retract my remarks about the possibility of bad faith on your side (that is if I made any, which I don't think I did in relation to you anyway). Thank you for taking an extra care to check for the possibilities of open proxies. Could you show me how to do it? Next time, I will revert any contributions from such IP's on sight. --Irpen 23:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Holodomor

Thanks for the link to the Himka article! The link is especially helpful following the constructive suggestion by Dietwald on Talk:Holodomor: "What SHOULD be done is to expand the discussion on politization. The issue is unduly politicised, which in itself deserver a considerable discussion." [1] I'm also expecting to gather support for writing a much-needed entry on the Soviet famine of 1932-1934. Perhaps such an entry would be a strong candidate for Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week?

You're right about Andrew Alexander. I'm not too optimistic about the Holodomor since he is somewhat on the territorial side. Still, he has demonstrated an interest in adding well-sourced factual content and is relatively civil. We'll see how the discussion goes on the talk page. If it goes well enough, hopefully you will feel inclined to return to the article. Thanks again for the help! 172 20:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. If you get the chance, will you be able to restore the NPOV version of the Holodomor intro? Ultramarine kept on restoring the Andrew Alexander version until I'd used up my three reverts. Interestingly, he does indeed seem to be stalking me. Cold War, for example, was an article that wasn't on his watchlist until yesterday, when he probably found out that the article had been in my recent user contributions history. 172 20:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Also, thanks for the thought-provoking comments on nationalism and education in Ukraine. I'm about to leave my computer so my reply has to be too brief. I'll continue to try to do my best on the Holodomor article. In the meantime, I suppose we'll have to put up with more grandstanding from the usual quarters before much progress can be made. I'll be able to put up with them for at least another week, given that the famine is now such an important topic. Thanks again! 172 21:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Standartization of Kievan Rus' names

Прошу обратить внимание сюда, на мой взгляд проект достойный.

• Standartization of Kievan Rus' names

Kazak 07:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

amusing entry

Irpen !!! Are you ukrainian nazionalist ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.22.217.116 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia Statement of principles

"You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred. --Jimbo Wales

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.5.124 (talk • contribs)

I don't mind anons editing. I object to using anonymous accounts for edit warring, that's all. Please edit. This wasn't an edit at all. --Irpen 20:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

First, in my humble opinion, it's wrong to focus on identity of editors (whether it's IP, or AndriyK, or Molobo, or somebody else). It's wrong to harass users by summaries like "I will put aside some time to expand the article to set you an example", "write at least one article if you decided to come back", and especially "seize messing up the texts others write". I see AndriyK's small original edition, and another edition proposed by Mzajac and introduced by AndriyK as as an attempt to introduce unbiased and neutral language into the article. If you even don't let a user to introduce a small edition, it's unethical in the same time to ask him to bring the whole article. And even if he'll never bring a whole article, editing what others wrote toward NPOV is still a plus, and it should be respected.

Second, by objecting "using anonymous accounts for edit warring", you basically acknowledged that (1) there is an editing war, and (2) you are actively participating in it. Moreover, once the edition by Mzajac was introduced I see you as the initiator of the recent edit war. (I don't know what was previously; I'm telling you my view on the current situation). Do you think that having a registered account should give its owner additional rights or power? Do you think that it's ethical for an edit war participant to accuse somebody of being unethical? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.5.124 (talk • contribs)

The problem with the conflict between AndriyK's version and the one which was there for months (admitedly written by myself) is that the advantage of the latter is explained in detail at the article's talk. Compromising is good but not for the sake of the compromise itself. Otherwise, we would have to "compromise" Ukrainian articles with the views that, say, the Ukrainian language is the dialect of the Russian or that UPA was a Nazi organization or that Holodomor was caused by bad weather. If someone just makes a random statement at talk, it does not mean that we have to compromise with it. Check recent edits by anon at Orange Revolution. I reverted him without even discussing them. In Khreschatyk the current version is explained and AndriyK failed to provide any explanation to the opposite. His reason is that he doesn't like it. Sorry, that's not good enough to force a compromise. Kuban kazak, doesn't like "I" in Kharkiv. I simply explained to him what's wrong with "O" in modern usage and he withdrew rather than insisting that we look for a compromise with "E". AndriyK just reverts such edits are not worthy of discussion in order to restore to the stable version. He does the same at Russian architecture and a whole bunch of other articles. In fact, for now, that's all he does. I am willing to put aside any issues I have with this editor and discuss things with him based on the merit of his points. He isn't making any points. Just attacks things that he happens to "not like". What should I discuss and compromise then?

Finally, that you edit the articles with ongoing conflicts anonymously is discourteous and unfair. It takes 1 minute to register a throwaway account but that would allow others to talk to you in case of disagreement. It would be best if you put yourself on the equal footing with others and reregister a stable account so that the dialog is possible and you can't pretend to not see what's being said to you. I am talking fairness to others only. But this is only as far as conflicting articles are concerned. Anonymous small corrections are totally all right. But please consider what I've said since you are obviously interested and able to contribute more than that and I know you will. Besides you know that you will. The only reason people actually leave WP is the edit conflicts or sudden sudden changes in life, not the "lack of time". It is too addictive. --Irpen 21:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Some of the issues you mentioned are well noticable. Personally, I didn't intervene on the Russian Architecture article, probably because while from one side I strictly support user rights to put the POV tag, but from the other, as you pointed out, it's also true that a clear statement on the reasons for the tag should follow. In AndriyK's shoes I would work on making his statement as clear and understandable to all as possible. A simple statement "I like it" probably should follow on the other side by a simple question "Why do you like it?". At best, it may follow by some arguments, but lack of discussion, or discussion over discussion, or discussion over author's identity are all worse. On the Kreschatik article it's a different story, and my 2 cents here I have already brought in. In the end, it's wrong to mix separate issues, and to bring any negative attitude toward an editor from one article to the other.

I apologize if my use of IP addresses created an impression that I am ignoring comments that people left on the discussion page for the particular IP I have used. I hope I read all the comments. And emails too. As you mentioned, some are leaving Wikipedia after a sudden changes in life, but some are aware that a certain negative change in life may come, and are working (not so successful so far) to avoid it. I don't see a point of creating an account, which we know would be essentially fake, for the purpose of few edits. Hope on your understanding on that.

P.S. I looked a little more over the Russian Architecture talk page. AndriyK did clearly state his objectives back in early December. There was a survey later in December, which resulted in 8 vs. 4 in the favor of keeping Kiev Rus architecture as a part of the article. I don't know Wikipedia rules, but in my view POV tag should be a tool for a minority to express disagreement with the majority. The majority's got the article their way, but the minory should have rights at least for a tag (claiming that the view in the article is the view by majority, which is not the same as neutral view). But then, should a view by minority be allowed on Hitler page? Tough question..

As for me personally, I am Ok with Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are all claiming to be successors of Kiev Rus, including its architecture.

P.P.S. So, I read a few more Wikipedia rules and guidelines. According to Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, survey is mentioned as one of the ways to resolve a dispute. Also from there: "Assume that the other person is acting in good faith unless you have clear evidence to the contrary". Reading more on the surveys Wikipedia:Straw polls, what I see is "Decisions should be made by consensus rather than a strict majority rule" (good goal, hard to achive; but in the end the rule is the rule), "A straw poll is just a tool for quickly probing opinions", and "A straw poll is not a binding vote, or a way to beat dissenters over the head with the will of the majority". Thus, there was a survey, but consensus has not being achieved. There are other ways mentioned to resolve the dispute: "Informal Mediation", "Discuss with third parties", "Mediation", "Requesting an advocate". As a last resolt, "Arbitration" is mentioned. But as long as the dispute is not resolved, POV tag should stay. It's both majority amd minority who should initiate further steps to resolve the despute.

Yes you are right and check how much time people spent on the issue in response to his tag, checking the academic sources. BTW, tagging was the second thing he did. The first one was moving it to another title Architecture of Rus, that is despite it goes into the Socialist realism times, and we his trademark dirty trick with artificial history to make sure his point is forced upon others. Then he pasted the whole chapter to Architecture of Kievan Rus without any acknowledgement of the authorship, making an impression that he wrote such a superior article. Only after that he placed a tag and it was given a fare amount of thought by the community.

Michael even took an effort to go to the city library and saw that in academia the approach is similar to the one taken in the article. What more you could ask for from the editors who listened to his objections and gave the matter such a thorough study? Third parties mostly agreed as well. If there is a bias all over the world due to a historic influence of the Russian scholarship in the historiography, the way to address it is in the new scholarly works, not in encyclopedia whose aim is to summarize the matter based on the existing knowledge, rather than to "correct" it. This is very similar to Kiev/Kyiv issue. Both are correct, Kiev is primarily used, hence we use Kiev. We mast defer to the mainstream view and mention the minority view, if they are substantial but clearly as minority view, like Holocaust denial in the Holocaust article, or the whether theory in Holodomor or that Russia is not a descendant of Kievan Rus' but of Finno-Ugric tribes in the North, like some fierce Ukrainian nationalists are trying to portray it. --Irpen 02:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

"What more you could ask ...?" There is no consensus on the Russian Architecture article, and it's wrong to claim that it exists. AndriyK has never agreed. Can you prove that he is acting in bad faith? Is he actually acting in the bad faith? Other contributors, such as Yakudza, and A.A. supported the objectives in the survey.

In the end, even if somebody is an evil, should or should not we go by the rules? If not, then who are we?

What I am asking is that we go by the rules.

Yes, my point is that he is acting in bad faith here as he has shown in the past he is able to, like frivolous moves of the articles and falsified voting to prevent moving them back. If someone throws a tag, we must study his objections first and address them the best we can. Nothing can prevent a bad-faith user from persisting by just saying "I don't agree". He cannot be allowed to screw the articles just because his views differ from the reality. One thing is ignoring someone's objection. Another thing is to persist with objections that were addressed just to stubbornly make a point. --Irpen 03:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Answered on Russian Architecture talk page, but it becomes not so productive.

Basically, AndriyK brought an objective, which was declined. And now you are saying "dispute closed. bring a fresh objective"? :(

Irpen, you are actually good in cooperating with people. Don't look for fresh objectives. Could you just give a fresh look on AndriyK? Please.

Irpen is not a Saint

Irpen's actions:

• Removed POV tag from Russian Architecture article when AndriyK who put the tag is blocked.
• Claimed that the tag is ridiculous, and consensus has been reached.
• Kept removing the tag for a dozen times and counting.

Saint's actions:

• Wait until AndriyK is unblocked.
• Welcome him back to Wikipedia.
• Remind that there is a POV tag standing on Russian Architecture article, and propose a few alternatives to finally resolve the dispute.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.5.19 (talk • contribs)

Well, not quite like this. That is I am not a saint for sure, but this is not how it was. I don't even remember whether he was blocked when I removed the tag because this was not a thing I was keeping in mind. There was a considerable amount of time (perhaps even a month) when there were enough ArbCom votes to see that he was going to be blocked and the date when the case was closed and the block applied. During that month he was almost inactive, except trolling at Alex's first RfA. If you reread the ArbCom, I did not call for blocking him. I wanted him banned from moving articles (which was done), from substituting the terminology by revert warring rather than proposing and discussing (which was also done) and to restrict his right to revert war (that is, say, 2RR per day rather than 4) which was not done. Stripped of his trolling tools, he might have started to contribute. I removed the tag because I saw the objections answered, no new objections were raised and the tag was there long enough. Besides, his faithful revert war proxy user:Andrew Alexander was around anyway.

I thought of welcoming him because I actually wanted to do it. The reason I didn't was that I thought that it would have just annoyed him. He sees me as a true evil, worse than Ghirla. The latter is just a Russian, it is normal for Russians to be bad in the eyes of a Russophobe. Myself being a Ukrainian and seeing the Ukrainian nationalism as repugnant at the same time, amounts in the eyes of some as a treason (I see any other nationalism repugnant as well). It's like Vlasovets versus a German, who was more hated at the time of the war? You can see even from talk:Khreschatyk, that I offered him to work things out and this was one of the countless times. He chose to bite a hand I stretched to him every time. I am not an ill-tempered person and I hold no grudge for his badmouthing me at en- and ua-wikis as well as at the outside forums and his emails to others. But if he sees me as such and I "welcome him back", he would just get mad because he won't beleive in my sincerety.

Anyway, if he starts writing articles, and I see how I can help, I will be around. If he just goes around spitting, reverting and deleting, I can't do much about that, can I? Besides, I had enough of his attitude and I have no intention to talk to him, unless absolutely necessary because every time it provokes another set of outbursts. --Irpen 09:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Ditto, about the Vlasovets and German. I must stress that being a Kuban Cossack, having a Volhynian wife and being Russo-centric bites hard. You see a minority of people in Ukraine (or in the Ukrainian diaspora) tend to think of Kuban as being an ethnic Ukrainian territory and its people being Russified and opressed. However my political view and historical account (and as is the rest of the Kuban for whom I can safetely speak) does not coincide with this "skazka" that he read somewhere. Of course he hates me just as well. Btw I should add that my wife's family back in Rivne are all going to vote for Vitrenko in the elections, which of course would conflict with another image of Volhynia being a nationalist haven, but then if you have events like these contributing [2], [3] I doubt there would be any nationalists left within a few years (and having lived there I can see how these words are gaining truth). Which will of course annoy a person with Svidomyi mentality, but then truth hurts. Любо братцы любо...--Kuban Cossack 20:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Kuban kazak, will all due respect to your wife's family (I know nothing about them), that they would be voting for Vitrenko speaks much of their lack of political literacy. I mean if their church was shut down and given to the rivaling faction and UNA/UNSO paramilitants helped that happen, I could see why they overreact in such a way. But Vitrenko is a total nut-case not worthy even of discussion on what's wrong with her program. This is as if you tell me that you vote for Zhirik (and if you do, please don't tell me about that). Anyway, let's get back to editing. --Irpen 21:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

There voting for her not because what other choice is there? PR? Maybe, but again Yanukovich has lost his momentum that I once respected him for (particulary at Severodonetsk congress). Now he is playing all of the strings at once. Definetely not NSNU or BYuT, they had enough adventures for their old age during the past 1.5 years. Everybody else will never make a majority to make a difference to the future of the country. Vitrenko on the other hand has a clear programme (which other parties clearely don't) yes it is ambitios and yes it is extreamely overslanted, but then desperate time do call for desperate discisions, at least so far she did keep her word to the public and I do respect her for that. (BTW all this logic is not mine but my wife's who is telling me all this for the whole past year). Me I only vote for KPRF, and boycott presidential elections, although I will support Lukashenko if he runs for Russian president, but you are right, back to editing. Have a look at some of my new works with the Azerbaijani and Armenian colleagues (despite the friction they exhibit towards each other). Baku Metro and Yerevan Metro. --Kuban Cossack 21:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW have you seen this? --Latinus 19:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Amusing, huh? --Irpen 19:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

What amuses you?--AndriyK 19:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

We are all learning., which is good. With that tag on Russian Architecture, he did mention on the talk page that the consensus has not been reached. And that's what the situation is. His objections were discussed, but neither they were satisfied nor he withdrew them. The dispute is still there. Claiming that it's not only make it worse.

I brought the welcomimg issue only as an example. As you are saying, you considered it, which is good. The bigger issue that you are editing the same articles. You need to deal with each other.

If he sees you as a true evil, then it cannot get worse. It can only get better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.5.124 (talk • contribs)

Anonymous, you don't need to tell me how to be nice. Modesty aside, most people don't consider me ill-tempered, either in life or at Wikipedia. I will deal with AndriyK's edits based on their merit, not on what I think about him. So far, there were no edits. Just reverts and I explained what was wrong with the versions he was reverting to and he gave no answer. Once he makes a first new edit, I will deal with it totally based on that edit's own merit. --Irpen 21:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

What is the reason to blame me for Rusophobia? Can you give examples of any my rusophobic edits, comparable to Ukrainophobic or Belarusophobic edits of yours and your friends?--AndriyK 08:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I am sure I can find specific edits of yours but your crusade by itself, pretty much outlined at your arbitration, speaks much already. I never made a single Ukrainophobic edit. Moreover, the curious and impossible combination of accusations I've heard towards myself (like Ukrainian nationalism, Ukrainophobia, Russian nationalism, Russophobia, etc.) just convince me that I am doing the right thing. That my view that Ukrainian nationalism is repugnant (like any other BTW) annoys Ukrainian nationalists is not surprising. You've been told by several compatriots of ours (including the anonymous editor here) that you are mistaken in calling me all those names. That you, nevertheless, remain unconvinced is telling.

I suggest you go to Talk:Russian architecture and outline your specific objections to justify your tag and not in a general rant-like form, but with a specific point by point list. Otherwise, please don't complain if it is removed as unexplained.

You were extremely rude in the past and such things, you know, stick to memory. In any case, as I wrote earlier, when I deal with any specific article disagreements with you I am putting this all aside. Please start writing. It's about time. --Irpen 08:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

most people don't consider me ill-tempered, either in life or at Wikipedia

This is because you so rancorous and revergeful that the people afraid to say you what they think.

Nobody would like to repeate my fate at Wikipedia and, I'm sure, there were similar examples in the real life.--AndriyK 08:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't prove anything to you regarding the real life. All I am saying is that's how that is. I have no revengeful passions against you whatever you think. If you can't take my word for it, I can't do much about it, can I. Now, please edit Wikipedia. --Irpen 09:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I never made a single Ukrainophobic edit.

You apparently have mamory problems. I have to remind you [this one]. Here is something from your Belarusophobic friend: " The so-called Belarusian".--AndriyK 09:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

You are lying and anyone can check it. Sasha earlier presented you the analysis of this [4]. To remind you, that text was not written by me. I simply restored it after your repeated blanking because we cannot afford blankings in Ukraine-related pages: there are too few contributors. In the end of the day, it was me who rewrote that phrase while you were just repeatedly blanking it running your traditional revert war. That reminds me to restore other stuff from that article you and your rv war proxy blanked. I will get to that ASAP. --Irpen 18:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, the curious and impossible combination of accusations I've heard towards myself (like Ukrainian nationalism, Ukrainophobia, Russian nationalism, Russophobia, etc.) just convince me that I am doing the right thing

No, this is because you hate both Ukrainians and Russians (as well as Poles, Romanians etc.). This is where you differ from Ghirla. He is in permanent conflict with nearly all East- and Central- Europeans, but he loves Russia and writes excelent articles about Russian History. You do nothing but provoking conflicts between wikipedians. My relations with some Russian wikipedians would be much better if you did not urge them "to go into the edit war" against me. This is the reson why I consider you much more evil then Ghirla, not because your Ukrainian background.

(Still, I liked your analogy between Nazism and Russian chauvinism and between yourself and Vlasovets ;))--AndriyK 09:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

AndriyK, you just try to offend me in the worst possible way. It won't work. It worked in the beginning, but I developed the immunity to your offensive language. Don't waste your time making a fool of yourself again. Besides, it may get you in trouble some day. Your last arbitration was not prompted by your rudeness but by gross disruption of Wikipedia through the move fraud, followed by vote fraud and combined by relentless edit warring over anachronistic terminology substitution caused by your Russophobic desire to purge any Russian names from Ukraine related article even at cost of introducing anachronisms. However, while we were at it, the evidence of your rudeness only made the case convincing in the eyes of the arbitrators that, at Wikipedia, you are nothing but a troll with an agenda. Since your return, you resumed exactly what you were doing. I suggest you reconsider this.

Start writing articles and we will discuss them if I disagree with something in them. Bring up your objections civilly if you disagree with what I write in articles. Do not troll the talk pages with new outbursts. Finish writing about Vasyl Stus. Finish Polkovnyk. Write Povazhny kozak or write whatever you want. Put your agenda, whatever it is, aside and you will find a totally different attitude from everyone. That said, I will not be responding to any more of your offenses. Have a nice weekend. --Irpen 18:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I would started to do it months ago, if you would not follow every my edit and mess it up.

You see, there are a lot of clever, qualified and nice people at this wiki. They can correct my edits, if I make mistakes, or criticise/discuss my edits at the talk.

On the other hand, there are more than million articles, most of them could be improved. So you can find enough things to do. Why among million of the articles you chose those that I created or edited recently?

Please find another victim of your persistance, so that I could write articles instead of wasting time for pointless discussions.

Please, think about it.

Have a nice weekend too.--AndriyK 19:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

AndriyK, I do not follow you. I have better things to do. I simply concentrate on Ukraine (my homeland) and its history at Wikipedia as you also seem to be. That's why I initiated the Ukraine portal and do the best I can to have Ukraine covered. Your edits happened to be falling on my watchlist and I reacted to them based purely on the edits, not on who it was. Now, lets return to editing. Again, I have no intention to have your past and present offences anywhere in a way to resolve any specific edit disputes. --Irpen

Are there no other Ukraine related articles you can work on?--AndriyK 19:38, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I choose the article that interest me most. I honestly don't care about chasing you or anyone else. If you think otherwise, file the RfC or an ArbCom because Wikistalking is considered a serious offense. File a case and see how it goes. Better yet, return to article's improvement. --Irpen 19:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there another way (except RfC or ArbCom) to get rid of your chase?--AndriyK 20:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I am not chasing you. I do not care about you. I care about articles that have reasons for me to care for. --Irpen 20:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Irpen: This was too far from article discussion.

Why you did not care for these articles during several years you are there, but you start care just I have edited/created them?--AndriyK 20:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of Ukraine-related articles are and were on my watchlist. Will you please stop pestering me with questions? --Irpen 21:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

AndriyK: It's a pointless discussion. He does care about articles, regardless who created or edited them. It's a public project.

Let's move forward. It looks like we don't have anything better to do. :(

Here we go again, speak for yourself. How many articles have you written wholly and originally (trolling like Russian Architecture or the attack on Ukrainian and Belarusian languages do not count)? How many stubs have you expanded into fully-respected articles. How many images have you uploaded? Where is the long awaited Drogobych Oblast and Moldavian ASSR [5]? Irpen actually writes articles as opposed to you trolling on them. --Kuban Cossack 17:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Kuban kazak, this discussion is pointless. Let's put a line here. --Irpen 18:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Kiev Expedition

Hi Irpen, I'm surprised that you reverted my move. You participated in the discussion on the board, and you didn't voice any objections to the name I proposed. What don't you like about the title? Appleseed (Talk) 00:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I am just writing a note at the article's talk. Give me 5 mins. Let's continue the discussion there. --Irpen 00:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, just wanted to let you know that a week has passed without any comments, so I have moved the article. Appleseed (Talk) 19:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Res to talk:Soviet partisan

Please let me know which articles (and preferably which edits) do you want me to look over, and if the stuff was pasted, where from. I don't have time to stalk Molobo and check on his every edit. As for that pic, I know you had good intentions and in that particular case others overreacted way to strongly - and when Ghirla joined the outcome was a mess. Happens - and I think we have it fixed somewhat (although the photo issue will not be resolved until we have an article about London victory parade and why Polish forces in the West could not take part in it). As for tags, in that particular case I think 1 of them was not needed, but there were six facts that I really wanted to see referenced. Yes, tagging creates more work - but useful work. In other news, I can check the English spellings in Davies WERS book you requested, but plese let me know exactly what names (index? page nr?) you want me to look at, so when I go to the library I can do it as quickly as possible.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hotel Ukrayina

I started on it Here nothing much yet, but the link is 100% ace with all those pre-1973 photos. Would give a helping hand?--Kuban Cossack 19:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I will, but I can't promise a definite time frame. Too much work these days. But thanks! --Irpen 19:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

SuperDeng

Look at his contributions. What you will see is a POV warrior who has been blocked before for his behavior under this user name and also as DengXiaoPing. So this isn't new. Deng's a user who assumes the worst in users, who thinks he is correct 100% of the time despite evidence to the contrary and who uses personal attacks to try to get his way. He's very good at calling people "liars" and telling them that their views are "irrelevant" and he often says "of course you are wrong" to people who disagrees with. If you would like specific diffs, I can get them for you. He has spent the last few days virtually stalking User:Kurt Leyman and reversing virtually every edit made. And as I said, he's been blocked for this behavior before, so this is hardly an isolated incident. I stand by my block. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 03:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I see now that you have quite strict standards in defining what constitutes a PA, and how severe it has to be to become a blockable offence. In the future, if I see POV-pushers who resort to personal attacks, I will know who to contact. I was sick and tired because of some fellows here. I thought that once I don't want to spend time compiling RfC and ArbCom cases, I have to accept that there is little I can do about some some uncivil and abusive POV-pushers short of starting to write-up RfC's using the time I would rather spend writing articles.

Now I know that I should have contacted you. I sure will from now on. Regards, --Irpen 03:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

No problem. :) Yeah I apologize for the block log. I tried to give the most recent example of his behavior instead of the most representative. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Дуже дякую

conferred by Khoikhoi

Thank you again for you help today. Next time Bonny comes back, I'll know who to contact! ;) —Khoikhoi 01:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't mention it (Ukrainian: не варто подяки) :)!. But also do ask others as well because those who fight Bonny's socks don't make new friends among more reasonable Romanian contributors who still unfortunately make use of him as a battering ram because he promotes the right POV despite in the wrong way. I am not generalizing over an entire community and I don't want to call names here as well. In any case, we should spread the duty of guarding WP from bad-faith users somewhat evenly. That said, as I always did, I won't hesitate to do all I can to keep such fellows at bay. It's just that if more people actively get themselves involved, life would have been way easier around here. --Irpen 01:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I already asked Ghirla, who else do you think we need help from? --—Khoikhoi 01:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The good place to consider would be regional notice boards, like the urgent announcement sections of Portal:Russia/New article announcements, Portal:Ukraine/New article announcements and, yes, a Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board. Some Romanian users feel ashamed by such compatriots and may help as well. Cheers, --Irpen 01:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, thanks again. --—Khoikhoi 02:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Khreschatyk

Irpen, may I ask why you insist on your version of the article? I know, you started the article, and it was DYK, but the particular paragraph in question doesn't look like been initially written neutrally. Previously, there was an edit war about the paragraph; as a result a quite reasonable version by Michael gained support, the version written better than yours. Now, after a month since the conflict, you are bringing the issue again, providing not a single additional argument, nothing at the talk page, and yet insisting on your version of the paragraph. You don't like a shorter version of tne paragraph, you don't like a longer version of the paragraph (listing all the forces), it seems like you only want to see your version of the paragraph. Or, am I missing something? --Anonymous, 19:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Short version is too abstract, long version is too long and no need to explain them. Irpen's version is just right.--Kuban Cossack 20:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Irpen's version has minor problems like typos and duplicate links to the same page (Kiev offense), and one significant proplem as it's biased in describing differently Ukrainian forces vs. other forces. Michael's version, and the version with listing all forces are both describing all forces in pair. This is what makes these versions superior compare to Irpen's version.--Anonymous 20:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

How is it biased? Different Ukrainian grupirovki and Bolshevik, German, and Polish forces. Do the Ukrainian grupirovki even deserve to be called "Ukrainian" considering that there is little to bite on when one says they represented the Ukrainian population. It is a fact that Ukrainians fought in ALL of the armies and militias listed above. So in that case the term several short lived Ukrainian states is fully justified in dealing with those times. --Kuban Cossack 21:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

134, compromise is a good thing but there must be some reason under each of the opposing version between which we seek a compromise. My version is explained at article's talk. AndriyK's version is not explained at talk despite my persistent calls to him. A while ago he said that "short-lived is scornful". To this I responded and others agreed that this is just BS. It's purely factual and not scornful. He came up with no other reasons. Michael, being a nice guy, offered a compromise just for the sake of accomodating AndriyK. I disagree with such motivation. Compromise should be made for accomodating between two reasonable versions, not two or more people. We've got no explanation whatsoverer from AndriyK on his persistence (exact same situation in Russian architecture). As such, there is nothing to compromise with so far.

Typos? Correct them by all means. Twice connected to Kiev Offensive? Because we are talking about two parts of it: victorious Polish part with the parade (linked to the K. O. section about Polish victories) and Poles defeated part (linked to another section). --Irpen 22:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, you see Michael's version as a compromise. And in fact it was some sort of compromise. But what you are completety ignoring is that Michael's version is better than yours. Why? I personally explained it at the article talk page [6], and I wrote it above. You are not listing the forces in pair. Bolshevik forces also acted under umbrella of different short-lived republics, like Donetsk-Krivorozh Socialist Republic, and similar. They took Kiev a few times, and were driven out a few times. You put it all under Bolshevik's name. Then what's wrong to put the Ukrainian forces similarly? I've never seen your answer to this simple question. Or, as Kuban Cossack says "short version is too abstract, long version is too long, ... Irpen's version is just right". This is a way better explanation compare to critisized by you "I like it", don't you think? :)

Kuban kazak, these short-lived Ukrainian republic forces were Ukrainian because they represented Ukrianian states, that is the states which named themselves as Ukrainian national states. Similarly, Bolsheviks named themselves Bolsheviks, and we call them so, dispite some of them (actually, not so many at that time) being by nationality Ukrainians. Do you want to change "Bolshevik forces" to "predominantly Russian Bolshevik forces"? I don't think it would be a good idea, as the forces were driven by the common idea, not common nationality, but if you insist on national clafirication it may be added. --Anonymous 00:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Although Bolshevik states did operate under a wide range of individual republics, they were nevertheless ultimatemately answering to the SNK, hence the Bolshevik Umbrella is suitable to be used in all articles. Ukrainian on the other hand is more abstract, not because of nationality wise, but because they all stood for different ideals of Ukrainian future. In that case we might want to put Pilsudski's puppet Petlyura under Polish forces? Irpen's version is correct and stable with no questions. --Kuban Cossack 00:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Independent Ukrainian state was the common driving idea of these Ukrainian states. Unfortunately, they did disagree on details. --Anonymous, 01:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately or unfortunately is a discussion for political forums not wiki. However even you refer to them as these states so what is wrong with the umbrella that Irpen has been using ever since the start. --Kuban Cossack 01:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Our discussions

I was going to commmend you on your remarkable civility and, as always, amazing dedication to WP. I will alternate my postings, but am generally more interested in improving the state of dance and music articles. I marvel at the combined work of all the Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian members. Sure there will be times to disagree about certain articles, but the manufacture of content from that area is stagerring to be sure.

Thank you for the additional links about language issues. The present system seems ill-suited to stave of our stubborn-headed colleagues (we all have some in our respective communites), and I hope discussions will lead to further reforms. I hope you realize by now that I am not the type that intends to begin any warring, but I am known to back up others when their actions seem sincere. Good luck with KK; he seems like he would make for a good time out with friends :)

Not a big fan of the Ukrainian Canadian dialect. But I would like to tackle Ukrainian Americans at some point.--tufkaa 23:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

PD-UA-exempt

Would the images on this official site qualify for such a tag? As the company is state owned. If yes that means that I'll be able to do all the stations of the Kiev Metro and then it WILL altogether become a featured article. In the meantime I still would like to upgrade DnieproGES to the FA standard and nominate it. --Kuban Cossack 13:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Kazak, any Ukrainian logo qualifies. The law speaks inclusively of symbols and signs of enterprises, institutions and organizations and does not even say "state only". Reread the tag, item d)--Irpen 18:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I meant photographs! I could not care less about logos.--Kuban Cossack 19:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, got you wrong. Give me a couple of days to email them with the request for permission, which I don't expect will be a problem. You could email them too, but I think it is more courteous to write to them in Ukrainian rather than in Russian. So, I will gladly do it for you. --Irpen 19:30, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually they had a Russian version which after their update back in late 2005 was purged. I e-mailed them a few times and got no reply whatsover. Given how often they update I cannot promise a reply. But go to the Dnepr station and have a look the photo there is the same as in our wiki. I think that might reply that all of their photos are in public domain...--Kuban Cossack 19:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Still, I will email them again and we'll see. --Irpen 19:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Prometheism

You keep complaining about this article. But why not just follow the Wikipedia practice and edit it, introducing changes which will make it less POV? This is the Wikipedia way, after all. Be bold. Sitting on the sidelines and telling others to fix articles is not going to accomplish anything. Balcer 03:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not a specialist enough in international politics. The editors who are, and who wrote it, are Poles. So, I chose the best venue. I also asked user:172 to look at it. If he gets interested, the normalcy of the article is them assured. --Irpen 03:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Amusing message

Insidious games at Soviet partisan

Irpen, what freacking games are you playing in??? What the hell does this nasty comment mean? And where is fucking logic in your edits to that article? You kept (although biased) my important thesises, but reverted other non-political issues like terms in the lead. So what are you trying to do? Promote some point or just provoke a conflict?

Discuss issues before changing them in the article. Or you'll get a real war till the last drop of my blood you mother fucker!!!AlexPU 07:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow

That's the most amazing message I've ever seen at my talk and I've seen a lot. I regret my first thought to remove it. Better yet, I will keep it. Let it shine! Thanks, Alex! --Irpen 07:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I figured I place links here to the past messages from the same contributor left at my talk that are now in archives and not in the plain view:

• November, 2005: original, "modified"
• March 2005 a nice welcoming me to Wiki

That's it for now. --Irpen 08:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Your request of evaluation

Hi. Yesterday you requested my evaluation of your behaviour, and here it is:

• you ARE "the shame" in Wikipedia
• but you can't be "a shame on the Ukrainian community" since you don't belong to such

In case if you need assessment of your activities, just use a special purpose register here. AlexPU 06:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I am moving your entry to a desginated section I specifically marked for you at my talk. I don't remember requesting your opinion of myself since you made it public at your disgusting talk page. Since you expressed it, I stopped caring. If you keep trolling, you visit here will be short. If you somehow undergo a major transformation and manage to stay, this would be just fine as far as I am conserned. I don't feel good though being a subject of your obsession. Not that I care myself, but it is rather unhealthy for your own sake. --Irpen 07:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Guys, stop it. Irpen, don't call his talk page "disgusting". Alex's user page is one of the cleverest I've seen, better than yours. Irpen, don't build a wall. KPbIC 07:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

His user talk is an attack page as well as most of his entries into the article's and personal talks. I have a wall between myself and people with a filthy mouth. There is nothing to build. When he makes edits or suggestions outside of his crusade venue, I will respond disregarding his past offences, as I did just today at talk:Viktor Yushchenko. When he just plainly trolls, he is just banging his head against the wall. I have enough patience to stand through far worse things than his bad mouth. --Irpen 07:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

No, you don't have a wall between yourself "and people with a filthy mouth". If you were you would have treated Kuban Kazak differently.

You are trying to build a wall with AlexPU and came to the point at which you release yourself from any productive articles' discuss with AlexPU. That would be a wrong point. KPbIC 07:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear 134, your comparison of AlexPU with Kuban kazak is totally improper because:

• I did chastise KK rather strongly after his spats of incivility (which apparently worked, btw) and if he keeps being uncivil Ezhiki will block him sooner than any other admin and if he gets blocked, I would never interfere (this has been discussed)
• Kazak, compared to AlexPU is a teacher in the good manners school.
• Most of Kazak's contributions at talk pages are civil while almost all talk entries by AlexPU range between incivil and horrific (like the one above that beats all the records).

I don't remember seeing you criticizing AlexPU on the issues (from which I infer that you view him uncivil but with the right POV). At the same time I gad frequent disagreements with Kazak (and Ghirla) on the article's talk pages. Examples are abundant. That said, I do treat each edit from any editor even guilty of whatever trolling in the past based on its own merit. Examples are abundant but if you doubt that, let me know and I will give you diffs. Best, --Irpen 01:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

AlexPU definitely has some specific knowledge, and he is a journalist, so it would valuable for the project if he is around. He basically created the article on Rudnev, adding that story on Kovpak/Rudnev conflict, which probably the other had no idea of, and on which I actually put “fact” template, as without a reference the story sounds questionable. Also, speaking on who should be a teacher for whom, it seems that AlexPU has got your civility message pretty fast. But we will see… KPbIC 20:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

AlexPU claims that he is a journalist but his Rudniev article is a bunch of unreferenced speculations and conspiracy theories. It also included false claims, like his beeing not a communist. I am writing a replacement now. I would love to see the material restored in the referenced form. He got no message on the civilty whatsoever. I've been here longer than you and I've seen this editor. That he simply makes no edits now is the reason why we don't see his diatribes. As soon as he is back, they will resume. Fortunately, Wikipedia has got much less tolerant to such behavior lately. More often than not we see instant blocks of some fellows without even an ArbCom. If he returns as a civil editor, that would be a different story. --Irpen 20:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Battle of the Lower Dnieper

It seems that in the discussion you are using as an argument the fact that AndriyK has contributed less to the articles in comparison to your contributions. While it's correct, hope you would agree that switching from a subject to personalities is not so civil. KPbIC 04:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems wrong. Please reread what I said. --Irpen 05:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

My concerns came from the following, which as it seems has nothing to do with "liberate vs. take" question discussed in the talk:

• "I am still waiting for AndriyK doing the first non-revert edit for weeks or so. Probably, I am out of luck. --Irpen 19:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)"
• "I am saddened that AndriyK still does nothing but POV-pushing revert wars. Please write something rather than damage the work of others. --Irpen 18:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)"

If I misinterpreted something, I appologise. KPbIC 07:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you misinterpreted which is easy if you take to phrases out of context of an entire discussion. --Irpen 01:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

History of Russo-Turkish wars

I have restored the article History of Russo-Turkish wars. If you do not like the content, please go through the AfD process. -- Petri Krohn 10:34, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a straw poll going on now. Let's see and discuss it there. My goal is to preserve and not remove the information. Please continue at the article's talk. --Irpen 21:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

This [7] is acceptable, maybe even good! Let's keep it that way :-) -- Petri Krohn 16:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Prometheism 2

Sorry I haven't been able to work on the article! If you need help, John Kenney, Slrubenstein, Jtdirl, and Rjensen are also historians and/or social scientists. 172 | Talk 06:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Will contact them. --Irpen 06:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Hotel Ukrayina update

Look what I found yesterday

• Ать
  Ать
• Два
  Два

Йопт, how was it possible to ruin such a design? --Kuban Cossack 16:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC) You SHOULD archive a good half you your page

Могила

Ответ тут.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 15:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainization

Would this and this (scroll down to Лингвистический лохотрон) be of any use to you?—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 15:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Davies WERS

I have it now next to me. I think I already asked you for a list of terms to check, I am sorry if you gave it to me but I can't find it now - I remember we talked about the list...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! First of all, I would like to know the names, Davies uses in the English (original) version of his book for the towns/villages listed in Template:Campaignbox Polish-Soviet War. I am almost sure that Wołodarka, Nowochwastów, Wasylkowce and others have to go from en-Wiki to pl-wiki where no one in sane mind would object to them. Check the table for other names (Mironówka anyone?). I would also be very much interested whether he mentions such thing as the Battle of Wołodarka and, if yes, whether he mentions a "Polish victory" there. If you could hold on to the book for a while, I will come up with more questions. Please keep checking out my talk once in a while. There will be plenty of entries, including by myself, in response to some comments as I have missed replying to several on time due to real life things. I really appreciate that so many people, read my talk and care to comment. I know you are busy with other things than scrutinizing my talk, but just check for responses, if you can. I find it extremely important that the questions and answers are kept at the same page. Regards, --Irpen 21:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Prometheism POV?

I have removed the article from our attention list, as there have been almost no edits or discussions there for the past few weeks. I am not much familiar with the article or the sources, but as you seem to be unhappy about it, may I suggest that yous start by writing a review of the article on the talk page (if you don't want to edit it). I'd like for the attention tab at WP:PWNB to contain only articles which are in current revert wars and other grave problems.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Even if you didn't read an article, a single look at it is sufficient. --Irpen 05:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me at first glance. Please show me I am mistaken. On the recent EB note, yes, I didn't notice it was a EB quote, but for me it just go to show how little attention EB and other encyclopedias pay to being neutral.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Note that EB has also a NPOV policy which it states at the web-site and is written by respected scholars who care to use the prevailing terminology. The words like "occupation" and "liberation" are not a problem per se. As per the prevailing view, the '39 Nazi was occupation as well as '39 Soviet, 43-45 Soviet was liberation and the Holocaust was a Genocide. EB is written by respected scholars based on the mainstream view and with the NPOV in mind. As such, the terminology it uses is a good indication of what we can use in WP. --Irpen 16:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that EB is perfect when it comes to NPOV; they make erros in POV just as they do in content. Eventually Wiki will be much more NPOV that Britannica.

On a related note, as a token of my goodwill, I have created the article about Stanisław Grabski. He can definetly claim to be one of the most nationalist, untolerant and pro-polonization peaople out there, and he certainly contributed significantly to what was wrong withthe Second Polish Republic. I hope this article shows you that we don't try to 'hide' our bad sides and claim that all Poles and Polish deeds are perfect.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I sincerely doubt that anything is perfect when it comes to NPOV. NPOV in WP is the product of the cooperative work of the reasonable editors with elimination of the input of the trollish ones. NPOV in EB (and any respected scholarly work) is the product of high reputation and topical grasp by the world's top scholars who are aware of the state of the art in the field and are required to write reflecting this state of the art, rather their own views. I bet if Davies was writing an PL article for EB it would be much less polonophile than his "God's Playground". Additionally, EB's articles get peer-reviewed and they sure get some feedback after the publication to take into account in the next update. Doesn't make it perfect but EB's usage is important since it surely reflects the widely accepted usage.

Speaking again of the attitude words, they are usable in Wikipedia when something's fitting towards the general definition is generally accepted, such as that the "Holocaust was a Genocide", "creationism is unscientific" (doesn't make it wrong), "'39 and '41 were occupations" and "44 was liberation", etc. If some fringe nationalist, be it Polish, Russian or Ukrainian, purges the liberation from the battle of Dnieper (or purges the occupation from the PSC, replacing it with liberation) it's no different then calling some event with the same word just for the POV reason.[8] NPOV isn't the same as a ban to use any word that implies any attitude at all (occupation, liberation, genocide, mass murder, salvation, etc). Otherwise, many articles would be gone.

As for your "goodwill gesture", everyone does those things. Besides I've always considered you (and some others, I hope Sylwia will be back as well) as moderate editors rather than some other others. Regards, --Irpen 03:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC) If some fringe nationalist, be it Polish(...) purges the liberation You believe this is a fringe nationalist opinion in Poland? :) --Molobo 16:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be careful with overestimating EB NPOVedness. For example, many EB articles are written by staff, not scholars, and I am not sure if all are peer reviewed. In addition, articles are updated from time to time (same problems with who updates them and reviews updates), and there are known cases of 'old POV' (from British imperial era and such) surviving till modern edition. Off topic: would you have any material related to Adam Kisiel?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is perfect. EB may err too. But much less likely than many other places. --Irpen 05:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Western Ukrainian POWs in Polish camps

Would you please contribute, if you have sources? Talk:Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919-1924) Xx236 08:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Notice of RfC

A request for comment concerning your conduct is filled.--AndriyK 16:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit warring

Please do not engage in edit warring when in conflict with other editors, as you have been doing today and recently. Take a look at your recent edits at [9], [10], [11], [12]. Edit warring is a poor way to solve disputes. Actually, it inflames them. All of those instances of recent edit warring are unacceptable, as well as the ones I haven't mentioned. Please use WP:DR: go to mediation or RFC. As you know, persistent edit warring may lead to blocks. Dmcdevit·t 07:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Russian architecture 3

I'm afraid our mutual friend has a sockpuppet. Could you investigate this curious affair? Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 17:42, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

No need to check. It was 99.99% User:NikoSilver, who forgot to log in. He changed his edit on Telex' talk page: [13]. --Pan Gerwazy 12:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Your ecent edit at Requests for comment/Irpen

Please note that you are not permitted to edit comments of the users who criticize you at your RfC page. Your recent edit [14] is illegal.--AndriyK 09:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

AndriyK, your engaging into a debate into the RfC main page was illegal rather than bringing the page in compliance with the RfC rules.[15] That you are not interested in following the rules but only in your POV-pushing by all costs circumventing the poicies, wikilawyering without success and using any dirty trick possible is neither new nor surprising. --Irpen 21:41, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Dispute tag at Ukrainization

Yesterday, you deleted the dispute tag twice from the article Uktainization. I would like to point you out that the dispute concerning this article has not been resolved yet. There is a discussion at the talk. Please note, that blanking dispute tag may be qualified as WP:Vandalism.--Mbuk 21:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The tag was placed improperly contrary to the sources cited in the article and its talk. I added more source. The tag was placed by the user who uses tag-trolling as the easy way to push a POV in the lack of the desire to write anything at all. You are making a big mistake by allowing yourself to be blindly lead by AndriyK whose remaining tenure at WP will likely be short despite my efforts to turn his efforts into anything creative. --Irpen 00:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You cited the sources after several cycles of tag removal. The tag was placed properly, because the sources were not cited at the time when the tag was reinserted.--Mbuk 20:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You are making a false statement, again simply wasting the time of yourself and more importantly of others. Other sources were cited earlier at the talk page, e.g. here. I do not intend to engage into such fruitless discussion with you anymore since I more and more get to conclusion that you are either not reading other people's entries or simply act in bad faith in order just to make a point. That is until I see any change in your behavior which is until now of the blind supporter of a very problematic user. Your pointless pestering would either be unanswered or removed, when you enter it at user talk page. So, better leave it at the article's talk so that other people would see its merit on their own in the context of the entire talk page. If you enter anything substantial, you will og course get a response. --Irpen 21:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I've reread the talk. None of the sources cited there define Ukrainization as you did in the article. It looks like it you Original Research. Therefore, tag insertion was (and still is) justified.

Please avoid personal attacks and foccuse your efforts on the discussed issue. Thanks.--Mbuk 23:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Please seize your perpetual harassment. I never personally attacked anyone. Your pestering is a waste of time. --Irpen 04:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not pestering. I pointed out a real OR problem at Ukrainization.--Mbuk 08:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

No, you accused me in personal attack unjustly while there were none and you know it. Similarly to you going around talk pages accusing others instead of engaging into any productive activity. Please do not expect that people will be wasting time to feed you. --Irpen 18:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Please reread WP:NPA.--Mbuk 21:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

God! Irpen, I admire your patience. --Tēlex 21:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

"Quick jumping to blocks"

Irpen,

I just wanted to thank you for this. It was good to read some reasoned thought, both about how our sysop temperment is changing as newer, less-encultured people become sysops, and on the individual cases, how mis-application of and sometimes shear insouciance to the guidance can distort our policies into damaging the encyclopædia. Certainly, it makes a rather nice change from the reactionary stuff that so-often pervades AN. Keep up the good work, etc.. :-)

Yours,

James F. (talk) 09:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much for the barnstar. It's always nice to be recognized for doing this sort of work. --tufkaa 17:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit warring 2

Irpen, I've warned you before, and you are not a new user, so I am disappointed to see you continuing to engage in edit warring with AndriyK and others at Ukrainization. [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], and [21] are all recent reverts, mostly regarding the tags. I don't care the reason, edit warring is never acceptable or appropriate; edit warring never improves a conflict, but always makes it worse; the proper response to a content dispute is talk page discussion and dispute resolution, and no edit warring. As the article has already been protected before, and you are not a new editor, and you've even been participating in the discussions about edit warring, so a warning would be pointless, I'm giving you and the rest of the edit warriors there a 24 hour block to cool down. Dmcdevit·t 04:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Dmcdevit, I am not going to loose my sleep over this first block of me in my long time of participation in this project and countless articles I created, wrote from scratch or extensively edited. But in case you are interested to see my response, here is one. To start with, please take a look at this thread at WP:AN for some ideas many users found interesting. Now, let's study your list of edits that you think shows I was revert warring. In the chronological order:

1. [22] This "recent" edit is actually from a week ago. It is well explained at talk and in the summary. Basically, the user, who does nothing at WP but tagging the article others wrote, tagged just one more without any explanation at talk. I responded with the message that tags cannot be used without explanations, since they point to the dispute at talk while there there was none. Note, again, that this was an edit 1 week ago. How recent is that?
2. [23] This edit (also from three (!) days ago, also a noteworthy detail) was not a "revert warring" but a well explained at talk removal of the tag (see also edit summary for that). Moreover, the other change of that edit is also explained at talk and Lysy and I who disagreed about that phrase worked out the solution for this phrase exactly through getting our edits closer to the mutually acceptable version and extensively discussing at talk.
3. [24] Next edit (also from two (!) days ago) was explained at talk. The tag Elonka inserted was simply a wrong tag (factual accuracy dispute), since no one ever disputed a single fact in that article I wrote. It is a very well referenced article. No one disputed facts. If it is POV or OR was disputed, it is the duty of the tagger to provide the proper tag, this was simply an improper tag as was later agreed. At least the article ended up without that tag, even though the tagger reinserted it once later. How is this edit warring?
4. [25] Next edit was part of mine and Lysy work over the version of this particular sentence. This was indeed a yesterday's edit. Lysy and I were not edit warring but editing the article and discussing it at talk and eventually we arrived to a mutually acceptable compromise, as he later acknowledged at talk
5. [26] This edit is similar to the edit number 4 from two days prior to that. It was explained, the topic was being discussed (there is never a discussion during the sterile revert wars). As I said, others accepted that the "factual accuracy tag" is inapplicable when there is no factual accuracy dispute, only a POV/OR one.
6. [27] Finally, the last edit was a reshufling of the intro, following mine and Lysy's work on it. This was not a revert but an expansion.

Having said that, I leave it to others to you and others to judge whether this was a revert war or the complex article undergoing a painful, but useful growth, that you interrupted by blocking me. I could see that you don't want to look partial and it is tempting to block the other side when you blocked the first one (AndriyK). However, AndriyK did nothing to the article but tagging it in various ways and revert warring (that's most of his WP activity) while Lysy (who actually supported AndriyK's position but acted differently) and myself were actually seeking for a compromise which partially emerged due to our efforts and the rest of it will be coming soon.

You are right that as an experienced user I should know what I am doing. And this was exactly the case. I did not see this as a revert war, but an article developing, perhaps in pains, over the good faith editors disagreement (between Lysy and myself), exaggerated by onlookers who added gasoline to fire by tagging needlessly, reverting and doing nothing else.

If you want me blocked despite this all, fine with me. If, after reading this all, you will take another look at this article's development and see that on my and Lysy's part this was a development rather than an edit war, this would be just as well.

I am not saying that I should not be blocked just because I technically did not violate 3RR. Sometimes less than 3RR amounts for revert warring. I am saying that after a more careful look, you will see that while some participants were revert warring, others were modifying the article and looking for the ways to do so at its talk.

Finally, let me say that I appreciate your desire to keep the hot heads cooler. Articles like this need an outside arbiter who will chastise the disrupting party and, when necessary, use some force to relieve the pressure. If you think that my activity was edit warring rather than editing, so be it. --Irpen 05:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've read all this, I've taken another look at the conflict, and I still respectfully disagree. First, to clear up any misconceptions, I didn't make any of my blocks out of some notion of symmetry in the "sides" of the conflict. I block one and and I get told I'm favoring a side in the dispute, I block two and I'm told I only blocked [insert name here] so I wouldn't look partial. The only resolution is to block the deserving, and that's what I've tried to do. I am convinced that you have been edit warring at that article, particularly over the tags, and you have been edit warring with, AndriyK especially, there for months now. Perhaps you've been caught in the moment, but take a minute to look through the entire history of that article, all the way through 2005, especially the Irpen and AndriyK edits: it's rather startling. It's past when I should have gone to bed by now, and I don't have the stamina for as long of a reply as yours, but you should also read my other responses: [28] and [29]. A 24 hour block isn't going to prevent you from continuing to help out here, and we do appreciate your contributions, butI feel I need to send a message that all of you need to stay calm when editing in conflict, and use dispute resolution and not edit warring. Dmcdevit·t 06:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Dmcdevit, the 24 hour block is not going to prevent me from contributing. Neither it is going to do anything bad to my life either. Neither I am going to make a big deal out of this. I may have been wrong, too and I have a project at work and housekeeping things that are well behind.

The only reason why I am talking here is that I disagree that I edit warred and deserved a block. I may be wrong at that and I am not trying to make a fuss out of it, or post "unblock" templates or "threaten" the coparticipants with my leaving the project, demand apologies, or doing other silly things. I simply requested your more careful examination of the matter.

In the thread at WP:AN I pointed out to you above, I said basically one thing. Admins should assume that established, experienced and productive users are more likely to know exactly what they are doing and before imposing the block, take an extra minute to check for the context of the events. If the block is still deserved, block them all right. However, with the established users there is likely more to it. I was reverting AndriyK for the one simple reason (and not only at this article but at others too). I demanded that he provided a good-faith explanation if he tags the article he "doesn't like" marring it with this or that tag. Tag requires an explanation at the talk page. He refused to give any explanation or repeated the arguments that were discussed by the community, and backed with sources. Still, I did not revert him too many times because other users were reverting him as well, which just proves that his tags were unwarranted.

As long as he refused to provide an explanation, I maintained that the tag removal was warranted. There is no need for excellent articles to display bad-faith tags. The refusal of the tagger to elaborate as well as AndriyK's past history at Wikipedia was seen by me as a proof that this was indeed bad faith tagging. I try my best to avoid edit warring and always look for the dispute resolution. However, I see reverting of bad faith edits on the par with reverting of simple vandalism. No one can demand dispute resolution with vandals. Bad-faith is a more tricky and borderline case and I am well aware of AGF and other policy guidelines. I've assumed good faith of AndriyK for a very long time. Even during the arbitration I brought against him I did not request a block that ArbCom instituted. I asked for reversal of the dirty moves and a ruling that would ban him from revert warring in the future. His talk page and archive documents my multiple attempts to stretch my hand to him that he spit on many times. Similar, my talk page above and Mbuk's talk page document how I tried with infinite patience, that amazed some onlookers, to talk to that guy Mbuk and in a very friendly way before he exhausted my patience by his persistence in driving endless circles in discussions and acting as AndriyK's revert proxy. That both contributed virtually no content to Wikipedia despite my calls for them to start, just revert warring, tagging lef and right and wikilawyering, is also a sign of a problem

However, these two users continue with their single activity, tagging the articles they happen to "not like" and serving as each other's revert proxies. I warned Mbuk in the past about revert warring here. It didn't work. I hope your warning him just now would work after his intrigue. Whether you decide to keep my block, or agree with me that my actions did not warrant it, I will be around with many more edits. Good night, --Irpen 06:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, I explained the tag [30]. AndriyK did it as well [31], [32].--Mbuk 18:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I went to bed last night, then to work this morning, and I expected to see a lot more interest in this block by now than it got at Alex's AN listing: WP:AN#Can_somebody_review_the_blocks (which was precisely zero). I recognize this wasn't straitforward, and I was hoping to get more opinions of it be outsiders, but let me make another statement in any case. AndriyK and Mbuk were edit warring. They were quite clearly and quite simply edit warring over the tags. However, I think there was some kind of misunderstanding: I never accused Lysy of edit warring, and while I don't personally prefer single reverts to only discussion when actively collaborating on a developing article, that can be a valid method if done amicably, as it appears was the case here. By extension, I didn't mean to accuse you of edit warring with Lysy. But, AndriyK and Mbuk were edit warring mostly about the tags, and they weren't edit warring with themselves, they were edit warring with you, Telex, and Grafikm. In what has apparently turned out to be the least controversial of my blocks, I blocked AndriyK for a week for his edit warring (which I believe was not vandalism; replacing an article with a penis is vandalism, being obstinate and disruptive is wrong and sanctionable, but a different category from "vandalism"), but this is what I mean when I say pursue dispute respolution: discussion, I'm glad you tried that; mediation has failed; repeated blocked affect no change; then you need to finish it and take it to the last step: arbitration. If I know anything about arbitration (which I do), an arbitration request against AndriyK and Mbuk would get accepted instantly. I don't find anything that you've said about the two (other than calling it vandalism) that I disagree with, so take it to arbitration and get it dealt with. One last thing: "Still, I did not revert him too many times because other users were reverting him as well, which just proves that his tags were unwarranted," this is the problem I think needs addressing. If AndriyK/Mbuk continue to add tags improperly, rather than revert even more than once, the best thing to do is to ask around for any uninvolved editors you know to take a look, ask for help on ANI early on (and get someone like Elonka in), and follow the dispute resolution process I outlined, all the way to arbitration if need be. Reverting over and over again will not solve the problem, especially if it is only one party at fault. Dmcdevit·t 21:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Dmcdevit, I am more than happy you take an interest in these controversies that need to be addressed anyway. So, no grudge on my part. Now to respond, you only confirmed that was I was thinking of doing all along. To take it to another arbitration against those two fellows is the right thing to do despite the giant time waste it would cause, judging from the time I had to waste on AndriyK's previous Arbitration. That previous what seemed an open-and-shut case about dirty tricks, frivolous moves, sterile revert warring, horrific personal attacks and vote fraud with meatpuppets, still took two (!) months for the ArbCom to decide. Note that at that ArbCom case my only request to the Arbiters was to strip AndriyK off the trolling tools. While ArbCom did rule on reversal of all his frivolous page moves and gave him a one months ban to think about his behavior, it did not address the other problem, revert warring. I requested putting him on the revert and PA parole or restrict his "revert quota" to a solid number less than 3RR. This was not done. I hope this will be done next time.

Another reason why I did not take it to ArbCom is that, as I said repeatedly, it is never my intention to have any of my opponents blocked or banned. I want them reformed or supervised, since blocking people is un-wiki.

Now, I never said that what AndriyK and Mbuk were doing here is vandalism. I said that these are bad-faith edits of the users who do mostly trolling in WP. I still attempted to resolve the disputes, despite their bad faith, and to no avail. I said above one thing, which you misunderstood, perhaps because I was not clear. While they were not vandalizing per se, attempting to resolve anything with bad-faith editors is as productive as attempting to resolve anything with vandals.

Finally, I wrote at WP:AN (see this thread) that when Admins deal with established long-time contributors and think of a block, they should study the matter even more thoroughly than in the ordinary cases. The reason is not to give some editors more slack for their past accomplishments but that editors like myself (or Piotrus or Mikka who all found themselves blocked at their own time by the troll's provocation) are more likely to have known what they were doing and chances were, they were doing the right thing. It might have not be so in my particular case. I tried my best but to err is human. That you did not block Mbuk, a fierce edit warrior claiming that he hasn't been warned before, shows that you did not study the matter. My warning him against revert warring is at the very page where you warned him, just several entries above. I simply asked you to study the matter and reconsider. You say you did and you still stand by your block of me. So be it, today was the most productive day at work I had in months.

User Mbuk's tenure at Wiki is characterized by a huge number of entries that are either wikilawyering (Wikipedia space, see e.g. two frivolous RfC he started against myself and against Telex) or driving his opponents nuts with endless talking them in circles while he himself refuses to listen. At the same time, he made only 26 edits (!) in the mainspace of which 14 are frivolous taggings. AndriyK, following his emergence from the block, made a total of ~250 edits in the main space in 6 months of which over a hundred are sterile reverts judging by edit summaries only (probably many more but I just don't want to click on each diff). It is even strange that ArbCom is necessary at all for those fellows to be stopped from what they are doing, too obvious it seems to me. u I am well aware of all venues of the dispute resolution and I actively participate in them all. Of all ways, everything was tried with AndriyK including the Arbitration. It did not help. The reasons why the second arbitration was not filed, were that it is a giant effort that would not allow me to create content while I spend time on it and that I by all means hoped things can be changed without having my opponents blocked.

Perhaps, I was wrong and I indeed made errors and having me blocked along with a troll is the right thing while giving another one only a warning. As I said at WP:AN, I thoroughly support Admins dealing with the abuse on their own thus saving us all the time from compiling the countless RfC's and ArbCom's just increasing the backlog.

I will add more to the discussion with user: Future Perfect at Sunrise at your talk once I can edit, which is going to be soon anyway. --Irpen 22:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What Irpen said. Mbuk's and AndriyK's sole activity (judging by their contributions) seems to be tag insertions and reverts on various Ukraine-related pages. If someone wants I can give detailed statistics (the detailed version of what Irpen quotes above). The rest of their edits are basically endless talking and wikilawyering, as we still have to see both of them actually write something. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I've never commented about any of these issues, but I've been loosely following them from the sidelines. I've seen you guys show a lot of proof when it comes to Mbuk and AndriyK, and you're offering to show more. Great. But it's useless at this point unless you guys follow up with an arbitration request. Dmcdevit already recommended arbitration, I would recommend the same. No point replying to their edits anylonger or reverting anything they do. A WP article won't suffer too much over a week of wrong tagging, so leave them happy and file your request. -- mno 14:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Allow me 3

Bronze Editor Badge

Book of Knowledge

For your outstanding contributions to Wikipedia and for passing the strict criteria of newly created Senior Editor rank 1 badge (10,000 edits including 5,000 mainspace edits and two years of service (starting from 3 June 2004 in your case)), you are awarded the Bronze Editor Badge and its Book of Knowledge! Geeze, I'm jealous :)

Cheers, Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you very very much! --Irpen 20:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me a little bit and I will see what I can do about ribbons. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

O Canada

Strange request time: can you make this article into a nice stub at uk:О, Канада? I ask you this since I found the Ukrainian lyrics at [33] and it should give you a head start. TIA. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 07:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, Zachs, good to hear from you! Will do when I can but let me know if this is urgent. --Irpen 05:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:Kiev St Andrews night.jpg

Hi Irpen,

Is there any way that you would be willing to consider releasing Image:Kiev St Andrews night.jpg under the CC-by-SA 1.0 license? Thanks. -- Wikitravel Sapphire 07:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sapphire! This is not my image. I contacted the owner of the image (listed at the image page) and asked him, whether we can use his images in WP under GFDL and he said that yes we can. That's all I have. We can contact him again if GFDL is insufficient for you. If you want, I can contact him myself. Regards, --Irpen 05:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd appreciate that, because unfortunately I can only use CC-by-SA 1.0. I could contact him, unless he only speaks Russian or Ukrainian, which, if he does I'd greatly appreciate it if you could ask him. Thank you. -- Wikitravel Sapphire 04:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Political reform in Ukraine

Irpen, I notice you create red links to "Political reform in Ukraine" and "Constitutional reform in Ukraine", but I don't think it requires a separate article. I think it should rather be a section "Constitutional Reform (2004)" in Constitution of Ukraine article. Also, the terminology you are using seems to be disambiguous, as 2004 reform is one of many political (constitutional) reforms in Ukrainian history. --KPbIC 01:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the reform warrants a separate article, because a section in the Constitution article would naturally be devoted mainly to the changes of the constitution themselves and there was much to the process itself that is outside of the Consitutiona article. I think "Political reform" is more correct since it is more widely used. To disambiquate, we can add a year (or years) to the article's title. --Irpen 01:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Ambassadors and envoys from Russia to Poland (1763-1794)

I'd appreciate your help with NPOVing this and possibly formulating an NPOVed DYK hook.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Conditional vote

Irpen, could you please explain what a "conditional vote" is exactly? Even more important, could you point to some Wikipedia policy that even mentions such votes, especially in connection with RM surveys? To be even more specific, why not simply vote "oppose" if you are against some move, period.

"Conditional support" might be a valid vote choice when voting for an FA article, when one demands some changes before the article is acceptable. But in an RM case there are only two possible, clear outcomes. There is no need to make things more complicated.

Anyway, your attempt to try to link various issues muddies the waters, and introduces unnecessary controversy. If you really think that there is a global problem with naming articles related to Polish history, consider making some general proposal somewhere on how things should be corrected.Balcer 17:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, this is exactly what I tried many times at the Polish board when I proposed to de-massacre the article titles. I was disapointed to see that most editors who responded were in favor of double standard. If we are now adding the invasioned titles on top of the massacred ones, I would like to seek feedback from the community on how wide and consistent this is going to be. If we are going only to selectively pick the invasions of Poland and pass on the invasions by Poland, while I expect several known to me editors to want just that, I will not support such a move. If we are going to move in general to even more POVing the article titles, fine with me, as long as we are doing it regardless of the role of the one particular country. --Irpen 17:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you avoid the hyperbole, please? Right now, there is not a single article named "Invasion of Poland" on Wikipedia (imagine that!). Furthermore, only one article is under consideration for a move to that title. No other articles have been proposed for similar moves, hence your fears that "we are going only to selectively pick the invasions of Poland" are exaggerated to say the least.

Also, I oppose your idea of choosing certain words and making them unusable in article titles. Sure, "massacre" can be a controversial word, but there are clear cases in history where it applies. We should not rule it out on principle.

Anyway, as far as I can see it, there is only one reasonable thing to do here. Change your vote to support (since you yourself stated you actually like the proposed name), and then propose a move of the articles that you find objectionable. Do not make the outcome of one RM vote dependent on another one. Seems obvious to me, but of course you can do whatever you like with this. Balcer 17:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Quick question

Lately I am thinking of creating a series of articles, partly inspired by your contributions to Kielce Pogrom. This would be a disambig page Kiev Pogrom, which would lead to Kiev Pogrom (1881), Kiev Pogrom (1905) and Kiev Pogrom (1945) (I hope that's all of them). The last one is especially interesting, seeing as it occured after the Nazis were defeated (see [34]). Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. I hope you will have no objections to this, and look forward to your contributions to these articles. Balcer 17:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Balcer, how would I possibly object since we all know that those events happened? I actually mentioned some of those sparingly in other articles but never thought of writing a separate article, just did not get to it. Why don't you start those and I will see how I can help. --Irpen 18:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I knew you would have no problem about the two older ones, since they are significant historical events, but I wondered what you would think about a separate article for the one that occured in 1945. That event has been rather unknown, and I only found one book (though quite a respectable one) that discusses it. Is that 1945 pogrom well known in Ukraine? Balcer 18:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Not that I particularly remember reading about this one, but I've read about the problem in general. While the issue of the local collaboration in the Nazi Genocide is reasonably well known, the issue of the frictions that happened soon after the liberation of the territory, while less known, are still covered here and there. I will take a look and see what I can come up with. --Irpen 18:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming Independence Day

::August 24th, 2006

Happy Independence Day - Ukraine!

З Днем Незалежності України!

--Riurik 04:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

File:Maidan Fireworks.jpg

Thanks, Riurik! --Irpen 05:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Allow me...

For defending articles with valor and for being wounded in these defensive operations, this PH for you, Irpen :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind receiving an American award for that, but sadly, there was no similar award in the USSR... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind any award but I don't remember being wounded :). --Irpen 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Merger

I merged List of Polish Martyrdom sites to World War II atrocities in Poland. Also, just out of curiosity, why do you think that Massacre of Lwów professors is an inappropriate title? What would you suggest instead? Balcer 18:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC) "Killing of Lwow professors" is the first name that comes to mind. And all those other massacres titles can be demassacred without a slightest loss of clarity. Examples of names that could be used are:

• Anti-Polish events in Volhynia and Galicia (1943-1944)
• Katyn incident
• Koniuchy incidident

This will not preclude the referenced usage of the terms like "massacre" and even "genocide" inside the article but titles would be more appropriate. --Irpen 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

But, you have still not answered my question. What is wrong with Massacre of Lwów professors? Why do you object to it? Balcer 19:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Because I object to stong terms in titles as they prejudge the discussions between the references in the text on whether the events qualify to be called as such. --Irpen 19:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

But in this particular case, do you think massacre is an incorrect word to describe what happened?

Also, it is simply incorrect to say that Koniuchy incident is more clear than Koniuchy Massacre. After all, an incident can be almost anything (even Gulf of Tonkin Incident), whereas the word massacre is quite specific. Balcer 19:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The title is POV, if you ask me. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, it's POV because it ignores the Nazi viewpoint that these killings were justifiable? Balcer 19:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it's POV because it prejudges that this particular event was a massacre. Not every death is a murder, not every murder of several people is a massacre or a mass murder and not every mass murder is a Genocide. Whether the event qualifies is best resolved by the sources cited in the articles anot not by the editor who takes it upon himself to decide on his own via creating an article under a specific name (or a page move). --Irpen 19:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want to make it Wikipedia policy to avoid using strong words in article titles, you are welcome to try. As it stands, they are used frequently, and even have their own lists (see List of massacres). So, you really don't have an argument if you are arguing against these titles in general terms, and should advance specific objections.

Thus, what is your specific objection to Massacre of Lwów professors. You don't think it qualifies as a massacre? Why not? Balcer 19:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

To make something like this big into a policy is impossible and you know that. We cannot even make a naming convention on city names. However, within the EE we agreed to common sense rules and rarely have re-eruptions of conflicts regarding the city names. I view this as a common sense rule and I am trying to convince this segment of Wikipedia that such rule is sensible.

Like I am sure that now, when we have a stronger tradition in city naming resolution, to make a solid policy would be easier, same might happen with strong terms in titles if we can show in some months that a large segment of WP abides by it. I object to the word in the title irrespective of what persoanlly I think about which sources (those that claim the massacre and those that deny it) are more credible. This is best left to the reader to judge. --Irpen 19:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

But Massacre of Lwów professors was a Nazi crime. Why should it be that Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe should not be called with strong names, but those in Western Europe can (for example Malmedy massacre?. Balcer 19:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

First, it was not just a Nazi crime. A Ukrainian Nachtigall took part in it. Second, it does not matter whose crime it was. If we manage to make a change in EE and demonstrate that it is working, we would be able to make a case wikiwide. --Irpen 19:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I quite simply do not see why Wikipedia would be better off if all titles for articles about Nazi crimes studiously avoided strong words. This is taking the idea of NPOV too far.

Anyway, as our discussion demonstrates, the issue is a complex one, and would probably require some wider discussion that would formulate a coherent policy. At any rate, it is not only articles about Poland that use what you consider "loaded" terms. This is something that you sometimes forget. (also see Khatyn massacre, Novocherkassk Massacre, Odessa massacre). Comments like: I do not see the current state of affairs when the articles about events when Poland or Poles were victims are titled by loaded terms,... are not very helpful. Balcer 19:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

They reflect the current state of affairs correctly. And I would change the titles of the Novocherkassk and Odessa events too. But we need to get this started if we ever do it. --Irpen 20:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Who is "we"? Besides you, who is in favour of such a drastic Wikipedia-wide (or at least EE wide) renaming operation for what must be dozens of articles? Besides, if you want to make an impact, why don't you make a proposal to rename a prominent article describing a major event? Why not start with, say, Srebrenica Massacre? Make a renaming proposal there, and see how much support you will get. Balcer 20:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

"Massacre" is a POV term, as was discussed for instance on the AFD of NKVD massacres of prisoners (link). And Halibutt was quite OK to replace "massacre" by "execution". The move was never done because everyone forgot about it, but the principle was made. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Nikolai Gogol

I'm really not trying to be contentious with this article. The simple fact is that, as it is now, it contains one citation (which I put there), and WP:CITE states that citations should be used "to ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any user" and further, that "[i]f you add any information to an article, particularly if it's contentious or likely to be challenged, you should supply a source. If you don't know how to format the citation, others will fix it for you. Simply provide any information you can." Finally, WP:V states that "[t]he burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references. If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." I don't think its out of line to apply that standard to the current content of articles in addition to new content, nor do I think that pointing out the obvious (that the article lacks citations) using a template is particularly objectionable, especially when it may attract the attention of editors who have citations handy. If it will make you happier, I can go through and add {{citation needed}} tags to every claim that needs a citation, but that's going to be a lot messier. -Smahoney 22:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Smahoney, that article was written a while ago and not by me. I picked it up and started to follow from certain stage and I added little info here and there but I did not alter it significantly. When I write things now, I reference them but I cannot get into the head of its original author. The fact is that this is a very well-known and well researched person. He has so much literature about him, that any library, encyclopedia and even google or google books search would provide plenty of info to anyone interested in more than the very basic info currently in the article. OTOH, the article is not bad as it is and it does not benefit from getting uglified by this template. If you really doubt things there, {{fact}} them. I, personally, don't doubt anything that is there to choose what to reference and ideally everything has to be referenced. Everithing in the article is pretty much a common knowledge to anyone who studied the Russian literature a slightest bit. If you insist, tag the statements you doubt and I will reference them but not an entire article.

Finally, getting lectured on what's WP:V and what's WP:Cite is on the verge of the offense. Please be a little more considerate and, best yet, if you conserned about the article, help improve it rather than make it ugly. --Irpen 23:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I "lectured" you about WP:V and WP:CITE (and am about to "lecture" you on Wikipedia:Common knowledge) because you seem to either be unaware of them or unconcerned with them. I'm not interested in the slightest who wrote the article or when, and I'm not pointing the responsibility for citing it squarely at you. However, none of that changes the fact that it needs to be properly cited, like all other articles, nor does the fact that the original authors didn't cite it, nor the fact that it is relatively uncontested (although there is a lot of Gogol scholarship which contests his literary intentions, and elements of his biography). I agree that there are plenty of sources out there, so I don't see what the problem is with providing sources as editors come along who have them, and that is exactly what the {{citation needed}} and {{unsourced}} tags are for: To inform editors that they need to do their duty and provide citations when they have them.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not here to be contentious (although it seems that that's exactly why you're here) - I just want to improve the article, and since I don't myself have the references handy I'm trying to drop a hint to other editors who might (a tactic, I might point out, that has been successful many times before). So, as I more subtly asked before: Which would you prefer: A single {{unsourced}} tag at the beginning of the article or multiple {{citation needed}} tags throughout the article? -Smahoney 02:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)